The defences of Constantinople—Adrianople and its history—The walls of Constantinople and their story—The Marble Tower—Yedi Koulé and the Golden Gate—Tales of Theodosius and Maximus, St. Ursula and the eleven thousand maidens—Emperor Heraclius—The story of Basil the Macedonian—King Crum’s appearance before the Golden Gate—Michael Pal?ologus and Mary the Conductress—The Walls of Theodosius—Refugees encamped outside the walls—The triumph of Christianity.
IN these days of effective long-range fire the defences of a capital city lie well away from and command the approaches to it. Whereas formerly hostile forces surged up against stout towers and strong walls, the enemy of to-day lets loud-voiced cannon speak from afar, hurling destruction at what look like mounds, green hills, from a distance, but when approached bristle with ordnance and small-arms. Far afield lie fortresses, each encircled with smaller forts, and these are meant to stay the tide of invasion. This was the mission of Adrianople and its enceinte of forts, Adrianople, the City of Hadrian, famous in history, for epoch-making events have taken place around it; the Goths here vanquished Valens, and their impetuous onslaught broke the ranks of Roman legions and filled the minds of those warriors with such dread of the Teuton invader that years passed before they could be induced to face the Goths again. It was Theodosius the Great who brought back their courage to them. His skilful system of block-houses kept him informed of the enemy’s vagrant movements, and by so contriving{111} that the Roman legionaries met only numerically inferior bodies of barbarians, he helped to revive the great traditions of Roman arms at least for a short space of time.
Then again when Bulgarians came pouring down the Valley of the Maritza towards Constantinople, the defenders of the Imperial City met them at Adrianople; the armies of Byzant were beaten, the Emperor slain, and his skull, encased in gold, served as a drinking-vessel to his vanquisher. The hosts of Othman, having overrun the northern European provinces of the Byzantine Empire, made for Adrianople, and the city became the European capital of the Osmanli until Constantinople fell.
To-day the City of Hadrian, the “Sperr-fort” of Constantinople, is surrounded by the enemies of the Porte, Bulgarians and Servians, and thus one of the outlying defences of the capital no longer serves its purpose, and the defence has been drawn in nearer to the lines of Chatalja. Those lines now take the place as last defence of the walls built on the landward side by Theodosius II, and improved and repaired by his successors to the Imperial Purple. They stand to-day grey and deserted, lichen-grown, clad in dark green folds of ivy, that sympathetic friend of fallen fortresses, and listen to the sounds of danger to the capital, while recalling days when they themselves held out against all foes, though earthquakes shook their stout foundations, and discord in the city seemed like to nullify their usefulness. A strange and stirring history this of those landward walls of Constantinople, and worthy of a moment’s consideration in these days, when the fate of yet another Empire, with its seat of government within those walls, is trembling in the balance.
They stretch from the Sea of Marmora northward to the Golden Horn, do those walls of Theodosius, their southern angle marked by a strong tower, a marble tower,{112} dipping its foundations deep into the pellucid waters. I saw it first on a glorious summer day, the gleaming blocks of marble of which it is built were reflected in the waters of the Sea of Marmora, beyond blue sea, or above blue sky, and between the two, floating like the Isles of the Blest on a magic sea, the Prince’s Islands, and behind them the blue hills of Asia Minor, their rugged outlines softened by the heat-haze of a summer’s day. Little white sails gleamed on the flashing waters, sails filled by some idle zephyr which carried small ships away, lazily, out into the southern seas. But, mind you, this tower has not always lived in idleness, bathing its feet in summer seas. Times were when the watchman up in this tower would see the south alive with movement and the silver path on the sea overshadowed by clouds of sail. Swiftly they came, those strange craft from out of the south, bearing bronzed sons of Arabia to storm the City of C?sar. Twice they came, in 668 and again from 716-718, but their efforts were unavailing, and the groves of cypress trees mark their last resting-place.
The Marble Tower served its purpose well in those ancient days, over which distance has cast its glamour. To-day the Marble Tower stands silent, lifeless, by the side of a leaden sea; passing squalls hide the view to southward and over the Islands towards the mountains of Asia Minor, and a grey sky, heavy with rain, hangs like a pall over the City and this corner of its ancient defences. The Marble Tower’s part in history is long since played out, and now it listens silently, helpless, to the distant booming of cannon before which it would fall like those castles of dreamland at cock-crow; ruined it stands mourning the ruin which overtakes the kingdoms of this world.
A little further northward stands yet another memorable monument to former greatness, Yedi Koulé and the{113} “Golden Gate.” Several ruined towers raise their heads above the broken walls from among groups of little wooden houses. They and the curtains which connect them once formed a stronghold built by Mohammed II on the ruins of a former castle. This was for a time the chief garrison of the Janissaries, and a state prison wherein the Sultans were wont to incarcerate the ambassadors of those foreign Powers with which they chanced to be at war, a playful habit which has been discontinued since Turkey asserted her claim to be considered a civilized nation. The Janissaries also kept their own prisoners here, generally dethroned Sultans, whom they killed here at their leisure and free from outside interference.
A strong fortress stood here, raised by a strong man, Theodosius, in the young days of ancient Byzantium. It was built on to by successive Emperors, and became one of the most important centres of the City on memorable occasions, for this stronghold became known as the “Golden Gate,” the Porta Aurea, and its towering walls looked down upon great historic happenings. Without on the plain dense hosts would form into ordered procession and follow their Emperor in his triumphal entry through the gates. Under a heavy sky, festooned with sombre ivy, crumbling in its last stage of decay, the Golden Gate with difficulty recalls the glories that have passed beneath it. The Golden Gate had three archways, of which the central one was wider and loftier than the others, like those to be seen in the Roman Forum. These were dedicated to Severus and Constantine, and were closed by gilded gates taken from Mompseueste and placed here by Nicephorus Phocas after his victories in Cilicia. The gate is said to owe its origin to Theodosius the Great, who built it to commemorate his victory over Maximus. Though I thoroughly appreciate Theodosius and subscribe to all{114} his claims to greatness, I have ever been sorry for Maximus. After all, it seems, he did not really wish to rebel against Gratian and assume the Imperial Purple. Rather was he urged to it by popular opinion, the politicians of Britain having decided that he should, and the youth of Britain flocked to his standards, so Maximus was bound to move. It was a big move, too, and successful at first, for his rapid progress alarmed Gratian, who fled from Paris, his army of Gaul having gone over to Maximus. The campaign was like the migration of a nation, 30,000 fighting men and 100,000 others, and of these numbers settled in Brittany, where their descendants live to this day. To make things pleasanter, a great number of ladies set out from Britain with the intention of joining the men when the fighting was over. St. Ursula took charge of this column, 11,000 noble, 60,000 plebeian maidens, destined as brides for the settlers, but they lost their way, and when at last they got to Cologne they met the Huns and were all slaughtered. For this St. Ursula was canonized, as is only right and proper, and a beautiful window in Cologne Cathedral sets forth the whole story, giving portraits of the ladies, so that in face of evidence as conclusive as that of our half-penny illustrated dailies there is no more room for doubt. Maximus came up against Theodosius in the end, and that was the end of him.
Nearly three centuries later Heraclius, the Emperor, entered the Golden Gate in triumph after his victory over the Persians, and again a century later Constantine Copronymus followed through these golden arches after defeating the Bulgarians. They came in one long stream of conquerors in those earlier centuries of the Byzantine Emperors, names now forgotten or but dimly remembered; then awoke the “Daughter of the Arches,” as Echo was poetically called, as one hero after another was acclaimed{115} by a vainglorious mob: Theophilus, in the middle of the ninth century, he routed the Arabs. Basil I, the Macedonian—a strange story his. It was in the middle of the ninth century that a young, strong, and active, but weary and travel-stained man came over the heights beyond the Golden Gate. He entered by a side entrance close to, or part of, the Golden Gate at sunset, and being a stranger in the City with no friends to go to, he lay down to sleep on the steps of the Monastery of St. Diomed, which stood near the Golden Gate. A kindly monk extended the hospitality of the monastery to him, and the brothers helped him to find suitable employment. His good fortune led him to a cousin, in whose train Basil went to the Peloponese. Here he became acquainted with a wealthy widow, Danielis, who adopted him as her son, and helped by her wealth and by his own merits, Basil rose to high honour, and finally stepped from the body of the Emperor, killed by himself, to the steps of the throne. Years after his first entrance into Constantinople Basil I, founder of the Macedonian dynasty, moved in under the arches of the Golden Gate in triumph.
Another Basil, second of that name, rode in at the Golden Gate after his victory over the Bulgarians. The slaughter he inflicted on them gained him the appellation “Bulgaroktonos”; the memory of the cruelty he practised on his Bulgarian captives lives still in the minds of their descendants, those men whose big guns were battering at the outer defences of Constantinople, those men who would that their sovereign should enter the City as conqueror.
The Bulgarians found the road to Constantinople soon after their appearance in Eastern Europe. Clouds of dust heralded the coming of Crum, their King, with a large host amid flocks of sheep and goats. They pitched their leather tents on the slopes outside the Golden Gate and{116} laid siege to that stronghold, but all their effo............