NOTE.

According to Leonard of Scio (p. 920), the distance over which the Turkish ships were conveyed was seventy stadia, “ad stadia septuaginta trahi biremes.” This statement involves so many questions which are difficult, if not impossible, to decide, that it affords no assistance in determining where the ships crossed the hills. The archbishop’s account of the Sultan’s action is given in the following words: “Quare ut coangustaret circumvalleratque magis urbem, jussit invia æquare; exque colle, suppositis lenitis vasis lacertorum sex, ad stadia septuaginta trahi biremes, quæ ascensu gravius sublatæ, posthac ex apice in declivum, in ripam sinus levissime introrsum vehebantur.”

Now, if the “seventy stadia” in this passage are to be understood in the ordinary sense of the words, the route taken by the ships was over eight English miles in length. But from no point between Top Haneh and Beshiktash is the distance to the Golden Horn, across the hills, so great. Hence the language of Leonard has been variously interpreted, in the hope of bringing it into accord with what his commentators deemed the real facts in the case. Dethier, in his annotations to Zorzo Dolfin (Siège de Constantinople, No. xxii. p. 998), maintains that the numeral seventy gives the number of the ships transported over the hills, and not the length of the road tranversed: “Non sono 70 stadia, ma 70 galere o fuste.” Charles Müller, the editor of Critobulus, referring to the statement of Leonard, expresses the same opinion as Dethier, and thinks that the number for the stadia has dropped out of the text of Leonard: “Stadiorum numerus excedisse videtur, nam septuaginta vox ad navium numerum, quem eundem etiam Chalcocondylas, p. 387, 8 præbet, referenda est” (Fragm. Hist. Græc. p. 87). Another possible view is that the number seventy is due to an error in the text. Or, finally, it may be supposed that Leonard employed the term “stadium” in a peculiar sense. One presumption in favour of this supposition is the fact that elsewhere in his epistle, the measurements of Leonard by stadia seem too gross mistakes to be made by such a man as the archbishop, with the ordinary idea of a stadium in his mind. The bridge, for example, which the Sultan built at Haskeui, to bring his cannon closer to the Harbour Walls, and which Phrantzes (p. 252) says was one hundred ortygia long, or one stadium, Leonard (p. 931) represents as about thirty stadia in length, i.e., according to the ordinary computation, between three and four miles in length, where the harbour is not half a mile wide. Again, Leonard (p. 970) speaks of the Turkish fleet as anchoring at a point less than one hundred stadia from the shore of the Propontis: “Minus ad stadia centum Propontidis ripa anchoras figunt”—a statement which, if it refers to the distance of Beshiktash from the Seraglio Point, would make that part of the Bosporus about ten miles broad! It should also be added that Charles Müller thinks that the stadium of the later Byzantine writers was one-third less than the Olympic stadium: “Adeo ut stadium tertia parte minus quam vetus stadium Olympicum subesse videri possit” (Fragm. Hist. Græc., v. p. 76). Du Cange (Glossarium Med. et Infim. Latinitatis) says, respecting the use of the term “stadium” by mediæval writers, “Mensuræ species, sed ignota prorsus.”

Zorzo Dolfin translates the account which Leonard gives of the ships’ passage across the hills, as follows: “Et per coangustar, et circumuallar piu la terra, commando, fusse spianato le uie, et sopra i colli messi in terra i uasi a forza de brazze ... per 70 stadia che sono circa miglia ... introdusse le fuste nel mandrachio, le qual per ... miglia con fatica se tiranno in suxo” (Dethier, Siège de Constantinople, No. xxii. p. 997). If the number of miles had been given, or had not disappeared, how much discussion would have been spared!