THE THEODOSIAN WALLS.
The enduring character of the political reasons which had called the new
capital into being, and the commercial advantages which its unique
position commanded, favoured such an increase of population, that before
eighty-five years had elapsed, the original limits of Constantinople
proved too narrow for the crowds gathered within the walls.
So numerous were the inhabitants already in 378, that the Goths, who
then appeared before the city after the defeat of the Roman arms at
Adrianople, abandoned all hope of capturing a stronghold which could
draw upon such multitudes for its defence.[155]
[Illustration: The Land Walls of Constantinople.]
Three years later, Athanaric[156] marvelled at the variety of peoples
which poured into the city, as they have ever since, like streams from
different points into a common reservoir. Soon the corn fleets of
Alexandria, Asia, Syria, and Phœnicia, were unable to provide the city
with sufficient bread.[157] The houses were packed so closely that the
citizens, whether at home or abroad, felt confined and oppressed, while
to walk the streets was dangerous, on account of the number of the
beasts of burden that crowded the thoroughfares. Building-ground was in
such demand that portions of the sea along the shores of the city had to
be filled in, and the erections on that artificial land alone formed a
considerable town.[158] Sozomon goes so far as to affirm that
Constantinople had grown more populous than Rome.[159]
This increase of the population is explained, in part, by the
attractions which a capital, and especially one founded recently,
offered alike to rich and poor as a place of residence and occupation.
The ecclesiastical dignity of the city, when elevated to the second rank
in the hierarchy of the Church, made it, moreover, the religious centre
of the East, and drew a large body of ecclesiastics and devout persons
within its bounds. The presence and incursions of the Goths and the Huns
south of the Danube drove many of the original inhabitants of the
invaded districts for shelter behind the fortifications of the city, and
led multitudes of barbarians thither in search of employment or the
pleasures of civilized life.
Then, it must be remembered that no capital is built in a day.
To make the city worthy of its name involved great labour, and demanded
an army of workmen of every description. There were many structures
which Constantine had only commenced; the completion of the
fortifications of the city had been left to Constantius; Julian found it
necessary to construct a second harbour on the side of the Sea of
Marmora; Valens was obliged to improve the water-works of the city by
the erection of the fine aqueduct which spans the valley between the
Fourth and Fifth Hills. And how large a number of hands such works
required appears from the fact that when the aqueduct was repaired, in
the ninth century, 6000 labourers were brought from the provinces to
Constantinople for the purpose.[160]
Under the rule of the Theodosian dynasty the improvement of the city
went forward with leaps and bounds. Most of the public places and
buildings enumerated by the _Notitia_, were constructed under the
auspices of that House, and transformed the city. A vivid picture of the
change is drawn by Themistius,[161] who knew all the phases through
which Constantinople had passed, from the reign of Constantius to that
of Theodosius the Great. “No longer,” exclaims the orator, as he viewed
the altered appearance of things around him, “is the vacant ground in
the city more extensive than that occupied by buildings; nor are we
cultivating more territory within our walls than we inhabit; the beauty
of the city is not, as heretofore, scattered over it in patches, but
covers its whole area like a robe woven to the very fringe. The city
gleams with gold and porphyry. It has a (new) Forum, named after the
emperor; it owns Baths, Porticoes, Gymnasia; and its former extremity is
now its centre. Were Constantine to see the capital he founded he would
behold a glorious and splendid scene, not a bare and empty void; he
would find it fair, not with apparent, but with real beauty.” The
mansions of the rich, the orator continues, had become larger and more
sumptuous; the suburbs had expanded; the place “was full of carpenters,
builders, decorators, and artisans of every description, and might fitly
be called a work-shop of magnificence.” “Should the zeal of the emperor
to adorn the city continue,” adds Themistius, in prophetic strain, “a
wider circuit will be demanded, and the question will arise whether the
city added to Constantinople by Theodosius is not more splendid than the
city which Constantine added to Byzantium.”
The growth of the capital went on under Arcadius, with the result that
early in the reign of his son, the younger Theodosius, the enlargement
of the city limits, foreseen by Themistius, was carried into effect.
But this extension of the boundaries was not made simply to suit the
convenience of a large population. It was required also by the need of
new bulwarks. Constantinople called for more security, as well as for
more room. The barbarians were giving grave reasons for disquiet; Rome
had been captured by the Goths; the Huns had crossed the Danube, and
though repelled, still dreamed of carrying their conquests wherever the
sun shone. It was, indeed, time for the Empire to gird on its whole
armour.
Fortunately for the eastern portion of the Roman world, Anthemius, the
statesman at the head of the Government for six years during the
minority of Theodosius II., was eminently qualified for his position by
lofty character, distinguished ability, and long experience in the
public service. When appointed Prætorian Prefect of the East, in 405, by
the Emperor Arcadius, Chrysostom remarked that the appointment conferred
more honour on the office than upon Anthemius himself; and the
ecclesiastical historian Socrates extols the prefect as “one of the
wisest men of the age.”[162] Proceeding, therefore, to do all in his
power to promote the security of the State, Anthemius cleared the Balkan
Peninsula of the hostile Huns under Uldin, driving them north of the
Danube. Then, to prevent the return of the enemy, he placed a permanent
flotilla of 250 vessels on that river, and strengthened the
fortifications of the cities in Illyria; and to crown the system of
defence, he made Constantinople a mighty citadel. The enlargement and
refortification of the city was thus part of a comprehensive and
far-seeing plan to equip the Roman State in the East for the impending
desperate struggle with barbarism; and of all the services which
Anthemius rendered, the most valuable and enduring was the addition he
made to the military importance of the capital. The bounds he assigned
to the city fixed, substantially, her permanent dimensions, and behind
the bulwarks he raised—improved and often repaired, indeed, by his
successors—Constantinople acted her great part in the history of the
world.
The erection and repair of the fortifications of a city was an
undertaking which all citizens were required to assist, in one form or
another. On that point the laws were very stringent, and no rank or
privilege exempted any one from the obligation to promote the work.[163]
One-third of the annual land-tax of the city could be drawn upon to
defray the outlay, all expenses above that amount being met by
requisitions laid upon the inhabitants. The work of construction was
entrusted to the Factions, as several inscriptions on the walls testify.
In 447, when the Theodosian fortifications were repaired and extended,
the Blues and the Greens furnished, between them, sixteen thousand
labourers for the undertaking.[164]
The stone employed upon the fortifications is tertiary limestone,
brought from the neighbourhood of Makrikeui, where the hollows and
mounds formed in quarrying are still visible. The bricks used are from 1
foot 1 inch to 1 foot 2 inches square, and 2 inches thick. They are
sometimes stamped with the name of their manufacturer or donor, and
occasionally bear the name of the contemporary emperor, and the
indiction in which they were made. Mortar, mixed with powdered brick,
was employed in large quantities, lest it should dry without taking
hold,[165] and bound the masonry into a solid mass, hard as rock.
The wall of Anthemius was erected in 413,[166] the fifth year of
Theodosius II., then about twelve years of age, and is now represented
by the inner wall in the fortifications that extend along the west of
the city, from the Sea of Marmora to the ruins of the Byzantine Palace,
known as Tekfour Serai. The new city limits were thus placed at a
distance of one mile to one mile and a half west of the Wall of
Constantine.
This change in the position of the landward line of defence involved the
extension likewise of the walls along the two shores of the city; but
though that portion of the work must have been included in the plan of
Anthemius, it was not executed till after his day. As we shall find, the
new seaboard of the capital was fortified a quarter of a century later,
in 439, under the direction of the Prefect Cyrus, while Theodosius II.
was still upon the throne.
The bulwarks of Anthemius saved the city from attack by Attila. They
were too formidable for him to venture to assail them.
But they suffered soon at the hands of the power which was to inflict
more injury upon the fortifications of Constantinople than any other
foe. In 447, only thirty-four years after their construction, the
greater portion of the new walls, with fifty-seven towers, was
overthrown by a series of violent earthquakes.[167] The disaster was
particularly inopportune at the moment it occurred, for already in that
year Attila had defeated the armies of Theodosius in three successive
engagements, ravaged with fire and sword the provinces of Macedonia and
Thrace, and come as near to Constantinople as Athyras (Buyuk
Tchekmedjè). He had dictated an ignominious treaty of peace, exacting
the cession of territory south of the Danube, the payment of an
indemnity of 6000 pounds of gold, and the increase of the annual tribute
paid to him by the Eastern Empire from 700 pounds of gold to 2100.
The crisis was, however, met with splendid energy by Constantine, then
Prætorian Prefect of the East, and under his direction, as Marcellinus
Comes affirms, the walls were restored in less than three months after
their overthrow.[168] But besides restoring the shattered bulwarks of
his predecessor, Constantine seized the opportunity to render the city a
much stronger fortress than even Anthemius had made it. Accordingly,
another wall, with a broad and deep moat before it, was erected in front
of the Wall of Anthemius, to place the city behind three lines of
defence. The walls were flanked by 192 towers, while the ground between
the two walls, and that between the Outer Wall and the Moat, provided
room for the action of large bodies of troops. These five portions of
the fortifications rose tier above tier, and combined to form a
barricade 190-207 feet thick, and over 100 feet high.[169]
As an inscription[170] upon the fortifications proclaimed, this was a
wall indeed, τὸ καὶ τεῖχος ὄντως—a wall which, so long as ordinary
courage survived and the modes of ancient warfare were not superseded,
made Constantinople impregnable, and behind which civilization defied
the assaults of barbarism for a thousand years.
[Illustration: Portion of the Theodosian Walls (Between the Gate of the
Deuteron and Yedi Koulè Kapoussi).]
Three inscriptions commemorating the erection of these noble works of
defence have been discovered. Two of them are still found on the Gate
Yeni Mevlevi Haneh Kapoussi (Porta Rhousiou), one being in Greek, the
other in Latin, as both languages were then in official use. The former
reads to the effect that “In sixty days, by the order of the
sceptre-loving Emperor, Constantine the Eparch added wall to wall.”
† ΗΜΑΣΙΝ ΕΞΗΚΟΝΤΑ ΦΙΛΟΣΚΗΠΤΡΩ ΒΑΣΙΛΗΙ †
ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΣ ΥΠΑΡΧΟΣ ΕΔΕΙΜΑΤΟ ΤΕΙΧΕΙ ΤΕΙΧΟΣ †
The Latin legend is more boastful: “By the commands of Theodosius, in
less than two months, Constantine erected triumphantly these strong
walls. Scarcely could Pallas have built so quickly so strong a citadel.”
THEODOSII JUSSIS GEMINO NEC MENSE PERACTO †
CONSTANTINUS OVANS HAEC MOENIA FIRMA LOCAVIT
TAM CITO TAM STABILEM PALLAS VIX CONDERET ARCEM †[171]
The third inscription has disappeared from its place on the Porta
Xylokerkou, but is preserved in the Greek Anthology.[172] It declared
that, “The Emperor Theodosius and Constantine the Eparch of the East
built this wall in sixty days.”
ΘΕΟΔΟΣΙΟΣ ΤΟΔΕ ΤΕΙΧΟΣ ΑΝΑΞ ΚΑΙ ΥΠΑΡΧΟΣ ΕΩΑΣ
ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΣ ΕΤΕΥΞΑΝ ΕΝ ΗΜΑΣΙΝ ΕΞΗΚΟΝΤΑ
The shortness of the time assigned to the execution of the work is
certainly astonishing. Perhaps the statement of the inscriptions will
appear more credible if understood to refer exclusively to the second
wall, and if we realize the terror which the Huns then inspired. The
dread of Attila, “the Scourge of God,” might well prove an incentive to
extraordinary performance, and strain every muscle to the utmost
tension.
But the question of the time occupied in the reconstruction of the walls
is not the only difficulty raised by these inscriptions. They present a
question also as regards the official under whose direction that work
was executed. For according to them, and Marcellinus Comes, the
superintendent of the work was named Constantine.[173] Theophanes and
subsequent historians, on the other hand, ascribe the undertaking to the
Prefect Cyrus.[174] This is a serious discrepancy, and authorities are
not agreed in their mode of dealing with it. Some have proposed to
remove the difficulty by the simple expedient of identifying Constantine
and Cyrus;[175] while others maintain a distinction of persons, and
reconcile the conflicting statements by understanding them to refer,
respectively, to different occasions on which the walls were
repaired.[176]
Cyrus was one of the most conspicuous figures in the history of the city
during the reign of Theodosius II.[177] On account of his talents and
integrity he held the office of Prætorian Prefect, and that of Prefect
of the City, for four years, making himself immensely popular by the
character of his administration. During his prefecture, in 439, the new
walls along the shores of the city were constructed. The fires and
earthquakes, moreover, which devastated Constantinople in the earlier
half of the fifth century, afforded him ample opportunity for carrying
out civic improvements, and he was to be seen constantly driving about
the city in his chariot to inspect the public buildings in course of
erection, and to push forward their completion. Among other works, he
restored the great Bath of Achilles, which had been destroyed in the
fire of 433.[178] To him also is ascribed the introduction of the
practice of lighting the shops and streets of the capital at night.[179]
He was, moreover, a man of literary tastes, and a poet, who counted the
Empress Eudoxia, herself a poetess, one of his admirers.[180] In the
competition between Greek and Latin for ascendency as the official
language of the Government, he took the side of the former by issuing
his decrees in Greek, a practice which made the conservative Lydus style
him ironically, “Our Demosthenes.”[181]
But in the midst of all his success, Cyrus remained self-possessed and
sober-minded. “I do not like Fortune, when she smiles much,”[182] he was
accustomed to say; and at length the tide of his prosperity turned.
Taking his seat one day in the Hippodrome, he was greeted with a storm
of applause. “Constantine,” the vast assembly shouted, “founded the
city; Cyrus restored it.” For a subject to be so popular was a crime.
Theodosius took umbrage at the ovation accorded to the renovator of the
city, and Cyrus was dismissed from office, deprived of his property,
forced to enter the Church, and sent to Smyrna to succeed four bishops
who had perished at the hands of brigands. Upon his arrival in that city
on Christmas Day he found his people ill-prepared to receive him, so
indignant were they that a man still counted a heathen and a heretic
should have been appointed the shepherd of their souls. But a short
allocution, which Cyrus delivered in honour of the festival, disarmed
the opposition to him, and he spent the last years of his life in the
diocese, undisturbed by political turmoils and unmolested by robbers.
Returning to the question of the identity of Cyrus with the Prefect
Constantine above mentioned, the strongest argument in favour of that
identity is the fact that, commencing with Theophanes, who flourished in
the latter part of the eighth century, all historians who refer to the
fortification of the city under Theodosius II. ascribe the work to
Cyrus. That they should be mistaken on this point, it may be urged, is
extremely improbable. On this view, the occurrence of the name
Constantine instead of Cyrus in the inscriptions and in Marcellinus
Comes, is explained by the supposition that the former name was the one
which Cyrus assumed, as usual under such circumstances, after his
conversion to the Christian faith.[183] But surely any name which Cyrus
acquired after his dismissal from office could not be employed as his
designation in documents anterior to his fall. Perhaps a better
explanation is that Cyrus always had both names, one used habitually,
the other rarely, and that the latter appears in the inscriptions
because more suited than the former to the versification in which they
are cast. This, however, does not explain why Marcellinus Comes prefers
the name Constantine.
On the other hand, the proposed identification of Cyrus and Constantine
is open to serious objections. In the first place, not till the eighth
century is the name of Cyrus associated with the land walls of
Constantinople. Earlier historians,[184] when speaking of Cyrus and
extolling his services, say nothing as to his having been concerned in
the fortification of the city in 447.
In the next place, the information of Theophanes and his followers does
not seem based upon a thorough investigation of the subject. These
writers ignore the fact that under Theodosius II. the land walls were
built on two occasions; they ascribe to Cyrus everything done in the
fifth century in the way of enlarging and fortifying the capital, and
are silent as regards the connection of the great Anthemius with that
work.
The only Byzantine author later than the fifth century who recalls the
services of Anthemius is Nicephorus Callistus,[185] and even he
represents Cyrus as the associate of that illustrious prefect. If such
inaccuracies do not render the testimony of Theophanes and subsequent
historians worthless, they certainly make one ask whether these writers
were not misled by the great fame of Cyrus on the ground of other
achievements, and especially on account of his share in building the
walls along the shores of the city in 439, to ascribe to him a work
which was really performed by the more obscure Constantine.
The Inner Wall.
Τὸ κάστρον τὸ μέγα:[186] Τὸ μέγα τεῖχος.[187]
The Inner Wall was the main bulwark of the capital. It stood on a higher
level than the Outer Wall, and was, at the same time, loftier, thicker,
and flanked by stronger towers. In construction it was a mass of
concrete faced on both sides with blocks of limestone, squared and
carefully fitted; while six brick courses, each containing five layers
of bricks, were laid at intervals through the thickness of the wall to
bind the structure more firmly.
The wall rises some 30-½ feet above the present exterior ground-level,
and about 40 feet above the level within the city, with a thickness
varying from 15-½ feet near the base to 13-½ feet at the summit. The
summit had along its outer edge a battlement, 4 feet 8 inches high, and
was reached by flights of steps, placed generally beside the gates, and
set at right angles to the wall, upon ramps of masonry.
The ninety-six towers, now battered and ruined by weather, war, and
earthquakes, which once guarded this wall, stood from 175 to 181 feet
apart, and were from 57 to 60 feet high, with a projection of 18 to 34
feet. As many of them are reconstructions and belong to different
periods, they exhibit various forms and different styles of workmanship.
Most of them are square; others are hexagonal, or heptagonal, or
octagonal.
While their structure resembles that of the wall, they are nevertheless
distinct buildings, in compliance with the rule laid down by military
engineers, that a tower should not be bound in construction with the
curtain of the wall behind it.[188] Thus two buildings differing in
weight could settle at different rates without breaking apart along the
line of junction. As an additional precaution a relieving arch was
frequently inserted where the sides of the tower impinged on the
wall.[189]
A tower was usually divided by wooden or vaulted floors into two
chambers. Towers with three chambers, like the Tower of Basil and
Constantine at the southern extremity of the wall, and the Soulou Kaleh
beside the Lycus, were rare. The lower chamber was entered from the city
through a large archway. Occasionally, it communicated also with the
terrace between the two walls by a postern, situated as a rule, for the
sake of concealment or easier defence, at the angle formed by the tower
and the curtain-wall. Upon these entrances the chamber depended for
light and air, as its walls had few, if any, loopholes, lest the tower
should be weakened where most exposed to missiles.
Generally, the lower chamber had no means of communication with the
story above it; at other times a circular aperture, about 7-½ feet in
diameter, is found in the crown of the vaulted floor between the
chambers.
[Illustration: Portion of the Theodosian Walls (From Within the City).]
The lower portion of a tower had evidently little to do directly with
the defence of the city, but served mainly as a store-room or
guard-house. There, soldiers returning home or leaving for the field
were allowed to take up their temporary quarters.[190] The proprietors
of the ground upon which the towers stood were also allowed to use
them,[191] but this permission referred, doubtless, only to the lower
chambers, and that in time of peace.
The upper chamber was entered from the parapet-walk through an arched
gateway, and was well lighted on its three other sides by comparatively
large windows, commanding wide views, and permitting the occupants to
fire freely upon an attacking force. Flights of steps, similar to the
ramps that led to the summit of the wall, conducted to the battlemented
roof of the towers. There, the engines that hurled stones and Greek fire
upon the enemy were placed;[192] and there, sentinels watched the
western horizon, day and night, keeping themselves awake at night by
shouting to one another along the line.[193]
The Inner Terrace.
Ὁ Περίβολος.[194]
The Inner Embankment, or Terrace, between the two walls was 50 to 64
feet broad. It was named the Peribolos, and accommodated the troops
which defended the Outer Wall.
The Outer Wall.
Τὸ ἔξω τεῖχος:[195] τὸ ἔξω κάστρον:[196] τὸ μικρόν τεῖχος.[197]
The Outer Wall is from 2 to 6-½ feet thick, rising some 10 feet above
the present level of the peribolos,[198] and about 27-½ feet above the
present level of the terrace between the Outer Wall and the Moat. Its
lower portion is a solid wall, which retains the embankment of the
peribolos. The upper portion is built, for the most part, in arches,
faced on the outer side with hewn blocks of stone, and is frequently
supported by a series of arches in concrete, and sometimes, even, by two
series of such arches, built against the rear. Besides strengthening the
wall, these supporting arches permitted the construction of a battlement
and parapet-walk on the summit, and, moreover, formed chambers, 8-½ feet
deep, where troops could be quartered, or remain under cover, while
engaging the enemy through the loophole in the western wall of each
chamber.
The towers which flanked this wall[199] were much smaller than those of
the inner line. They are some 30 to 35 feet high, with a projection of
about 16 feet beyond the curtain-wall. They alternate with the great
towers to the rear, thus putting both walls more completely under cover.
It would seem as if the towers of this line were intended to be
alternately square and crescent in shape, so frequently do these forms
succeed one another. That this arrangement was not always maintained is
due, probably, to changes made in the course of repairs.
Each tower had a chamber on the level of the peribolos, provided with
small windows. The lower portion of most of the towers was generally a
solid substructure; but in the case of square towers it was often a
small chamber reached from the Outer Terrace through a small postern,
and leading to a subterranean passage running towards the city. These
passages may either have permitted secret communication with different
parts of the fortifications, or formed channels in which water-pipes
were laid.
Notwithstanding the comparative inferiority of the Outer Wall, it was an
important line of defence, for it sheltered the troops which engaged the
enemy at close quarters. Both in the siege of 1422,[200] and in that of
1453,[201] the most desperate fighting occurred here.
The Outer Terrace.
Τὸ ἔξω παρατείχιον.[202]
The embankment or terrace between the Outer Wall and the Moat is some 61
feet broad. While affording room for the action of troops under cover of
the battlement upon the scarp of the Moat,[203] its chief function was
to widen the distance between the besiegers and the besieged.
The Moat.
Τάφρος: σοῦδα.[204]
The Moat is over 61 feet wide. Its original depth, which doubtless
varied with the character of the ground it traversed, cannot be
determined until excavations are allowed, for the market-gardens and
_débris_ which now occupy it have raised the level of the bed. In front
of the Golden Gate, where it was probably always deepest, on account of
the importance of that entrance, its depth is still 22 feet. The masonry
of the scarp and counterscarp is 5 feet thick, and was supported by
buttresses to withstand the pressure of the elevated ground on either
side of the Moat. The battlement upon the scarp formed a breastwork
about 6-½ feet high.
At several points along its course the Moat is crossed by low walls,
dividing it into so many sections or compartments. They are generally
opposite a tower of the Outer or Inner Wall, and taper from the base to
a sharp edge along the summit, to prevent their being used as bridges by
an enemy. On their southern side, where the ground falls away, they are
supported by buttresses.
Dr. Paspates[205] was the first to call attention to these structures,
and to him, also, belongs the credit of having thrown some light upon
their use. They were, in his opinion, aqueducts, and dams or batardeaux,
by means of which water was conveyed to the Moat, and kept in position
there. But this service, Dr. Paspates believed, was performed by them
only in case of a siege, when they were broken open, and allowed to run
into the Moat. At other times, when no hostile attack was apprehended,
they carried water across the Moat into the city, for the supply of the
ordinary needs of the population.
That many of these structures, if not all, were aqueducts admits of no
doubt, for some have been found to contain earthenware water-pipes,
while others of them still carry into the city water brought by
underground conduits from the hills on the west of the fortifications;
and that they were dams seems the only explanation of the buttresses
built against their lower side, as though to resist the pressure of
water descending from a higher level.
[Illustration: Aqueduct Across the Moat of the Theodosian Walls.]
[Illustration: Coin of the Emperor Theodosius II. (From Du Cange.)]
Certainly Dr. Paspates’ view has very much in its favour. It is,
however, not altogether free from difficulties. To begin with, the idea
that the Moat was flooded only during a siege does not agree with the
representations of Manuel Chrysolaras and Bondelmontius on that point.
The former writer, in his famous description of Constantinople, speaks
as if the Moat was always full of water. According to him, it contained
so much water that the city seemed to stand upon the sea-shore, even
when viewed from the side of the land.[206] The Italian traveller
describes the Moat as a “vallum aquarum surgentium.”[207]
Are these statements mere rhetorical flourishes? If not, then water must
have been introduced into the Moat by some other means than by the
aqueducts which traverse it, for these, as Dr. Paspates himself admits,
ordinarily took water into the city. Unfortunately, it is impossible,
under present circumstances, to examine the Moat thoroughly, or to
explore the territory without the city to discover underground conduits,
and thus settle the question at issue. One can only ask, as a matter for
future investigation, whether, on the view that the Moat was always
flooded, the water required for the purpose was not brought by
underground conduits that emptied themselves a little above the bed of
the Moat. The mouth of what appears to be such a conduit is seen in the
counterscarp of the Moat immediately below the fifth aqueduct to the
south of Top Kapoussi. If water was brought thus to the elevation of Top
Kapoussi and Edirnè Kapoussi, sufficient pressure to flood the rest of
the Moat would be obtained.
But, in the next place, it must be added that objections can be urged
against the opinion that the Moat was flooded even in time of war. The
necessary quantity of water could ill be spared by a city which required
all available water for the wants of its inhabitants, especially at the
season of the year when sieges were conducted. Then, there is the fact
that in the accounts we have of the sieges of the city, all contemporary
historians are silent as to the presence of water in the Moat,
notwithstanding frequent allusions to that part of the fortifications.
Furthermore, there are statements which imply the absence of water in
the Moat during a siege. Pusculus, for instance, giving a minute account
of the measures adopted in 1453 to place the city in a state of defence,
refers to the deepening of the Moat, but says nothing about water in it.
“Fossaque cavant, atque aggere terræ educto, muros forti munimine
cingunt.”[208] If water had been introduced into the Moat on this
occasion, Pusculus could hardly have ignored the fact.
Again, in the Slavic account of the last siege of the city we are
informed that the Greeks opened mines through the counterscarp of the
Moat, to blow up the Turks who approached the fortifications: “Les
assiégés pendant le jour combattaient les Turcs, et pendant la nuit
descendaient dans les fossés, perçaient les murailles du fossé du côté
des champs, minaient la terre sous le mur à beaucoup d’endroits, et
remplissaient les mines de poudre et de vases remplis de poudre.”[209]
If such action was possible, there could be no water in the Moat.
Footnote 155:
Ammianus Marcellinus, xxxii. 16.
Footnote 156:
Jornandes, xxviii.
Footnote 157:
Eunapius, quoted by Gyllius, _De Top. CP._, i. c. 5.
Footnote 158:
Zosimus, p. 101.
Footnote 159:
Sozomon, ii. c. 3.
Footnote 160:
Theophanes, p. 680.
Footnote 161:
_Oratio_, xviii. p. 222. Edition of Petavius.
Footnote 162:
VII. c. 1.
Footnote 163:
_Cod. Theod._, lib. viii. tit. xxii.
Footnote 164:
Anonymus, i. p. 22.
Footnote 165:
See Choisy, _L’Art de Bâttir chez les Byzantins_, pp. 7-13.
Footnote 166:
Socrates, vii. c. 1; _Cod. Theod._, “De Operibus Publicis,” lex. 51.
The law refers to the towers of the new wall, and is addressed to
Anthemius as Prætorian Prefect in 413: “Turres novi muri, qui ad
munitionem splendidissimæ urbis extructus est, completo opere,
præcipimus eorum usui deputari, per quorum terram idem murus studio ac
provisione Tuæ Magnitudinis ex Nostræ Serenitatis arbitrio
celebratur.”
Footnote 167:
Marcellinus Comes, “Plurimi urbis Augustæ muri recenti adhuc
constructi, cum LVII. turribus, corruerunt.”
Footnote 168:
“Intra tres menses, Constantino Præfecto Prætorio opere dante, (muri)
reædificati sunt.” Cf. Inscription on the Gate Yeni Mevlevi Haneh
Kapoussi, p. 47.
Footnote 169:
Measuring from the bed of the Moat.
Footnote 170:
It stood on the Outer Wall between the fourth and fifth towers south
of the Golden Gate (Paspates, p. 58).
Footnote 171:
See illustrations facing pp. 78, 96, 248.
Footnote 172:
Banduri, _Imperium Orientale_, vii. n. 428.
Footnote 173:
See above, p. 47.
Footnote 174:
Theophanes, pp. 148, 149; Leo Gram., pp. 108, 109.
Footnote 175:
Patriarch Constantius, Paspates, Mordtmann, Du Cange.
Footnote 176:
Muralt, _Essai de Chronographie Byzantine, de 395 à 1057_, pp. 54, 55.
Footnote 177:
_Paschal Chron._, pp. 588, 589.
Footnote 178:
_Ibid._, pp. 582, 583.
Footnote 179:
_Ibid._, p. 588.
Footnote 180:
Suidas, _ad vocem_ Κύρος.
Footnote 181:
Lydus, _De Magistratibus_, iii. p. 235.
Footnote 182:
Malalas, p. 361, Οὐκ ἀρέσκει μοι τύχη πολλά γελῶσα.
Footnote 183:
Paspates, p. 48, quoting Skarlatus Byzantius.
Footnote 184:
_Paschal Chron._, Malalas.
Footnote 185:
Lib. vii. c. 1.
Footnote 186:
Cananus, p. 476.
Footnote 187:
Nicephorus Gregoras, xiv. p. 711.
Footnote 188:
Philo of Byzantium. See _Veterum Mathemat. Opera_, s. ix. Edited and
Translated by MM. de Rochat et Graux, _Revue de Philologie_, 1879.
Footnote 189:
Choisy, _L’Art de Bâtir chez les Byzantins_, p. 112.
Footnote 190:
_Cod. Theod._, “De Metatis,” lib. 13.
Footnote 191:
_Cod. Theod._, “De Operibus Publicis,” lib. 51.
Footnote 192:
Theophanes, p. 589; Phrantzes, p. 281.
Footnote 193:
Nicephorus Gregoras, ix. p. 408.
Footnote 194:
Ducas, p. 283.
Footnote 195:
Constant. Porphyr., _De Cer._, p. 504.
Footnote 196:
Cananus, p. 476.
Footnote 197:
Critobulus, i. c. 34.
Footnote 198:
Or “Lists, the space between the Inner and the Outer Walls of enceinte
or enclosure” (_Violet-le-Duc on Mediæval Fortifications_; translated
by Macdermott).
Footnote 199:
Only seventy out of the ninety-six towers in this wall can now be
identified.
Footnote 200:
Cananus, p. 475.
Footnote 201:
Ducas, pp. 266, 283, 286; Critobulus, i. c. 34; Leonard of Scio, p.
936, thinks this was poor strategy, rendered necessary by the bad
condition of the Inner Wall. “Operosa autem protegendi vallum et
antemurale nostris fuit; quod contra animum meum semper fuit, qui
suadebam in refugium muros altos non deserendos, qui si ob imbres
negligentiamque vel scissi, vel inermes propugnaculis essent, qui non
deserti, præsidium urbi salutis contulisset.”
Footnote 202:
Constant. Porphyr., _De Cer._, p. 438.
Footnote 203:
Ducas, p. 266, Ἐν τῇ τάφρῳ.
Footnote 204:
Cananus, pp. 461, 462.
Footnote 205:
Pages 7-13.
Footnote 206:
Page 40, Τὸ δὲ πλῆθος τῶν ἐν αὐταῖς (τάφροις) ὑδάτων, ὥστε ᾧ μέρει
μόνον ἐλείπετο, καὶ ταύτῃ δοκεῖν πελαγίαν τὴν πόλιν εἶναι διὰ τούτων.
Footnote 207:
_Librum Insularum Archipelagi_, p. 121. Leipsic, 1824.
Footnote 208:
IV. 138, 139.
Footnote 209:
Dethier, _Sièges de Constantinople_, ii. p. 1085; cf. Mijatovich,
_Constantine, Last Emperor of the Greeks_, pp. 185, 186. Some 24 of
these aqueducts or dams can still be identified: 2 between the Sea of
Marmora and the Golden Gate; 1 between that gate and the Gate of the
Deuteron; 6 or 7 between the Gate of the Deuteron and the Gate of
Selivria; 5 between the Gate of Selivria and the Gate Yeni Mevlevi
Haneh Kapoussi; 5 between Yeni Mevlevi Haneh Kapoussi and Top
Kapoussi; 2 between Top Kapoussi and the Gate of the Pempton; 3
between the Gate of the Pempton and Edirnè Kapoussi; 2 between Edirnè
Kapoussi and the northern end of the Moat.