CHAPTER XV. THE WALLS ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN—continued.

The next gate on the list of Pusculus and Dolfin is the Porta Platea, or Porta ala Piazza, [739] evidently the Porta of the Platea (Πόρτα τῆς Πλατέας) mentioned by Ducas. [740] The entrance, judging by its name, was situated beside a wide tract of level ground, and is, consequently, represented by Oun Kapan Kapoussi, which stands on the plain near the Inner Bridge, at the head of the important street running across the city from sea to sea, through the valley between the Fourth and Fifth Hills. The district beside the gate was known as the Plateia (Πλατεῖα), [741] and contained the churches dedicated respectively to St. Laurentius and the Prophet Isaiah. [742] The blockade of the Harbour Walls in 1453 by the Turkish ships in the Golden Horn extended from the Xylo Porta to the Gate of the Platea. [743] If the legend on Bondelmontius’ map may be trusted, this gate bore also the name Mesè, the Central Gate, a suitable designation for an entrance at the middle point in the line of the harbour fortifications.

The succeeding gate, Ayasma Kapoussi, was opened, it would seem, after the Turkish Conquest. It is not mentioned by Gyllius, or Leunclavius, or Gerlach. The conjecture that it represents a gate in the Wall of Constantine, styled Porta Basilikè, situated near the Church of St. Acacius ad Caream (τὸν ἅγιον Ἀκάκιον, τὴν Καρυὰν, ἐν τῇ Βασιλικῇ Πόρτα) [744] does not appear very probable. The Church of St. Acacius, situated in the Tenth Region, [745] was the sanctuary to which Macedonius, the bishop of the city, removed the sarcophagus of Constantine the Great, from the Church of the Holy Apostles on the summit of the Fourth Hill, when the latter edifice threatened to fall and crush the Imperial tomb. [746] The bishop’s action encountered the violent opposition of a large class of the citizens, and led to a riot in which much blood was shed. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to believe that the sarcophagus of Constantine was transported from its original resting-place to a point so distant as the neighbourhood of Ayasma Kapoussi, especially when the removal was a temporary arrangement, made until the repairs on the Church of the Holy Apostles should be completed. It is more probable that St. Acacius was near the Church of the Holy Apostles. Furthermore, we cannot be sure that the Porta Basilikè was a gate in the Wall of Constantine. The Church of St. Acacius stood near a palace erected by that emperor (πλησίον τῶν οἰκημάτων τοῦ μεγάλου Κωνσταντίνου): [747] or, as described elsewhere, was a small chapel (οἰκίσκον εὐκτήριον) near a palace named Karya, because close to a walnut-tree on which the saint was supposed to have suffered martyrdom by hanging. [748] The Porta Basilikè may have been a gate leading into the court of that palace.

The three succeeding gates, Odoun Kapan Kapoussi, Zindan Kapoussi, Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi, bore respectively the names Gate of the Drungarii (τῶν Δρουγγαρίων); Gate of the Forerunner (Porta juxta parvum templum Precursoris, known also as St. Johannes de Cornibus); Gate of the Perama or Ferry (τοῦ Περάματος). They can be identified, perhaps, most readily and clearly by the following line of argument:—

The three Byzantine gates just named were situated in the quarter assigned to the Venetians in Constantinople by successive Imperial grants from the time of Alexius Comnenus to the close of the Empire. The Gate of the Drungarii marked the western extremity of the quarter; [749] the Gate of the Perama, its eastern extremity; [750] while the gate beside the Church of the Forerunner was between the two points. Where the Gate of the Perama stood admits of no doubt. All students of the topography of the city are agreed in the opinion that the entrance so named was at Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi. Consequently, the two other gates in the Venetian quarter lay to the west of Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi, in the portion of the fortifications between that entrance and the Gate of the Platea, all gates further west being out of the question. But as the only two gates in that portion of the walls are Zindan Kapoussi and Oun Kapan Kapoussi, they must represent, respectively, the Gate of the Forerunner and the Gate of the Drungarii.

The Gate of the Drungarii (τῶν Δρουγγαρίων) derived its name from the term “Drungarius,” a title given to various officials in the Byzantine service; [751] as, for example, to the admiral of the fleet (μέγας δρουγγάριος τοῦ θεοσώστου στόλου), and to the head of the city police, the Drungarius Vigiliæ. (ὁ τῆς Βίγλας δρουγγάριος). In this particular case the reference was to the latter officer, for in the neighbourhood of the gate stood an important Vigla, or police-station, which is sometimes mentioned instead of the Gate of the Drungarii, as the western limit of the Venetian quarter. [752]

The street running eastwards, outside the city wall, was known as the Via Drungariou (De Longario), [753] and the pier in front of the next gate bore the name Scala de Drongario. [754]

The practice of storing timber on the shore without the gate has come down from an early period in the history of the city. One of the questions put to Justinian the Great by the Greens, during the altercation between him and the Factions in the Hippodrome, on the eve of the Nika riot was, “Who murdered the timber-merchant at the Zeugma?” [755] —another name for this part of the shore. An inscription on the gate reminded the passing crowd that to remember death is profitable to life (Μνῆμη θανάτου χρησιμεύει τῷ βίῳ). [756]

It is in favour of the identification of Zindan Kapoussi with the Gate near the Church of St. John (Porta juxta parvum templum Precursoris) to find only a few yards within the entrance a Holy Well, venerated alike by Christian and Moslem, beside which stood, until recently, the ruins of a Byzantine chapel answering to the small Church of the Forerunner mentioned in the Venetian charters. [757]

Leunclavius found the gate called in his day Porta Caravion, because of the large number of ships which were moored in front of it. [758] The landing before the gate, the old Scala de Drongario, now Yemish Iskelessi, in front of the Dried Fruit-Market, is one of the most important piers on the Golden Horn.

Dr. Paspates [759] and M. Heyd [760] identify this entrance with the Gate of the Drungarii. But this opinion is inconsistent with the fact that whereas the gate near St. John’s stood between the Gate of the Drungarii and the Gate of the Perama, no entrance which can be identified with the gate near St. John’s intervenes between Zindan Kapoussi and Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi (Gate of the Perama).

M. Heyd, moreover, identifies Zindan Kapoussi with the Porta Hebraica, [761] mentioned in the charters granted to the Venetians in the thirteenth century. But, as will appear in the sequel, the Porta Hebraica of that period was either the Gate of the Perama itself, or an entrance a little to the east of it.

The Gate of the Perama (τοῦ Περάματος), as its name implies, stood where Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi is found to-day, close to the principal ferry between the city and the suburb of Galata; communication between the opposite shores being maintained in ancient times by boats, for the only bridge across the harbour was that near the head of the Golden Horn. The Perama is first mentioned by Theophanes, [762] in recording the dedication of the Church of St. Irene at Sycæ (Galata), after the reconstruction of that sanctuary by Justinian the Great. Special importance attached to the event, as the emperor attributed his recovery from an attack of the terrible plague that raged in Constantinople, in 542, to the touch of the relics of the Forty Martyrs which had been discovered in pulling down the old church, and which were to be enshrined in the new building. Menas, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Apollinarius, Patriarch of Alexandria—who was then in the capital—were appointed to celebrate the service of the day; and the two prelates, seated in the Imperial chariot, and bearing upon their knees the sacred relics, drove through the city from St. Sophia to the Perama, to take boat for Sycæ, where Justinian awaited them. The ferry was also styled Trajectus Sycenus; [763] Transitus Sycarum, after the oldest name for Galata. It was, moreover, known as Transitus Justinianarum, [764] from the name Justinianopolis, given to the suburb in honour of Justinian, who rebuilt its walls and theatre, and conferred upon it the privileges of a city. [765] The pier at the city end of the ferry was known as the Scala Sycena. [766]

It would seem that there was a spice-market [767] in the vicinity of the Gate of the Perama, like the one which exists to-day to the rear of Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi, the latter being only the continuation of the former. According to Bondelmontius, the fish-market of Byzantine Constantinople was held before this gate, as the practice is at present; for upon his map he names the entrance Porta Piscaria. So fixed are the habits of a city.

Besides bearing the name Gate of the Perama, the entrance was also styled the Porta Hebraica. This appears from the employment of the two names as equivalent terms in descriptions of the territory occupied by the Venetians in Constantinople. For example, according to Anna Comnena, [768] the quarter which her father, the Emperor Alexis Comnenus, conceded to the Venetians, extended from the old Hebrew pier to the Vigla. In the charter by which the Doge Faletri granted that district to the Church of San Georgio Majore of Venice, the quarter is described in one passage, as extending from the Vigla to the Porta Perame, as far as the Judeca (“ad Portam Perame, usque ad Judecam”); [769] and in a subsequent passage, as proceeding from the Vigla to the Judeca (“a comprehenso dicto sacro Viglæ usque ad Judecam”). [770] In the grants made to the Venetians after the Restoration of the Greek Empire in 1261, the extreme points of the Venetian quarter are named, respectively, the Gate of the Drungarii and the Gate of the Perama. [771]

To this identification of the Porta Hebraica with the Gate of the Perama it may be objected that on the map of Bondelmontius these names are applied to different gates, and this, it may further be urged, accords with the fact that after the Turkish Conquest, also, a distinction was maintained between the Gate of the Perama and the gate styled Tchifout Kapoussi, the Hebrew Gate. But in reply to this objection it must be noted that the Tchifout Kapoussi of Turkish days was the gate now known as Bagtchè Kapoussi, [772] beside the Stamboul Custom House, while the “Porta Judece” on the map of Bondelmontius stands close to the Seraglio Point. Nothing, however, is more certain than that the Venetian quarter [773] did not extend so far east as Bagtchè Kapoussi, much less so far in that direction as the neighbourhood of the head of the promontory. Bagtchè Kapoussi corresponds to the Byzantine Porta Neoriou (the Gate of the Dockyard), which had no connection whatever with the quarter assigned to the Venetian merchants in the city, but was separated from that quarter, on the west, by the quarters which the traders from Amalfi and Pisa occupied, while to the east of the gate was the settlement of the Genoese. Consequently, the fact that in the age of Bondelmontius and after the Turkish Conquest the Porta Hebraica was a different entrance from the Gate of the Perama affords no ground for rejecting the evidence that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the two names designated the same gate. It only proves that the epithet “Hebrew” had meantime been transferred from one gate to another. [774]

At the distance of seventy-seven feet to the east of the Porta Hebraica, or Gate of the Perama, there stood, according to a Venetian document of 1229, an entrance known as the Gate of St. Mark (Porta San Marci). [775] It probably obtained its name during the Latin occupation, after the patron saint of Venice, but whether it was a gate then opened for the first time, or an old gate under a new name, cannot be determined.

Yet further east, at a point 115 pikes before reaching Bagtchè Kapoussi, stood an entrance styled the Gate of the Hicanatissa (Πόρτα τῆς Ἱκανατίσσης). [776] The adjoining quarter went by the same name, and there probably stood the “Residence of the Kanatissa” (τὸν οἶκον τῆς Κανατίσης) mentioned by Codinus. [777] The designation is best explained as derived from the body of palace troops known as the Hicanati. [778]

Between the Gate of the Perama and that of the Hicanatissa was situated the quarter of the merchants from Amalfi; at the latter gate the quarter of the Pisans commenced. [779]

The Gate of the Neorion (Πόρτα τοῦ Νεωρίου), [780] the Gate of the Dockyard, stood, as its name implies, beside the Dockyard on the shore of the bay at Bagtchè Kapoussi, close to the site now occupied by the Stamboul Custom House. It is first mentioned in a chrysoboullon of Isaac Angelus, confirming the right granted to the Pisan merchants by his predecessors, Alexius Comnenus and Manuel Comnenus, to reside in the neighbourhood of the gate. [781] While the western limit of the quarter thus conceded to Pisans was marked, as already intimated, by the Gate Hicanatissa, [782] the eastern limit of the settlement extended to a short distance beyond the Gate of the Neorion.

The Neorion dated from the time of Byzantium, when it stood at the western extremity of the Harbour Walls of the city. [783] It was, therefore, distinguished from all other dockyards in Constantinople as the Ancient Neorion (τὸ Παλαιὸν Νεώριον), or the Ancient Exartesis (Ἐξάρτησις). Nicolo Barbaro calls it “l’arsenada de l’imperador.”

Here the Imperial fleet assembled to refit or to guard the entrance of the harbour; [784] here, until the reign of Justin II., was the Marine Exchange; [785] and here was a factory of oars (coparia), [786] in addition to the one mentioned in the Justinian Code, which stood elsewhere. As might be expected, several destructive fires originated in the Neorion. [787]

According to Gyllius, [788] Gerlach, [789] and Leunclavius, [790] this entrance was in their day named by the Turks, Tchifout Kapoussi, and was regarded by the Greeks as the Πύλη Ὡραία (the Beautiful Gate), mentioned by Phrantzes [791] and Ducas [792] in the history of the last siege. The epithet Horaia is supposed to be a corruption of the original name for the entrance (τοῦ Νεωρίου); the Turkish designation of the gate being explained by the fact that a Jewish community was settled in the neighbourhood of the gate. [793]

As to the transformation of Neorion into Horaia, it seems somewhat far-fetched; still, Greeks think it conceivable. [794] If both names, indeed, belonged to the gate, a simpler and more probable explanation of the fact would be that the two names had no connection with each other, and that the epithet “Beautiful” was bestowed upon the entrance, towards the close of the Empire, in view of embellishments made in the course of repairs.

The identification of the Gate of the Neorion with the Horaia Pylè involves, however, a difficulty. It makes Ducas contradict other historians, as regards the point to which the southern end of the chain across the Golden Horn was attached during the siege of 1453.

According to Ducas, [795] that extremity of the chain was fastened to the Beautiful Gate. Critobulus, [796] on the other hand, affirms that it was attached to the Gate of Eugenius (Yali Kiosk Kapoussi), the gate nearest the head of the promontory, and his statement is supported by Phrantzes [797] and Chalcocondylas, [798] when they, respectively, say that the chain was at the harbour’s mouth, and fixed to the wall of the Acropolis. Now, the correctness of the position assigned to the chain by the three latter historians cannot be called in question. It was the position prescribed for the chain by all the rules of strategy. To have placed the chain at the Gate of the Neorion would have left a large portion of the northern side of the city exposed to the enemy, and permitted the Turkish fleet to command the Neorion and the ships stationed before it. Hence the accuracy of Ducas can be maintained only by the identification of the Beautiful Gate with the Gate of Eugenius instead of with the Gate of the Neorion.

We are, therefore, confronted with the question whether the historian is mistaken as regards the gate to which the city end of the chain was attached, or whether the view prevalent in Constantinople in the sixteenth century respecting the position of the Horaia Pylè should be rejected as unfounded.

In favour of the accuracy of Ducas, it must be admitted that his statements concerning the Horaia Pylè, in other passages of his work, convey the impression that under that name he refers to the entrance nearest the head of the promontory, the Gate of Eugenius (Yali Kiosk Kapoussi). Speaking of the arrangements made for the defence of the sea-board of the city, he describes them as extending, in the first place, from the Xylinè Porta, at the western extremity of the Harbour Walls, to the Horaia Pylè; and then from the Horaia Pylè to the Golden Gate, near the western extremity of the walls along the Sea of Marmora. [799] Again, when he describes the blockade of the shore of the city outside the chain by the Sultan’s fleet, he represents the blockade as commencing at the Horaia Pylè and proceeding thence past the point of the Acropolis, the Church of St. Demetrius, the Gate of the Hodegetria, the Great Palace, and the harbour (Kontoscalion), as far as Vlanga. [800]

Now, the gate which would naturally form the pivot, so to speak, of these operations was the Gate of Eugenius. There the two shores of the city divide; and that was the farthest point to which the Turkish fleet outside the chain could advance into the Golden Horn. It would be strange if Ducas ascribed the strategical importance of the Gate of Eugenius to another gate. And yet, it must be also admitted that Ducas can be inaccurate. He is inaccurate, for example, in the matter of the gate before which the Sultan’s tent was pitched during the siege, [801] and at which the Emperor Constantine fell, [802] for he associates these incidents with the Gate of Charisius, instead of with the Gate of St. Romanus; he is inaccurate, as we have seen, in his account of the entry of the Turks through the Kerko Porta; [803] and he is inaccurate, again, in saying that the ships which the Sultan carried across the hills from the Bosporus to the Golden Horn were launched into the harbour at a point opposite the Cosmidion (Eyoub), [804] instead of at Cassim Pasha. Under these circumstances it is impossible to maintain his accuracy as to the connection of the chain with Horaia Pylè at all hazards, and in the face of all difficulties. His credit will depend upon the value attached to the evidence we have, that the Horaia Pylè was another name for the Gate of the Neorion during the last days of Byzantine Constantinople.

The application of both names to the same gate rests upon the authority of tradition, upon the use and wont followed in the matter by the Greek population of the city in the sixteenth century. If this is really the case, no evidence can be more decisive on the question at issue. Use and wont in respect to the name of a conspicuous public gate, in a much-frequented part of the city, constitutes an irrefutable argument, provided that use and wont goes far enough back in the history of the entrance. In that case, Ducas would be convicted of having mistaken the gate to which the chain was attached, and all the importance which he ascribes to the Horaia Pylè, in his account of the actions of friends and foes along the shores of the city, is only the consistent following up of that error. For any gate to which the chain was supposed, however erroneously, to have been affixed would be represented in the narrative of subsequent events as the point about which the assault and the defence of the sea-board turned, although the gate was not situated where it could, naturally, have sustained that character.

Now, according to Gyllius, [805] the gate anciently styled the Gate of the Neorion was called in his day Tchifout Kapoussi (“Hebrew Gate”) by the Turks, and Horaia Pylè by the Greeks, as a matter of common practice. The brief statement of Gerlach [806] that the second gate west of the Seraglio Point was named at once the Beautiful Gate and the Jewish Gate implies that these were the names of the gate in current use. Leunclavius [807] puts the facts in a somewhat different light. According to him, the common designation of the entrance was “Huræa” (Ebraia, “Hebrew Gate”), and it was only when the Greeks of the city wished to show themselves better acquainted with the truth on the subject that they claimed for the gate the epithet “Horaia.”

This may, perhaps, excite the suspicion that the application of the epithet “Horaia” to the Gate of the Neorion, in the sixteenth century, was due to the fact that it was then known also as the Hebrew Gate (Ebraia). But, on the whole, the more probable view is that the epithet was correctly applied, and, consequently, that Ducas, who was not present at the siege, is mistaken in associating the chain with the Beautiful Gate.

In the charters defining the privileges granted to the Genoese colony in Constantinople during the twelfth century, mention is made of a “Porta Bonu” and a “Porta Veteris Rectoris.” [808] As both were associated with the Scala, or Pier, at the service of that colony, they were doubtless the same gate under different names; the former appellation designating it by the proper name of the officer connected in some way with the entrance, the latter by his official title. Nothing is known concerning the Rector Bonus; the name and title are at once Byzantine and Italian. Now, the Genoese quarter in the twelfth century lay to the east of the Gate of the Neorion, and consequently the Porta Bonu, or Porta Veteris Rectoris, must be sought in that direction. It stood, probably, where Sirkedji Iskelessi is now situated.

Near this gate must have been the Scala Chalcedonensis and the Portus Prosphorianus, which the Notitia places in the Fifth Region. [809] The former, as its name implies, was the pier frequented by boats plying between the city and Chalcedon; it is mentioned twice, as the point at which relics were landed in solemn state to be carried thence to St. Sophia. [810]

The Portus Prosphorianus [811] was in the bay which once indented the shore immediately to the east of the Gate of Bonus, where the line of the city walls described a deep curve. The name is probably derived from the word Πρόσφορον, and denoted that the harbour was the resort of the craft which brought products from the country to the markets of the city. [812] The harbour was also called the Phosphorion, as though associated with the sudden illumination of the heavens which saved the city from capture by Philip of Macedon. But its most common designation was τὸ Βοσπόριον, ὁ Βοόσπορος, ὁ Βόσπορος, probably because the point to which cattle were ferried across from Asia. The cattle-market was held here until the reign of Constantine Copronymus, who transferred it to the Forum of Taurus; [813] here also stood warehouses for the storage of oil, and granaries, such as the Horrea Olearia, Horrea Troadensia, Horrea Valentiaca and Horrea Constantiaca. [814] The granaries were inspected annually by the emperor. [815] According to Demosthenes, the three statues erected by Byzantium and Perinthus in honour of Athens for the aid rendered against Philip of Macedon were set up at the Bosporus. [816] But it is not certain whether the great orator used the name in a general sense, or with special reference to this port. The great fire in the fifth year of Leo I. started in the market near this harbour, through the carelessness of a woman who left a lighted candle on a stall at which she had bought some salt fish. [817]

We reach, next, the last gate in the line of the Harbour Walls, the Gate of Eugenius (Πόρτα τοῦ Εὐγενίου), represented now by Yali Kiosk Kapoussi. Its identity is established by the following indications. It marked the eastern extremity of the fortifications along the Golden Horn, [818] as the Xylo Porta marked their western terminus. Hence, the ditch constructed by Cantacuzene in front of those fortifications is described as extending from the Gate of Eugenius to the Gate Xylinè. [819] In the next place, the gate was close to the head of the promontory, or Acropolis, for ships outward bound rounded the promontory soon after passing the gate, while incoming ships passed the gate soon after rounding the promontory. [820] Again, the Church of St. Paul which stood near the gate is described, as situated in the quarter of the Acropolis, at the opening of the harbour. [821] This is consistent with the fact that the gate was at a point from which St. Sophia could be easily reached. [822]

Eugenius, after whom the gate, the adjacent tower, and the neighbouring district were named, [823] was probably a distinguished proprietor in this part of the city. The gate bore an inscription commemorating repairs executed by a certain Julian; [824] possibly, Julian who was Prefect of the City in the reign of Zeno, when Constantinople was shaken by a severe earthquake.

There is reason to believe that besides its ordinary designation this gate bore also, at one time, the name Marmora Porta; for certain ecclesiastical documents of the year 1399 and the year 1441 speak of an entrance in the quarter of Eugenius, under the name Marmora Porta, Μαρμαροπόρτα ἐν τῇ ἐνορίᾳ τοῦ Εὐγενίου. [825]

The Scala Timasii, so named after Timasius, a celebrated general in the reign of Arcadius, was in the Fourth Region, [826] and must therefore have been a pier near the Gate of Eugenius.

At this entrance it was customary for the bride-elect of an emperor to land, upon reaching the capital by sea; here she was received in state by her future consort, and having been invested with the Imperial buskins and other insignia of her rank, was conducted on horseback to the palace. [827] But what lends most interest to the gate is the fact that beside it rose the tower which held the southern end of the chain drawn across the harbour in time of war. [828] Originally, the building, styled Kentenarion (Κεντενάριον), was a stately structure, but after its overthrow by an earthquake, Theophilus restored it as an ordinary tower. [829] The chain was supported in the water by wooden floats, [830] and its northern end was made fast to a tower in the fortifications of Galata, known as the Tower of Galata, “Le Tour de Galatas.” [831] According to Gyllius, the gate near that tower was called Porta Catena, [832] but, unfortunately, he does not indicate its precise position. From the nature of the case, however, it must have been near Kiretch Kapoussi, directly opposite the Gate of Eugenius. [833]

Portion of the Chain Stretched Across the Entrance of the Golden Horn in 1453.

Portion of the Chain Stretched Across the Entrance of the Golden Horn in 1453.

The employment of a chain to bar the entrance of the Golden Horn is mentioned for the first time in the famous siege of the city by the Saracens in 717-718, when the Emperor Leo lowered the chain with the hope of tempting the enemy’s ships into the narrow waters of the harbour. [834] It appears next in the reign of Michael II., who thereby endeavoured, but in vain, to keep out the fleet with which his rival Thomas attacked the city. [835] It was again employed by Nicephorus Phocas, in expectation of a Russian descent into the Bosporus. [836] The Venetians found it obstructing their path when they stood before Constantinople in 1203, but removed it after capturing the Tower of Galata, to which it was secured. [837] Finally, in 1453, it proved too strong for Sultan Mehemet to force, and drove him to devise the expedient of carrying his ships into the Golden Horn across the hills to Cassim Pasha. [838] A portion of the chain used on the last occasion is preserved in the Church of St. Irene, within the Seraglio grounds.

In the district of Eugenius were some of the most noted charitable institutions of the city, among which the great Orphanage [839] and the Hospitia, [840] built on the site of the old Stadium of Byzantium by Justinian the Great and Theodora, for the free accommodation of poor strangers, were conspicuous. There, also, stood the Church of St. Michael and the Church of St. Paul. [841]