Harbour of the Kontoscalion (τὸ Κοντοσκάλιον).

Another harbour on the Marmora side of the city was the Harbour of Kontoscalion.

The first reference to the Kontoscalion occurs in the Anonymus, [1101] in the eleventh century, but the harbour acquired its greatest importance after 1261, when it was selected by Michael Palæologus to be the dockyard and principal station of the Imperial navy. Here the emperor thought his fleet could lie more secure from attack, and in a better position to assail an enemy, than in any other haven of the city. For the force of the current along this shore would soon oblige hostile ships approaching the port to beat a hasty retreat, lest they should be driven upon the coast, and consequently expose them, as they withdrew, to be taken in the rear by the Imperial vessels that would then sally forth in pursuit. Great labour was therefore expended upon the old harbour. It was dredged and deepened to render it more commodious; and to make it more secure, it was surrounded with immense blocks, closed with iron gates, and protected by a mole. [1102] Subsequently, as his coat-of-arms on the western tower of the harbour indicated, the Kontoscalion was repaired by Andronicus II. [1103]

A Russian pilgrim who visited the city about 1350 has drawn a vivid picture of the harbour when crowded with triremes on account of contrary weather:—

“De l’Hippodrome on passe devant Cantoscopie; là est la superbe et très grande porte en fer à grillage de la ville. C’est par cette porte que la mer pénétre dans la ville. Si la mer est agitée, jusqu’a trois cents galères y trouvent place; ces galères ont les unes deux cents et les autres trois cents rames. Ces vaisseaux sont employés au transport des troupes. Si le vent est contraire, ils ne peuvent avancer, et doivent attendre le beau temps.” [1104]

The Kontoscalion is generally held to have stood in front of Koum Kapoussi, where the traces of an old harbour, about 270 yards wide and some 217 yards long, are still discernible in an extensive mole off the shore, and in the great bend described by the city walls at that point to enclose an area which, at one time, was evidently a basin of water.

There is scarcely any room for doubt that this view is correct. The adherence of the name Kontoscalion to this quarter, apparently, ever since the Turkish Conquest, [1105] is in favour of the opinion. So, likewise, is the fact that thus it becomes intelligible how Pachymeres [1106] and Bondelmontius [1107] associate the harbour with Vlanga, on the one hand, while Nicephorus Gregoras [1108] associates it with the Hippodrome on the other. It is also a corroboration of this view to find on the walls of the harbour the coat-of-arms of Andronicus II., who is declared, by one authority, to have restored the Kontoscalion. [1109] The only objection to this identification is found in the difference between the character of the actual enclosure around the harbour at Koum Kapoussi and the character of the enclosure which Michael Palæologus placed around the Kontoscalion. The former consists of the ordinary walls of the city; the latter consisted, according to Pachymeres, [1110] of very large blocks of stone: ὥστε γυρῶσαι μὲν μεγίσταις πέτραις τὸν κύκλῳ τόπον. But in reply to this objection it may be said, either (though not without some violence to the words of the historian) that the great blocks of stone referred to were the boulders which form the mole of the harbour; or that the work done under Michael Palæologus was temporary, and was superseded by the improvements executed in the reign of his son and successor Andronicus II. The objection must not be ignored. [1111]