CHAPTER XII. THE WALL OF THE EMPEROR HERACLIUS: THE WALL OF THE EMPEROR LEO THE ARMENIAN.

The fortifications extending from the north-western angle of the enclosure around the Palace of Blachernæ to the Golden Horn consist of two parallel lines, connected by transverse walls, so as to form a citadel beside the Golden Horn. The inner wall belongs to the reign of Heraclius; the outer is an erection of Leo V., the Armenian.

The Heraclian Wall was constructed in 627, under the following circumstances:— [556]

Until that year the quarter of Blachernæ, at the foot of the Sixth Hill, was a suburb immediately outside the fortifications. [557] The fact that the suburb and its celebrated Church of the Theotokos, containing, it was believed, the girdle of the Blessed Virgin, were thus exposed to the attacks of an enemy did not occasion serious concern. In the opinion of the devout citizens of Constantinople, the shrine, so far from needing protection, formed one of the strongest bulwarks of the capital. At the worst, when danger threatened, the treasures of the sanctuary could be readily transported into the city, as was done in the reign of Justinian the Great. [558]

But in 627, Constantinople learned what a siege really meant. Persia and the Empire were then at war with each other; and while Heraclius was carrying the campaign into the enemy’s country, a Persian army had encamped at Chalcedon for the purpose of joining the Avars in laying siege to the capital. [559]

As the Byzantine fleet, however, commanded the Bosporus, the allies could not unite their forces, and the Avars were left to act alone. The undertaking proved too difficult for the barbarians, notwithstanding the vigour with which it was conducted, and the siege was raised. But before retiring, a troop of Avaric horse set itself to devastate the suburbs, and having fired the Church of SS. Cosmas and Damianus, and the Church of St. Nicholas, dashed into the open ground beside the Church of Blachernæ, intent upon devoting also that sacred edifice to the flames. For some reason, that purpose was not carried into effect, and the church escaped all injury. This marvellous deliverance enhanced, indeed, the reputation of the Theotokos, but it likewise aroused a sense of the danger to which her shrine was liable, and so the Government of the day ordered the immediate erection of a wall along the western side of the Blachernæ quarter, to place the church beyond the reach of hostile attack in future. The wall was known, until the erection of the Wall of Leo, as the Single Wall of Blachernæ (Μονοτείχος Βλαχερνῶν: [560] τεῖχος τῶν Βλαχερνῶν). [561]

The wall is flanked by three fine hexagonal towers, built towards their summit in brick, perhaps, as Dr. Paspates [562] suggests, in order to lighten the weight of constructions erected on marshy ground. They are among the finest towers in the circuit of the fortifications. The interior of the southernmost tower, the only one which can be safely examined, measures 32-½ by about 19 feet, and was in three stories. Upon the face of the tower is an inscription, in letters formed with pieces of marble, in honour of the Emperor Michael, probably Michael II.

Between the first and second towers is a gate, named the Gate of Blachernæ (πόρτα τοῦ Μονοτείχους τῶν Βλαχερνῶν), [563] after the quarter before which it stood.

General View of the Walls of the City From The Hill On Which The Crusaders Encamped in 1203.

General View of the Walls of the City From The Hill On Which The Crusaders Encamped in 1203.

It has been generally supposed that the Wall of Heraclius comprised not only the portion of the city walls just indicated, but the whole line of fortifications extending from the Kerko Porta to the Golden Horn. [564] The evidence on the subject is, however, in favour of the opinion that the Wall of Heraclius was only the portion of the fortifications before us. It is the extent implied in the description of the Heraclian Wall, as a wall erected to bring the Church of Blachernæ within the line of the city bulwarks. [565] That is an apt description of a wall extending from the foot of the Sixth Hill to the Golden Horn; it is a very inadequate description of a line of bulwarks from the Kerko Porta to the harbour. In the next place, more extensive fortifications were not required to protect the church, seeing it was well defended on the south by the acropolis on the western spur of the Sixth Hill. All that was necessary for the further security of the church was a wall on the west side of the plain on which it stood. Furthermore, the fortifications extending from the Kerko Porta to the foot of the Sixth Hill, commonly ascribed to Heraclius, have been proved to be the work of other hands, the greater part being the Wall of Manuel Comnenus, [566] while the remainder formed, originally, the defences of the Fourteenth Region.

The Wall of Leo the Armenian was erected in 813 to strengthen the defence of this part of the capital, in view of the preparations which the Bulgarians under Crum were making for a second attack upon Constantinople. [567] Crum had retired from his first assault upon the city, resolved not only to retrieve the defeat he had sustained, but also to punish the treacherous attempt upon his life, when he was proceeding to negotiate terms of peace with the emperor.

Arrangements had been made for holding a conference between the two sovereigns at a short distance to the west of the Heraclian Wall, on the explicit understanding that all persons present were to attend unarmed; so little confidence had the two parties in each other. But in flagrant breach of this agreement, Leo placed three bowmen in ambush near the place of meeting, with orders to shoot at the Bulgarian king, upon a preconcerted signal. In due time Crum arrived; but he had scarcely dismounted from his horse when his suspicions of a plot were aroused, and, springing into his saddle, he galloped back towards his camp. The arrows of the soldiers in ambush flew after him, wounding him although he escaped with his life.

The Byzantine historian who records the incident explains the failure of the plot as a Divine punishment upon the sins of his countrymen. [568] Crum saw the dastardly act in a different light, and, vowing vengeance, withdrew to Bulgaria to prepare for another war. He died before he could carry out his intention, but meanwhile Leo had put himself in readiness for the expected attack by constructing a new wall and a broad moat in front of the Wall of Heraclius.

The Wall of Leo stands 77 feet to the west of the Wall of Heraclius, running parallel to it for some 260 feet, after which it turns to join the walls along the Golden Horn. Its parapet-walk was supported upon arches, which served at the same time to buttress the wall itself, a comparatively slight structure about 8 feet thick. With the view of increasing the wall’s capacity for defence, it was flanked by four small towers, while its lower portion was pierced by numerous loopholes. Two of the towers were on the side facing the Golden Horn, and the other two guarded the extremities of the side looking towards the country on the west. The latter towers projected inwards from the rear of the wall, and between them was a gateway corresponding to the Heraclian Gate of Blachernæ.

The citadel formed by the Walls of Heraclius and Leo was designated the Brachionion of Blachernæ (τὸ Βραχιόνιον τῶν Βλαχερνῶν). [569] Subsequent to the Turkish Conquest it was named after the five more conspicuous towers which guarded the enclosure, the Pentapyrgion, [570] on the analogy of the Heptapyrgion, or Castle of Severn Towers (Yedi Koulè) at the southern end of the land walls.

Near the southern end of the wall, where it has evidently undergone repair, two inscriptions are found. One is in honour of Michael II. and Theophilus, the great Emperors:

ΜΙΧΑΗΛ ΚΑΙ ΘΕΟΦΙΛΟΥ ΜΕΤΑ ... Ν ΒΑΣΙ....

The other gives the date †ϚΤΛ† (822), which belonged to the sole reign of the former emperor. These repairs were probably made when Thomas, the rival of Michael for the throne, attacked the fortifications in this quarter. It was precisely in the year 822 that the rebel general encamped beside the Monastery of SS. Cosmas and Damianus (above Eyoub), and then, armed with battering-rams and scaling-ladders, advanced to the assault of the towers of Blachernæ, behind which the standard of Michael floated over the Church of the Theotokos. [571]

The tower at the north-western corner of the enclosure was reconstructed by the Emperor Romanus, as an inscription upon it proclaims:

“The Tower of St. Nicholas was restored from the foundations, under Romanus, the Christ-loving Sovereign.”

“The Tower of St. Nicholas was restored from the foundations, under Romanus, the Christ-loving Sovereign.”

To which of the four emperors named Romanus the work should be assigned is not easy to decide. The tower must have derived its name from the Church of S. Nicholas in this vicinity, for the site of that church is marked by the Holy Well which still flows amid the graves and trees of the Turkish cemetery within the Brachionion of Blachernæ, an object of veneration alike to Moslems and orthodox Greeks. The grounds on which the opinion rests are that, previous to the erection of the Heraclian Wall, the church is described as without the city bounds, in the district of Blachernæ; [572] while after the erection of Leo’s Wall it is spoken of as within the city limits, and close to the gate by which persons proceeded from the Blachernæ quarter to the Cosmidion. [573] This is exactly how a building beside the Holy Well between the two walls, and near the Gate of Blachernæ which pierces them, would be described under such circumstances.

The proximity of these walls to the Palace of Blachernæ, as well as their comparative weakness, combined to make them the scene of many historical events.

While the Wall of Heraclius stood alone, it was through the Gate of Blachernæ that Apsimarus was admitted by his adherents, in 698, to supplant Leontius; [574] by the same entrance Justinian II., in 705, attempted to force his way into the city to dethrone Apsimarus; [575] and through it, again, Theodosius III., in 716, entered and deposed Anastasius II. [576] It was before the Heraclian Wall that Crum and Leo the Armenian met to confer, under the circumstances already narrated.

This portion of the fortifications continued to be a favourite point of attack also after the erection of Leo’s Wall. Here, as above stated, the rebel Thomas sought to break into the city in 822; [577] here, in 924, Simeon of Bulgaria and Romanus Lecapenus met to conclude peace, [578] taking the greatest precautions against the repetition of the treachery which disgraced the former meeting of a Bulgarian king with a Byzantine emperor. In 1047, in the reign of Constantine Monomachus, the rebel general Tornikius took up his position before these walls, and having routed a company of raw recruits who had sallied forth against him by the Gate of Blachernæ, would have rushed into the city with the fugitives, had not the difficulty of crossing the moat given the defenders of the walls time to close the entrance. [579]

Through the Gate of Blachernæ the friends of Alexius Comnenus sallied from the city, in 1081, to join the standard of revolt against Nicephorus Botoniates; and it was at the Imperial stables outside the gate that they obtained horses to reach as fast as possible the Monastery of SS. Cosmas and Damianus, baffling pursuit by having taken the precaution to ham-string the animals they did not require. [580] In 1097, Godfrey de Bouillon encamped on the hills and plains without these walls. While the negotiations with the crafty Alexius Comnenus were proceeding, the envoys of the Crusaders were on one occasion detained so long by the emperor as to arouse suspicions of treachery on his part; whereupon a band of Crusaders rushed from the camp at the Cosmidion, and in their attempt to enter the city and rescue their comrades set fire to the Gate of Blachernæ. [581]

In 1203 these fortifications were attacked by the land forces of the Fourth Crusade. [582] The Venetian fleet, bearing the banner of St. Mark, occupied the Golden Horn, under the command of Dandolo; the army of the expedition under Baldwin held the hill immediately to the west of the Palace of Blachernæ. Upon the walls and towers of the citadel stood the Varangian guards, composed mainly of Englishmen and Danes, loyal to their trust, and the peers of the invaders in courage and strength. Alexius III. and his courtiers watched the scene from the palace windows. At length, on the 17th of July, the Crusaders delivered a grand assault by sea and land; the army attacking the fortress formed by the Walls of Heraclius and Leo; the fleet attempting the adjoining fortifications along the harbour. With the help of ladders, fifteen knights and sergeants scaled the outer Wall, and engaged the defenders on the summit in a desperate struggle. It was a bold attempt, but the odds were too great, and the assailants, leaving two of their number prisoners, were driven off by the swords and battle-axes of the Varangians. Many other Crusaders, also, who had advanced to support the attack, were wounded, and the day went so hard against the Latins at this point that Dandolo, who had captured twenty-five towers of the harbour fortifications, was obliged to abandon the advantage he had gained, and hastened with his ships to protect his worsted allies.

Finally, in 1453, the moat before these walls, which had been filled with earth in the course of time, was excavated by the crews of the Venetian galleys present at the siege under the command of Aluxio Diedo. It was made 200 paces long and 8 feet wide, the emperor and his courtiers being present at the work, while two sentries, stationed on the neighbouring hill, watched the Turkish outposts. [583]

From the northern extremity of the Heraclian Wall, a short wall was carried to the water’s edge, across the western end of the street that runs along the shore of the Golden Horn, outside the Harbour Walls; thus protecting the latter line of fortifications from attack by the land forces of an enemy.

At the same time, for the convenience of traffic, the wall was pierced by a gate, named, from its material, the Xylo Porta (Ξυλόπορτα, Ξυλίνη), the Wooden Gate. [584] It was in its place as late as 1868, and bore an inscription in honour of Theophilus. [585] Very probably, the wall was erected by that emperor when he reconstructed the defences along the harbour. In accordance with its situation, the Xylo Porta is described sometimes as the gate at the northern extremity of the land fortifications; [586] and sometimes as the gate at the western end of the walls along the Golden Horn. [587]

Du Cange [588] identified the Porta Xylo Kerkou with this gate. But the former was an entrance in the Theodosian lines; [589] it led directly into the city, and was built up in the reign of Isaac Angelus [590] —facts which did not hold true of the Xylo Porta. Furthermore, Ducas expressly distinguishes the two entrances. [591] Or the facts in the case may be stated thus: The Gate of the Xylokerkus was in existence before the erection of the wall in which the Xylo Porta stood; the former entrance being not later than the reign of Anastasius I., in the fifth century, the latter not earlier than the reign of Heraclius, in the seventh century, when the wall on the west of Blachernæ was erected. Therefore the two entrances cannot be the same gate under different names.

In Dr. Mordtmann’s opinion, [592] the Postern of Kallinicus (τὸ τῆς Καλλινίκου παραπόρτιον), mentioned by Byzantine writers, [593] was the Xylo Porta under an earlier name. And what is known regarding that postern lends support to this view. Like the Xylo Porta, the Postern of Kallinicus stood near the Church of Blachernæ, [594] and led to the Church of SS. Cosmas and Damianus in the Cosmidion, [595] as well as to the bridge across the head of the Golden Horn. [596] The identity is confirmed by the fact that the bridge to which the road issuing from the Xylo Porta conducted was sometimes called the Bridge of St. Kallinicus, after a church of that dedication in its neighbourhood. [597]