The New Harbour[1062] (Portus Novus), known also as the Harbour of Julian[1063] (Portus Divi Juliani: Λιμὴν τοῦ Ἰουλιανοῦ), and the Harbour of Sophia,[1064] or the Sophias[1065] (Λιμὴν τῆς Σοφίας, τῶν Σοφιῶν).
About 327 yards to the west of SS. Sergius and Bacchus traces are found of an ancient harbour extending inland to the foot of the steep slope above which the Hippodrome is situated. The Turkish name for the locality, Kadriga Limani, “the Harbour of the Galleys,” is in itself an indication of the presence of an old harbour at that point. When Gyllius visited Constantinople, the port was enclosed by walls and almost filled in, but still contained a pool of water, in which the women of the district washed their clothes, and at the bottom of which, it was reported, submerged triremes could sometimes be seen.[1066]
Here, as we shall immediately find, was the site of the harbour known by the three names Portus Novus, the Harbour of Julian, the Harbour of Sophia.
The harbour obtained its first name, when newly opened in the fourth century, to distinguish it from the earlier harbours of the city; while its other names were, respectively, bestowed in honour of the Emperor Julian, the constructor of the harbour, and of the Empress Sophia, who restored it when fallen into decay.
That these three names designated the same harbour can be proved, most briefly and directly, by showing first the identity of the Portus Novus with the Harbour of Sophia, and then the identity of the latter with the Harbour of Julian.
The former point is established by the fact that the Portus Novus and the Harbour of Sophia occupied the same position; both were situated on the southern side of the city, and at the foot of the steep slope descending from the Hippodrome towards the Sea of Marmora.[1067]
The evidence for the identity of the Harbour of Sophia with that of Julian rests upon express declarations to that effect. There is, first, the statement of Leo the Grammarian[1068] that the Emperor Justin II. built the Palace of Sophia at the Harbour of Julian, and having cleaned the latter, changed its name to the Harbour of Sophia. Then, we have two passages in which Theophanes[1069] takes particular care to explain that the Harbour of Julian went also by the name of Sophia. Furthermore, both names are used to designate the scene of the same events, and the position of the same buildings. For instance; whereas the Paschal Chronicle[1070] states that the final action in the struggle between Phocas and Heraclius took place in the Harbour of Julian, John of Antioch[1071] and Cedrenus[1072] say it occurred at the Harbour of Sophia. Again, while some authors[1073] put the Residence of Probus, the district of Maurus, and the Palace of Sophia, beside the Harbour of Julian, others[1074] place them beside the Harbour of Sophia.
That the harbour known under these different names was at Kadriga Limani admits of no doubt, seeing the Portus Novus and the Harbour of Sophia were, as already intimated, at the foot of the steep ascent below the Hippodrome,[1075] where Kadriga Limani is found. Or the same conclusion may be reached by another line of argument. The Portus Juliani (identical with the Portus Novus and the Harbour of Sophia) was a large harbour on the southern side of the city,[1076] and close to the Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus.[1077] It could not, however, have stood to the east of that church, for not only are all traces of such a harbour wanting in that direction, but no large harbour could possibly have been constructed there, on account of the character of the coast. The Portus Juliani, therefore, lay to the west of SS. Sergius and Bacchus. But it could have been very near that church (the other indication of its site), only if at Kadriga Limani.
The construction of the harbour was ordered by Julian during his stay of ten months in Constantinople, on his way to the scene of war in Persia.[1078] He likewise erected beside it, for the convenience of merchants and traders frequenting the harbour, a fine crescent-shaped portico styled, from its form, the Sigma (Σίγμα);[1079] and there, also, his statue stood until 535, when it fell in an earthquake, and was replaced by a cross.[1080] In promoting such public works, Julian was actuated not only by the dictates of enlightened policy, but also by the affection he cherished for the city of his birth.[1081]
After one hundred and fifty years, the harbour was so injured by the accumulation of the sand thrown up on this coast as to call for extensive repairs; and accordingly, at the order of Anastasius I., it was, in 509, dredged, and protected by a mole.[1082]
Nevertheless, further restoration was required sixty years later, in the reign of Justin II. The work was then executed under the superintendence of Narses and the Protovestarius Troilus, at the urgent solicitation of the Empress Sophia, whose sympathies had been greatly stirred by seeing, from her palace windows, ships in distress during a violent storm on the Sea of Marmora. It was in recognition of the empress’s interest in the matter that the harbour received her name,[1083] and was adorned with her statue, as well as with the statues of Justin II., her daughter Arabia, and Narses.[1084] Owing to the improvements made on the harbour at this time, the Marine Exchange of the city was transferred to it from the Neorion on the Golden Horn.[1085] The port continued in use to the end of the Empire, and also for some sixty years after the Turkish Conquest. The entrance (now closed) was between the two large towers immediately to the west of SS. Sergius and Bacchus.
With the harbour the following historical events are associated: Here the body of St. Chrysostom was landed, and placed for a time in the neighbouring Church of St. Thomas Amantiou, when brought from the land of his exile to be entombed in the Church of the Holy Apostles.[1086] In the riot of the Nika, the Residence of Probus, which stood beside the harbour, was first searched for arms, and then set on fire by the Factions.[1087] Here Phocas placed a division of the Green Faction, to prevent the landing of troops from the fleet of Heraclius;[1088] and hither the tyrant himself was dragged from his palace, thrown into a boat, and taken to Heraclius, in whose presence he was put to death.[1089] Here Leontius, upon his appointment as Governor of the Theme of Hellas, embarked to proceed to his post; but, at the instance of his friends, landed to head the revolution which overthrew Justinian II.[1090]
Several of the great fires to which Constantinople was so liable reached this harbour. Among them was the terrible conflagration in the reign of Leo the Great, which devastated the principal quarters of the city, from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmora.[1091] The equally destructive fire of 1203, which started with the burning, by the Crusaders, of the Saracen Mosque beside the Golden Horn, near Sirkedji Iskelessi, likewise swept across the city to this point.[1092] Other fires of minor importance occurred here in 561, 863, 887, and 956.
To the list of the noted buildings and districts near the Harbour of Julian, already mentioned, may be added the Residence of Bardas, father of Nicephorus Phocas;[1093] the Residence of Isaac Sevastocrator, which was converted by Isaac Angelus into a khan or hostelry (Pandocheion), with accommodation for one hundred men and as many horses;[1094] the Churches of St. Thekla;[1095] St. Thomas, Amantiou;[1096] the Archangel Michael, of Adda (τοῦ Ἀδδᾷ);[1097] St. Julian Perdix; and St. John the Forerunner, near the Residence of Probus.[1098]
Close to the Harbour of Sophia stood a tower known as the Bukanon, or the Trumpet (τὸ Βύκανον).[1099] It was so named, according to the Anonymus,[1100] both because trumpets were kept there, and because the tower itself, being hollow, resounded like a trumpet when struck by the waves. Whenever the Imperial fleet, the same writer adds, sailed from the city, it was customary for the ships to assemble before this tower and exchange musical salutes with it; a legend, which is probably a fanciful travesty of the simple fact that the tower was a station from which the movements of vessels were directed by trumpet signals.
If the order in which the Anonymus mentions the tower, between the SS. Sergius and Bacchus and the Harbour of Sophia, indicates its actual position, the Bukanon stood on the eastern side of the harbour.
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]
According to the Notitia,[1112] Constantinople possessed a harbour called Portus Theodosianus, in the Twelfth Region of the city. As that Region comprised within its limits the shore of the Sea of Marmora at the southern base of the Seventh Hill, the Harbour of Theodosius must have been found at Vlanga Bostan, where the basin of a very ancient harbour, now filled in and converted into market-gardens, is distinctly visible.
There can be little doubt that this harbour was also the one which went by the name Harbour of Eleutherius[1113] (ὁ λιμὴν τοῦ Ἐλευθερίου): for the district of Eleutherius, and the palace of that name,[1114] were situated in the valley leading from Vlanga Bostan to Ak Serai, and the Et Meidan. The harbour at Vlanga Bostan, moreover, corresponds to the description given of the Harbour of Eleutherius by the Anonymus,[1115] who speaks of it as a very ancient harbour, situated to the west of that of Sophia, and abandoned long before his time.
If this be so, then the name Harbour of Eleutherius was its earlier designation, and the port itself was the oldest on the side of the city towards the Sea of Marmora, its construction being ascribed to a certain Eleutherius, who was present at the foundation of Constantinople.[1116] Its antiquity is supported by the aspect of its remains, for the walls enclosing it on the north are the oldest portion of the fortifications of the city, and possibly belong to the time of Constantine the Great. Here the statue of Eleutherius was erected, in the appropriate equipment of an excavator, with a spade in his hand and a basket on his back.[1117]
Tower Guarding the Harbour of Eleutherius and Theodosius.[1118]
From the fact that the harbour was called Portus Theodosianus, it is evident that it was improved by Theodosius I., to whom the city owed so many public works.
When precisely the harbour was filled in is a question not easily settled. The Anonymus declares, indeed, that this was done in the reign of Theodosius I., with the earth excavated in laying the foundations of the column of that emperor in the Forum of Taurus.[1119] But, had that been the case, the Notitia would scarcely have mentioned an abandoned harbour among the objects for which the Twelfth Region of the city was remarkable. What is certain is that the harbour was destroyed some time before the eleventh century; probably because the earth brought by the stream of the Lycus, which flows into the harbour, and the sand cast up by the sea, proved too troublesome for the maintenance of a sufficient depth of water.
The harbour measured 786 yards from east to west and 218 yards from south to north. Along its southern side, as well as along a portion of its side towards the east, it was protected by a mole twelve feet thick, carefully constructed of masonry, and extending from the Gate of St. Æmilianus (Daoud Pasha Kapoussi) eastwards for about 436 yards, and then northwards for 327 yards more.[1120] Upon the greater portion of the mole, walls were constructed for the military defence of the harbour.
The entrance was at the north-eastern end, between the head of the mole and the site of the Gate Yeni Kapou, the opening through which the Roumelian Railway now runs, and was guarded by a tower built at a short distance out in the sea.[1121]
Portion of the Wall Around the Harbour of Eleutherius and Theodosius.[1122]
As stated already, the adjacent quarter was called the quarter of Eleutherius (τὰ τοῦ Ἐλευθερίου). It is mentioned under that name in 1203, as the farthest point reached by the great fire which then devastated the city through the folly of the Crusaders.[1123] The present name of the quarter, Vlanga, appears first in the eleventh century, as the designation of the residence of Andronicus Comnenus in this part of the city (οἶκος ὅς τοῦ Βλάγγα ἐπικέκληται),[1124] and it is the name by which writers subsequent to the Restoration of the Greek Empire refer to the district.[1125]
In the vicinity stood the Palace of the Empress Irene,[1126] the unnatural mother of Constantine VI., in which Basil II. entertained the Legates of Pope Hadrian II.[1127]
The Church of St. Panteleemon, erected by Theodora the wife of Justinian the Great, on the site of her humble dwelling when a poor woman earning her bread by spinning wool[1128] and the district of Narses (τὰ Ναρσοῦ)[1129] were in this neighbourhood; so also was the district of Canicleius (τὰ Κανικλείου), where the emperor landed when proceeding to pay his annual visit to that church.[1130] The modern Greek church of St. Theodore, to the south of Boudroum Djamissi (Myrelaion), marks, Dr. Mordtmann[1131] suggests, the district of Claudius (τὰ Κλαυδίου).
Another harbour on this side of the city was the Harbour of the Golden Gate (ὁ λιμὴν τῆς Χρυσῆς),[1132] in the bay to the west of the entrance of that name. This is implied in the statement of Ducas, that during the siege of 1453 the right wing of the Turkish army extended southwards from the Gate of St. Romanus to the Harbour of the Golden Gate.[1133]
On the occasion of a triumph celebrating a victorious campaign in Asia Minor, the harbour presented an animated scene; for the spoils and prisoners which were to figure in the procession, were ferried across from Chrysopolis, and landed at this point, to be marshalled on the plain before the Golden Gate.[1134]
It was off this point that the Turkish fleet, in 1453, waited to intercept the five gallant ships, which brought provisions to the city from the island of Scio, and which forced their way to the Golden Horn, notwithstanding all the efforts of 305 vessels of the Sultan to capture them.[1135]
Before concluding this account of the city harbours on the Sea of Marmora, a point of some importance remains to be settled.
Byzantine historians speak of the Harbour of Kaisarius, and of the Neorion at the Heptascalon, on the southern shore of the city. Now, as traces of an additional harbour to those already mentioned, on this side of the city, may be disputed, the question presents itself: Have the Harbour of Kaisarius and the Neorion at the Heptascalon disappeared, or were they one or other of the harbours already identified?
The Harbour of Kaisarius (Λιμὴν τοῦ Καισαρείου) is mentioned for the first time in the Acts of the Fifth General Council of Constantinople,[1136] held in 553, under Justinian the Great. Near it, we are there informed, stood the Residence of Germanus: “In domo Germani, prope portum Cæsarii.” The harbour is mentioned for the last time by Cedrenus,[1137] in what is manifestly a quotation from Theophanes.[1138] Beside it stood a district,[1139] and a palace,[1140] known respectively as the District and the Palace of Kaisarius (ἐν τοῖς Καισαρείου: κυράτωρ τῶν Καισαρείου); the latter being probably the residence of Germanus above mentioned.
After whom the harbour was named is uncertain. Du Cange[1141] suggests three persons from whom the designation may have been derived: Kaisarius, Prefect of the City under Valentinian; Kaisarius, Prætorian Prefect under Theodosius I.; and Kaisarius, a personage of some note in the reign of Leo I. If the choice lies between these persons, the preference must be given to the last; for the Notitia, which describes the city in the reign of Theodosius II., makes no mention of this harbour. In all probability, therefore, the Harbour of Kaisarius was constructed towards the close of the fifth century.
That it stood on the Sea of Marmora is evident; first, from its association with the Harbours of Julian and of Hormisdas, as one of the points at which the tyrant Phocas placed troops to prevent the landing of Heraclius on the southern side of the city;[1142] and secondly, from the fact that it was there that Constantine Pogonatus, in 673, placed his ships, armed with the newly invented tubes for squirting Greek fire, to await the Saracen fleet coming up against the city from the Ægean.[1143]
Passing next to the Neorion at the Heptascalon, we find that the term “Heptascalon” is employed by Byzantine writers only in two connections: first, and then generally in the corrupt form Πασχάλῳ or Πασκάλῳ, it serves to mark the site of a church dedicated to St. Acacius; the earliest writer who uses it for that purpose being Constantine Porphyrogenitus,[1144] in his biography of Basil I., by whom the church was restored: secondly, Cantacuzene[1145] employs the phrase to indicate the situation of the harbour now under discussion.
In 1351 Cantacuzene[1146] found the harbour in a very unsatisfactory condition. Owing to the sand which had accumulated in it for many years, it could hardly float a ship laden with cargo; and accordingly, in pursuance of his policy to develop the naval resources of the Empire, he caused the harbour to be dredged at much labour and expense, to the great convenience of public business. So extensive was the work of restoration that in one passage the harbour is styled the New Neorion.[1147]
Du Cange,[1148] misled by the fact that a Church of St. Acacius was found in the Tenth Region—one of the Regions on the northern side of the city—has classed the Neorion at the Heptascalon among the harbours on the Golden Horn. But to identify a site in Byzantine Constantinople by means of a church alone is a precarious proceeding, for churches of the same dedication were to be found in different quarters of the city. This, Du Cange[1149] himself admits, was possible in the case before us; since, besides the Church of St. Acacius at the Heptascalon, writers speak of a Church of St. Acacius ad Caream (Ἐν τῇ Καρύᾳ), and the identity of the two sanctuaries cannot be assumed. But the existence of a second church dedicated to St. Acacius is not a mere possibility. According to Antony of Novgorod,[1150] there was a church of that dedication also on the southern side of the city, not far from the Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus. The Neorion at the Heptascalon may, therefore, have been on the Sea of Marmora.
And that it was there, as a matter of fact, is evident from the statements made regarding that harbour by Cantacuzene and Nicephorus Gregoras, in their account of the naval engagement fought in the Bosporus in 1351, between a Genoese fleet on the one hand, and the Greeks, supported by Venetian and Spanish ships, on the other.
Upon coming up from the Ægean to take part in the war, the Venetians and the Spaniards, says the former historian,[1151] anchored off the Prince’s Island, to rest their crews after the hardships of the winter. There they remained three days. Then, quitting their moorings, the two allies made for the Neorion at the Heptascalon, or, as it is also styled, the Neorion of the Byzantines (τὸ Βυζαντίων νεώριον),[1152] to join the Imperial fleet which was stationed there, all ready for action, and awaiting their arrival. Meanwhile, the Genoese admiral, with seventy ships, had taken up his position at Chalcedon (Kadikeui), to watch and oppose the movements of the allied squadrons. The wind was blowing a gale from the south, and though the Venetians and Spaniards had started for the Heptascalon very early in the morning, it was with the utmost difficulty, and late in the afternoon, that they succeeded in crossing from the island to the city. Even at the last moment they narrowly escaped destruction, by being dashed to pieces against the boulders scattered along the foot of the walls as a breakwater.
The Byzantine admiral, encouraged by the arrival of his allies, then sallied forth from the Heptascalon, and led the way towards the Genoese ships at Chalcedon. The latter, finding it impossible to make head against the wind, retired towards Galata, and skilfully entrenched themselves among the shoals and rocks off Beshiktash, preferring to be attacked in that advantageous situation.[1153] The allies came on, and a desperate conflict, partly on the water, partly on the rocks, ensued, until night parted the combatants without a decisive victory on either side.
With this narrative of Cantacuzene in view, no one familiar with the vicinity of Constantinople can doubt for a moment that the Neorion at the Heptascalon was upon the Sea of Marmora. The single circumstance that the walls in the neighbourhood of the harbour were protected by boulders placed in the sea as a breakwater is alone sufficient to prove the fact; for only the walls bordering the Sea of Marmora were defended in that manner. Equally conclusive is the circumstance that the Venetian and Spanish ships found it difficult to make the harbour from the Prince’s Island with a strong south wind on their left. Such a wind would drive them towards the Bosporus with a violence that would render it almost impossible for them to put into any port on the Marmora shore of the city. Nor is it less decisive to find, as the historian’s account makes perfectly clear, that the harbour was so situated; that the approach to it, and possible shipwrecks at its entrance, could be observed by the Genoese admiral stationed off Chalcedon; that an enemy at Chalcedon found it hard to advance towards the Heptascalon in a strong south wind; and that vessels proceeding from the harbour to Galata could, on the way, touch at Chalcedon. These facts hold true only of a harbour on the Sea of Marmora.
This conclusion, based on the narrative of Cantacuzene, is corroborated by the indications which Nicephorus Gregoras[1154] furnishes regarding the site of the Neorion. The events which transpired, according to the former historian, at the Neorion at the Heptascalon, or the Neorion of the Byzantines, took place, according to the latter, in the Harbour of the Byzantines, or, more definitely, “the Harbour of the Byzantines facing the east” (τοῦ τῶν Βυζαντίων λιμένος, τοῦ πρὸς ἒω βλέποντος).[1155] That the expression “facing the east” denoted the shore of the city facing the Sea of Marmora and the Asiatic coast is manifest, from the use which Nicephorus Gregoras makes of that expression in other passages of his work. The Golden Gate, which stands near the Sea of Marmora, on what would generally be described as the southern shore of the city, stood, according to him, near the city’s eastern shore.[1156] Again, the gale from the south, which damaged the city fortifications along the Sea of Marmora in the year 1341, assailed, he says, the eastern walls of the capital.[1157] This way of speaking, if not strictly accurate, is justified by the fact that extensive portions of the city beside the Sea of Marmora face east or south-east.
Nor is this all. The harbour in question, adds Nicephorus Gregoras,[1158] stood where the walls of the city were protected by boulders; ships issuing from it, in a south wind, could readily make the Bosporus;[1159] while ships proceeding from the Bosporus to the harbour passed Chalcedon on the left, and could be watched from Chalcedon, upon their arrival at their destination.[1160]
Such facts, we repeat, hold good only of a harbour situated on the shore of the city beside the Sea of Marmora.
It being thus proved that the Harbour of Kaisarius and the Neorion at the Heptascalon were situated on the Marmora side of the city, we return to the question, whether they have disappeared, or were different names for one or other of the harbours already identified.
So far as room for harbours additional to those already identified is concerned, such room could be found only in the level ground at the foot of the Third Hill, extending from the Kontoscalion at Koum Kapoussi to the Harbour of Theodosius at Vlanga, points some 910 yards apart. An additional harbour elsewhere was impossible, owing to the character of the coast. Accordingly, if the Harbour of Kaisarius and the Neorion at the Heptascalon cannot be identified with one or other of the well-known harbours on the Sea of Marmora, they must have been situated between Koum Kapoussi and Vlanga.
So far as the Harbour of Kaisarius is concerned, it could not have been another name for the Harbour of the Bucoleon, or the Harbour of Julian and Sophia, or the Harbour of the Golden Gate. For, as John of Antioch[1161] makes perfectly clear in his account of the defence of the city by Phocas against Heraclius, the Harbour of Kaisarius was situated in the same general district as the two former harbours, and to the west of them. Nor can the Harbour of Kaisarius be identified with the Harbour of Theodosius, inasmuch as the latter had been filled in and abandoned[1162] before the reigns of Phocas and Constantine IV., in the seventh century, when the Harbour of Kaisarius was still one of the principal ports on the southern coast of the city.[1163]
The Harbour of Kaisarius must, therefore, have been either the Kontoscalion, at Koum Kapoussi, or another harbour between that gate and Vlanga. To suppose that it was the Kontoscalion, under an earlier name, is possible, since the name Kontoscalion, we have seen,[1164] appears for the first time in the eleventh century. Still the circumstance that a fire which started beside the Harbour of Kaisarius extended to the Forum of the Ox (ἕως τοῦ Βοός),[1165] situated at Ak Serai far up the valley that runs northwards from Yeni Kapou, suggests a situation nearer Vlanga.
Turning, next, to the Neorion at the Heptascalon, it could, obviously, not be the Harbour of the Bucoleon, attached to the Imperial Palace; nor the Harbour of the Golden Gate, which was beyond the city limits; nor the Harbour of Theodosius, which had been filled in long before the reign of Cantacuzene, and which in 1400 and 1422, dates respectively not fifty and seventy years after that emperor’s reign, is described as a garden.[1166] The Neorion at the Heptascalon, therefore, must have been either the Harbour of Julian and Sophia, or the Kontoscalion, or an additional harbour between Koum Kapoussi and Vlanga. One objection to the first supposition is that the Harbour of Julian and Sophia was so notoriously known under its own special name, that reference to it by another designation is extremely improbable. Another objection is that the indications respecting the site of St. Acacius at the Heptascalon, however vague their character, furnish no ground for believing that the church stood in the vicinity of the Harbour of Julian and Sophia, but support, rather, the opinion that it stood in the neighbourhood of Boudroum Djamissi, in the quarter of Laleli Hamam, situated to the north-west of Koum Kapoussi.[1167]
The supposition that the Neorion at the Heptascalon was the same as the Kontoscalion is open to objections equally, if not more, serious. The identity of the two harbours is inconsistent with the fact that the two names occur in the writings of the same author, Cantacuzene,[1168] in the same section of his work, in passages not widely separated and treating of kindred matters, without the slightest hint that under the different names he refers to the same thing. The natural impression made by the use of the two names in such a way is that they denote different things. Then, there is an opposition between the respective meanings of the two names, which makes their application to the same object incompatible; a harbour distinguished by a short pier cannot also be a harbour distinguished by seven piers. In the next place, the different accounts which Cantacuzene gives of the condition of the two harbours in his reign imply that he is not speaking of the same port. He refers to the Kontoscalion,[1169] in 1348, without a note of disparagement, as a harbour in which he constructed several large triremes for the increase of his fleet; while he describes the Neorion at the Heptascalon,[1170] only three years later, as a harbour which had long been neglected, which was full of silt, and which he restored at great expense, for the public advantage, on a scale which entitled it to be styled the New Neorion.[1171]
And just as all that Cantacuzene states regarding the two harbours implies that they were different, so does the language of Nicephorus Gregoras. When the latter writer alludes to the Kontoscalion, he describes it as the harbour near the Hippodrome;[1172] when he alludes to the Neorion at the Heptascalon, he describes it as the harbour facing the east.[1173] Different marks are generally employed to distinguish different objects.[1174] This being so, the unavoidable conclusion is that the Neorion at the Heptascalon was a harbour situated between Koum Kapoussi and Yeni Kapou, the only possible situation for an additional harbour.
We should feel obliged to insist upon this conclusion, even in the absence of any remains of a harbour in the situation indicated. Our task, however, is not so arduous; for manifest traces of such a harbour have been identified. In the first place, traces of a harbour in the district above mentioned came to view in 1819, and were then officially noted by so competent an authority as the Patriarch Constantius.[1175] In that year a great fire burned down a large part of the Turkish quarter near Yeni Kapou—Tulbenkdji Djamissi—and brought to light a portion of an ancient circular enclosure around that quarter. The discovery excited considerable attention, and the patriarch was specially instructed by the Turkish Government of the day to examine the wall and report the result of his investigations. Accompanied by two distinguished members of the Greek community, the prelate proceeded to the scene of the conflagration, and found a wall built of huge blocks of stone, about seven feet long, four and a half feet wide, and over a foot thick. The stones were carefully hewn and placed in three tiers; the blocks in the two lower tiers being the ordinary limestone found on the banks of the Bosporus, while the blocks in the highest row were of marble from the Island of Marmora. The territory enclosed by the wall presented the appearance of a great hollow which had been filled in, since the Turkish Conquest, and raised to afford ground for building. All that the patriarch saw convinced him that he stood upon the site of one of the ancient harbours of the city. The wall has disappeared, as the excellent building material it provided rendered natural. But other remains of a harbour at this point, the complement of those discovered by the patriarch, have been recognized, and can, to some extent, be still distinguished.
Off the shore in front of the territory enclosed by the wall described above is a mole formed with boulders (marked “Molotrümmer” on Stolpe’s map of the city), similar to the mole before the old harbour at Koum Kapoussi. At a point about half-way between Koum Kapoussi and Yeni Kapou, there is a wide gap in this mole, dividing it in two unequal parts, and forming a passage through it. The shore[1176] opposite the gap was, until the construction of a quay in 1870 for the Roumelian railroad, a sandy beach extending back to the foot of the city walls. The portion of the walls at the rear of the beach was, however, not Byzantine; but a piece of Turkish work[1177] inserted between the Byzantine walls on either hand to close an opening which gave admittance to the area occupied by the quarter of Tulbenkdji Djamissi.
Here, accordingly, we have traces of all that constitutes a harbour: its mole, its entrance, its basin and enclosure, indicating where the Neorion at the Heptascalon, which the language of Cantacuzene and Nicephorus Gregoras obliges us to distinguish from the Kontoscalion, was probably situated. At this point, it seems reasonable to think, stood also the Harbour of Kaisarius, if we may judge from the circumstance that a fire which originated at that harbour extended up the valley from Vlanga to Ak Serai.[1178]
In the opinion of the Patriarch Constantius,[1179] indeed, the harbour discovered in 1819 was the Kontoscalion. The statement of Pachymeres[1180] and Bondelmontius,[1181] that the Kontoscalion was near Vlanga, cannot, perhaps, be held to lend much countenance to this supposition, for in view of the short distance between Vlanga and Koum Kapoussi, the Kontoscalion might be thus described, although situated in front of the latter. But what presents a most serious consideration in favour of the patriarch’s opinion is the fact that the wall which he examined answered exactly to the description of the wall with which Michael Palæologus enclosed the Kontoscalion.
That emperor, according to Pachymeres,[1182] surrounded the Kontoscalion with very large stones; and closed the entrance in the stones with iron gates (Ὥστε γυρῶσαι μὲν μεγίσταις πέτραις τὸν κύκλῳ τόπον, ... πύλας δ᾽ ἐπιθεῖναι ἀραρυίας ἐκ σιδήρου τῇ ἐν ταῖς πέτραις εἰσίθμη ἔξωθεν).
No language could describe better the enclosure of large blocks discovered in 1819; while the expression “the entrance in the stones” applies admirably to the gap in the mole which protected the harbour. Nothing of the kind is found at the harbour before Koum Kapoussi, which lay within a mole and a great curve of the ordinary city walls. This, it must be admitted, is an exceedingly strong argument in support of the patriarch’s contention. On the other hand, we have seen how strong also are the arguments in favour of the view that the Kontoscalion stood at Koum Kapoussi.[1183] Perhaps the solution of the difficulty is found in the supposition that while the name Kontoscalion strictly belonged to the harbour at Koum Kapoussi, it was sometimes applied also to other harbours in the vicinity, because the name of the most important member of the group.
The Patriarch Constantius, our sole informant on the subject, refers to this discovery twice; first, in his work on Ancient and Modern Constantinople (Κωνσταντινιὰς Παλαιὰ τε καὶ Νεωτέρα), published in 1844; secondly, in a letter, dated April 12, 1852, which is found in the collection of his minor works (Συγγραφαὶ αἱ Ἐλάσσωνες), and which was addressed to Mr. Scarlatus Byzantius, upon the publication of that gentleman’s work on the history and antiquities of the city. In that letter the patriarch corrects several mistakes made in his own work on the same subject, and gives additional information on other points.
The earlier reference to the discovery is brief, and when viewed in the light of the later statements, altogether misleading. It occurs in the paragraph upon Koum Kapoussi, the ancient Gate of Kontoscalion (English translation, p. 21; Greek original, p. 30). After expressing the opinion that the Neorion of the Kontoscalion stood at that gate, and quoting the description which Pachymeres gives of the wall around the harbour, the reverend author adds: “A portion of this circular enclosure appeared in 1819, consisting of three layers of very large stones placed one upon the other” (Ἕν μέρος δὲ τούτου τοῦ κυκλικοῦ περιφράγματος τοῦ λιμένος ἀνεφάνη τῷ 1819 ἔτει, συνιστάμενον ἐκ τριῶν θέσεων παμμεγίστων ἀλλεπαλλήλων πετρῶν).
There can be but one meaning to this language, namely, that the enclosure referred to stood beside the harbour at Koum Kapoussi. But the difficulty with this language has always been how to make it coincide with the facts in the case. For, as already intimated, the enclosure around the harbour at Koum Kapoussi is almost intact, and consists of the ordinary walls of the city at their usual elevation. There has never been room at that point for another enclosure such as the patriarch describes. But his later, and, fortunately, fuller statements (Συγγραφαὶ αἱ Ἐλάσσωνες, pp. 443, 444) make the matter clear, although, at the same time, they convict the patriarch of inaccuracy in his first statement, so far as the locality of the discovery is concerned. According to the patriarch’s letter, the locality in question was not at Koum Kapoussi, but between that gate and the gate Yeni Kapou of Vlanga, and nearer to the latter entrance than to the former. This fact is confirmed by the additional indication that the discovery was made in a Turkish quarter; for the only Turkish quarter near the shore between Kadriga Limani, on the east of Koum Kapoussi, and Daoud Pasha Kapoussi, on the west of Vlanga, is the quarter of Tulbenkdji Djamissi near Yeni Kapou. But to render all doubt as to the situation of the locality impossible, the route taken to reach it is minutely described; the patriarch and his friends passed first through Kadriga Limani and the parishes of St. Kyriakè and St. Elpis; then they went beyond Koum Kapoussi itself, and, keeping within the line of the walls, proceeded to the neighbourhood of the gate of Yeni Kapou at Vlanga, where the wall had come to light. These particulars are, indeed, at variance with the statement found in Ancient and Modern Constantinople, but as they constitute the patriarch’s clearest and fullest declarations on the point at issue, and are made in a letter correcting mistakes in his former work, they have been adopted as his most authoritative statements. The subject being important and the patriarch’s letter but little known, the passages bearing most directly upon the question are here appended: Περὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν Προποντίδα λιμένος, περὶ οὗ σημειοῦμεν ἐν τῷ ἡμετέρῳ Συγγράμματι, τοῦ παρὰ Μιχαὴλ τοῦ Παλαιολόγου κατασκευασθέντος, αὐτὸς κεῖται ἐν τῷ μέσῳ τῆς Πύλης Κοντοσκαλίου (Κοὺμ-καπουσοῦ) καὶ τῆς τοῦ Γενὶ-καπουσοῦ τῆς Βλάγκας, καὶ ὑπῆρχε, διὰ τὸ ἀσφαλέστερον, ἔνδον τῶν παραλίων τειχῶν κατεσκευασμενος. ... Ἀλλ᾽ ὅλου τοῦ μέρους, ἐν ᾦ ὁ τοῦ Παλαιολόγου ἔκειτο, κατοικουμενου ὑπὸ Ὀθωμανῶν, κατὰ τὸ 1819 ἔτος πυρπολυθέντος, ἀνεφάνη τὸ τοῦ λιμένος τούτου κυκλικὸν περίφραγμα, κατὰ τὸν Παχυμέρην, γεγυρωμένον ἐκ τριῶν ἀλλεπαλλήλως τεθειμένων μεγάλων πετρῶν, εἰργασμένων ὡς πλακῶν, ἐχουσῶν μῆκος μὲν τριῶν πήχεων, εὖρος δὲ δύω, καὶ βάθος ἡμίσειαν, τῶν μὲν δύω κάτωθεν ἀλλεπαλλήλων πλακῶν ἐκ πετρῶν τοῦ Βοσπόρου, λευκομελανοχρόων, τῆς δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν τρίτης σειρᾶς καὶ ἀνωτέρας, ἐκ μαρμάρων ἰσομέτρων Προκονησίων. He then refers to the order received from the Government to investigate the discovery, and mentions the persons who accompanied him on that errand; after which he continues thus: Διήλθομεν δὲ τὸ Κάτεργα-λιμὰν, τὰς ἐνορίας Ἁγίας Κυριακῆς καὶ Ἐλπίδος, παρήλθομεν τὸ Κοὺμ-καπουσοῦ, καὶ προεχωρήσαμεν ἔχοντες ἀριστερόθεν τὰ παράλια τείχη ἔνδοθεν, ἐγγὺς τῆς Πύλης Γενὶ-καπουσοῦ τῆς Βλάγκας, ὅπου εἴδομεν τὸ ἐκ πετρῶν καὶ μαρμάρων κυκλοτερὲς περίφραγμα, ἐκτεινόμενον ὑποκάτω ἑνὸς τεφρωθέντος Τζαμίου, ἑνὸς μεγάλου Ὀθωμανικοῦ οἴκου καὶ περαιτέρω. Καὶ παραυτίκα ἐγνώκαμεν ὅτι τοῦτο αὐτὸ ἐστι, κατὰ τὸν Παχυμέρην, τὸ πρὸς τὴν Βλάγκαν νεῦον τοῦ Κοντασκαλίου Νεώριον. Ὅλος ὁ τόπος ὁ περιέχων ποτὲ τὸ Νεώριον αὐτὸ, μετὰ τὴν ἅλωσιν ἐπληρώθη, ἐχερσώθη καὶ ὑψώθη τὸ ἔδαφος, κατοικούμενος ὑπὸ Ὀθωμανῶν· αἱ δὲ ἀραρυῖαι ἐκ σιδήρου πύλαι, δι᾽ ὦν εἰσέπλεεν ὁ στόλος ἐλλιμενιζόμενος, ἀπῳκοδομήθησαν.