Читать книгу Byzantine Constantinople, the walls of the city and adjoining historical sites - Alexander Van Millingen - Страница 12

Table of Contents

The Moat is over 61 feet wide. Its original depth, which doubtless varied with the character of the ground it traversed, cannot be determined until excavations are allowed, for the market-gardens and débris which now occupy it have raised the level of the bed. In front of the Golden Gate, where it was probably always deepest, on account of the importance of that entrance, its depth is still 22 feet. The masonry of the scarp and counterscarp is 5 feet thick, and was supported by buttresses to withstand the pressure of the elevated ground on either side of the Moat. The battlement upon the scarp formed a breastwork about 6-½ feet high.

At several points along its course the Moat is crossed by low walls, dividing it into so many sections or compartments. They are generally opposite a tower of the Outer or Inner Wall, and taper from the base to a sharp edge along the summit, to prevent their being used as bridges by an enemy. On their southern side, where the ground falls away, they are supported by buttresses.

Dr. Paspates^[205] was the first to call attention to these structures, and to him, also, belongs the credit of having thrown some light upon their use. They were, in his opinion, aqueducts, and dams or batardeaux, by means of which water was conveyed to the Moat, and kept in position there. But this service, Dr. Paspates believed, was performed by them only in case of a siege, when they were broken open, and allowed to run into the Moat. At other times, when no hostile attack was apprehended, they carried water across the Moat into the city, for the supply of the ordinary needs of the population.

That many of these structures, if not all, were aqueducts admits of no doubt, for some have been found to contain earthenware water-pipes, while others of them still carry into the city water brought by underground conduits from the hills on the west of the fortifications; and that they were dams seems the only explanation of the buttresses built against their lower side, as though to resist the pressure of water descending from a higher level.

Aqueduct Across the Moat of the Theodosian Walls.

Coin of the Emperor Theodosius II. (From Du Cange.)

Certainly Dr. Paspates’ view has very much in its favour. It is, however, not altogether free from difficulties. To begin with, the idea that the Moat was flooded only during a siege does not agree with the representations of Manuel Chrysolaras and Bondelmontius on that point. The former writer, in his famous description of Constantinople, speaks as if the Moat was always full of water. According to him, it contained so much water that the city seemed to stand upon the sea-shore, even when viewed from the side of the land.^[206] The Italian traveller describes the Moat as a “vallum aquarum surgentium.”^[207]

Are these statements mere rhetorical flourishes? If not, then water must have been introduced into the Moat by some other means than by the aqueducts which traverse it, for these, as Dr. Paspates himself admits, ordinarily took water into the city. Unfortunately, it is impossible, under present circumstances, to examine the Moat thoroughly, or to explore the territory without the city to discover underground conduits, and thus settle the question at issue. One can only ask, as a matter for future investigation, whether, on the view that the Moat was always flooded, the water required for the purpose was not brought by underground conduits that emptied themselves a little above the bed of the Moat. The mouth of what appears to be such a conduit is seen in the counterscarp of the Moat immediately below the fifth aqueduct to the south of Top Kapoussi. If water was brought thus to the elevation of Top Kapoussi and Edirnè Kapoussi, sufficient pressure to flood the rest of the Moat would be obtained.

But, in the next place, it must be added that objections can be urged against the opinion that the Moat was flooded even in time of war. The necessary quantity of water could ill be spared by a city which required all available water for the wants of its inhabitants, especially at the season of the year when sieges were conducted. Then, there is the fact that in the accounts we have of the sieges of the city, all contemporary historians are silent as to the presence of water in the Moat, notwithstanding frequent allusions to that part of the fortifications.

Furthermore, there are statements which imply the absence of water in the Moat during a siege. Pusculus, for instance, giving a minute account of the measures adopted in 1453 to place the city in a state of defence, refers to the deepening of the Moat, but says nothing about water in it. “Fossaque cavant, atque aggere terræ educto, muros forti munimine cingunt.”^[208] If water had been introduced into the Moat on this occasion, Pusculus could hardly have ignored the fact.

Again, in the Slavic account of the last siege of the city we are informed that the Greeks opened mines through the counterscarp of the Moat, to blow up the Turks who approached the fortifications: “Les assiégés pendant le jour combattaient les Turcs, et pendant la nuit descendaient dans les fossés, perçaient les murailles du fossé du côté des champs, minaient la terre sous le mur à beaucoup d’endroits, et remplissaient les mines de poudre et de vases remplis de poudre.”^[209] If such action was possible, there could be no water in the Moat.