Читать книгу Byzantine Constantinople, the walls of the city and adjoining historical sites - Alexander Van Millingen - Страница 7

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The enduring character of the political reasons which had called the new capital into being, and the commercial advantages which its unique position commanded, favoured such an increase of population, that before eighty-five years had elapsed, the original limits of Constantinople proved too narrow for the crowds gathered within the walls.

So numerous were the inhabitants already in 378, that the Goths, who then appeared before the city after the defeat of the Roman arms at Adrianople, abandoned all hope of capturing a stronghold which could draw upon such multitudes for its defence.^[155]

The Land Walls of Constantinople.

Three years later, Athanaric^[156] marvelled at the variety of peoples which poured into the city, as they have ever since, like streams from different points into a common reservoir. Soon the corn fleets of Alexandria, Asia, Syria, and Phœnicia, were unable to provide the city with sufficient bread.^[157] The houses were packed so closely that the citizens, whether at home or abroad, felt confined and oppressed, while to walk the streets was dangerous, on account of the number of the beasts of burden that crowded the thoroughfares. Building-ground was in such demand that portions of the sea along the shores of the city had to be filled in, and the erections on that artificial land alone formed a considerable town.^[158] Sozomon goes so far as to affirm that Constantinople had grown more populous than Rome.^[159]

This increase of the population is explained, in part, by the attractions which a capital, and especially one founded recently, offered alike to rich and poor as a place of residence and occupation. The ecclesiastical dignity of the city, when elevated to the second rank in the hierarchy of the Church, made it, moreover, the religious centre of the East, and drew a large body of ecclesiastics and devout persons within its bounds. The presence and incursions of the Goths and the Huns south of the Danube drove many of the original inhabitants of the invaded districts for shelter behind the fortifications of the city, and led multitudes of barbarians thither in search of employment or the pleasures of civilized life.

Then, it must be remembered that no capital is built in a day.

To make the city worthy of its name involved great labour, and demanded an army of workmen of every description. There were many structures which Constantine had only commenced; the completion of the fortifications of the city had been left to Constantius; Julian found it necessary to construct a second harbour on the side of the Sea of Marmora; Valens was obliged to improve the water-works of the city by the erection of the fine aqueduct which spans the valley between the Fourth and Fifth Hills. And how large a number of hands such works required appears from the fact that when the aqueduct was repaired, in the ninth century, 6000 labourers were brought from the provinces to Constantinople for the purpose.^[160]

Under the rule of the Theodosian dynasty the improvement of the city went forward with leaps and bounds. Most of the public places and buildings enumerated by the Notitia, were constructed under the auspices of that House, and transformed the city. A vivid picture of the change is drawn by Themistius,^[161] who knew all the phases through which Constantinople had passed, from the reign of Constantius to that of Theodosius the Great. “No longer,” exclaims the orator, as he viewed the altered appearance of things around him, “is the vacant ground in the city more extensive than that occupied by buildings; nor are we cultivating more territory within our walls than we inhabit; the beauty of the city is not, as heretofore, scattered over it in patches, but covers its whole area like a robe woven to the very fringe. The city gleams with gold and porphyry. It has a (new) Forum, named after the emperor; it owns Baths, Porticoes, Gymnasia; and its former extremity is now its centre. Were Constantine to see the capital he founded he would behold a glorious and splendid scene, not a bare and empty void; he would find it fair, not with apparent, but with real beauty.” The mansions of the rich, the orator continues, had become larger and more sumptuous; the suburbs had expanded; the place “was full of carpenters, builders, decorators, and artisans of every description, and might fitly be called a work-shop of magnificence.” “Should the zeal of the emperor to adorn the city continue,” adds Themistius, in prophetic strain, “a wider circuit will be demanded, and the question will arise whether the city added to Constantinople by Theodosius is not more splendid than the city which Constantine added to Byzantium.”

The growth of the capital went on under Arcadius, with the result that early in the reign of his son, the younger Theodosius, the enlargement of the city limits, foreseen by Themistius, was carried into effect.

But this extension of the boundaries was not made simply to suit the convenience of a large population. It was required also by the need of new bulwarks. Constantinople called for more security, as well as for more room. The barbarians were giving grave reasons for disquiet; Rome had been captured by the Goths; the Huns had crossed the Danube, and though repelled, still dreamed of carrying their conquests wherever the sun shone. It was, indeed, time for the Empire to gird on its whole armour.

Fortunately for the eastern portion of the Roman world, Anthemius, the statesman at the head of the Government for six years during the minority of Theodosius II., was eminently qualified for his position by lofty character, distinguished ability, and long experience in the public service. When appointed Prætorian Prefect of the East, in 405, by the Emperor Arcadius, Chrysostom remarked that the appointment conferred more honour on the office than upon Anthemius himself; and the ecclesiastical historian Socrates extols the prefect as “one of the wisest men of the age.”^[162] Proceeding, therefore, to do all in his power to promote the security of the State, Anthemius cleared the Balkan Peninsula of the hostile Huns under Uldin, driving them north of the Danube. Then, to prevent the return of the enemy, he placed a permanent flotilla of 250 vessels on that river, and strengthened the fortifications of the cities in Illyria; and to crown the system of defence, he made Constantinople a mighty citadel. The enlargement and refortification of the city was thus part of a comprehensive and far-seeing plan to equip the Roman State in the East for the impending desperate struggle with barbarism; and of all the services which Anthemius rendered, the most valuable and enduring was the addition he made to the military importance of the capital. The bounds he assigned to the city fixed, substantially, her permanent dimensions, and behind the bulwarks he raised—improved and often repaired, indeed, by his successors—Constantinople acted her great part in the history of the world.

The erection and repair of the fortifications of a city was an undertaking which all citizens were required to assist, in one form or another. On that point the laws were very stringent, and no rank or privilege exempted any one from the obligation to promote the work.^[163] One-third of the annual land-tax of the city could be drawn upon to defray the outlay, all expenses above that amount being met by requisitions laid upon the inhabitants. The work of construction was entrusted to the Factions, as several inscriptions on the walls testify. In 447, when the Theodosian fortifications were repaired and extended, the Blues and the Greens furnished, between them, sixteen thousand labourers for the undertaking.^[164]

The stone employed upon the fortifications is tertiary limestone, brought from the neighbourhood of Makrikeui, where the hollows and mounds formed in quarrying are still visible. The bricks used are from 1 foot 1 inch to 1 foot 2 inches square, and 2 inches thick. They are sometimes stamped with the name of their manufacturer or donor, and occasionally bear the name of the contemporary emperor, and the indiction in which they were made. Mortar, mixed with powdered brick, was employed in large quantities, lest it should dry without taking hold,^[165] and bound the masonry into a solid mass, hard as rock.

The wall of Anthemius was erected in 413,^[166] the fifth year of Theodosius II., then about twelve years of age, and is now represented by the inner wall in the fortifications that extend along the west of the city, from the Sea of Marmora to the ruins of the Byzantine Palace, known as Tekfour Serai. The new city limits were thus placed at a distance of one mile to one mile and a half west of the Wall of Constantine.

This change in the position of the landward line of defence involved the extension likewise of the walls along the two shores of the city; but though that portion of the work must have been included in the plan of Anthemius, it was not executed till after his day. As we shall find, the new seaboard of the capital was fortified a quarter of a century later, in 439, under the direction of the Prefect Cyrus, while Theodosius II. was still upon the throne.

The bulwarks of Anthemius saved the city from attack by Attila. They were too formidable for him to venture to assail them.

But they suffered soon at the hands of the power which was to inflict more injury upon the fortifications of Constantinople than any other foe. In 447, only thirty-four years after their construction, the greater portion of the new walls, with fifty-seven towers, was overthrown by a series of violent earthquakes.^[167] The disaster was particularly inopportune at the moment it occurred, for already in that year Attila had defeated the armies of Theodosius in three successive engagements, ravaged with fire and sword the provinces of Macedonia and Thrace, and come as near to Constantinople as Athyras (Buyuk Tchekmedjè). He had dictated an ignominious treaty of peace, exacting the cession of territory south of the Danube, the payment of an indemnity of 6000 pounds of gold, and the increase of the annual tribute paid to him by the Eastern Empire from 700 pounds of gold to 2100.

The crisis was, however, met with splendid energy by Constantine, then Prætorian Prefect of the East, and under his direction, as Marcellinus Comes affirms, the walls were restored in less than three months after their overthrow.^[168] But besides restoring the shattered bulwarks of his predecessor, Constantine seized the opportunity to render the city a much stronger fortress than even Anthemius had made it. Accordingly, another wall, with a broad and deep moat before it, was erected in front of the Wall of Anthemius, to place the city behind three lines of defence. The walls were flanked by 192 towers, while the ground between the two walls, and that between the Outer Wall and the Moat, provided room for the action of large bodies of troops. These five portions of the fortifications rose tier above tier, and combined to form a barricade 190-207 feet thick, and over 100 feet high.^[169]

As an inscription^[170] upon the fortifications proclaimed, this was a wall indeed, τὸ καὶ τεῖχος ὄντως—a wall which, so long as ordinary courage survived and the modes of ancient warfare were not superseded, made Constantinople impregnable, and behind which civilization defied the assaults of barbarism for a thousand years.

Portion of the Theodosian Walls (Between the Gate of the Deuteron and Yedi Koulè Kapoussi).

Three inscriptions commemorating the erection of these noble works of defence have been discovered. Two of them are still found on the Gate Yeni Mevlevi Haneh Kapoussi (Porta Rhousiou), one being in Greek, the other in Latin, as both languages were then in official use. The former reads to the effect that “In sixty days, by the order of the sceptre-loving Emperor, Constantine the Eparch added wall to wall.”

† ΗΜΑΣΙΝ ΕΞΗΚΟΝΤΑ ΦΙΛΟΣΚΗΠΤΡΩ ΒΑΣΙΛΗΙ †

ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΣ ΥΠΑΡΧΟΣ ΕΔΕΙΜΑΤΟ ΤΕΙΧΕΙ ΤΕΙΧΟΣ †

The Latin legend is more boastful: “By the commands of Theodosius, in less than two months, Constantine erected triumphantly these strong walls. Scarcely could Pallas have built so quickly so strong a citadel.”

THEODOSII JUSSIS GEMINO NEC MENSE PERACTO †

CONSTANTINUS OVANS HAEC MOENIA FIRMA LOCAVIT

TAM CITO TAM STABILEM PALLAS VIX CONDERET ARCEM †^[171]

The third inscription has disappeared from its place on the Porta Xylokerkou, but is preserved in the Greek Anthology.^[172] It declared that, “The Emperor Theodosius and Constantine the Eparch of the East built this wall in sixty days.”

ΘΕΟΔΟΣΙΟΣ ΤΟΔΕ ΤΕΙΧΟΣ ΑΝΑΞ ΚΑΙ ΥΠΑΡΧΟΣ ΕΩΑΣ

ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΣ ΕΤΕΥΞΑΝ ΕΝ ΗΜΑΣΙΝ ΕΞΗΚΟΝΤΑ

The shortness of the time assigned to the execution of the work is certainly astonishing. Perhaps the statement of the inscriptions will appear more credible if understood to refer exclusively to the second wall, and if we realize the terror which the Huns then inspired. The dread of Attila, “the Scourge of God,” might well prove an incentive to extraordinary performance, and strain every muscle to the utmost tension.

But the question of the time occupied in the reconstruction of the walls is not the only difficulty raised by these inscriptions. They present a question also as regards the official under whose direction that work was executed. For according to them, and Marcellinus Comes, the superintendent of the work was named Constantine.^[173] Theophanes and subsequent historians, on the other hand, ascribe the undertaking to the Prefect Cyrus.^[174] This is a serious discrepancy, and authorities are not agreed in their mode of dealing with it. Some have proposed to remove the difficulty by the simple expedient of identifying Constantine and Cyrus;^[175] while others maintain a distinction of persons, and reconcile the conflicting statements by understanding them to refer, respectively, to different occasions on which the walls were repaired.^[176]

Cyrus was one of the most conspicuous figures in the history of the city during the reign of Theodosius II.^[177] On account of his talents and integrity he held the office of Prætorian Prefect, and that of Prefect of the City, for four years, making himself immensely popular by the character of his administration. During his prefecture, in 439, the new walls along the shores of the city were constructed. The fires and earthquakes, moreover, which devastated Constantinople in the earlier half of the fifth century, afforded him ample opportunity for carrying out civic improvements, and he was to be seen constantly driving about the city in his chariot to inspect the public buildings in course of erection, and to push forward their completion. Among other works, he restored the great Bath of Achilles, which had been destroyed in the fire of 433.^[178] To him also is ascribed the introduction of the practice of lighting the shops and streets of the capital at night.^[179] He was, moreover, a man of literary tastes, and a poet, who counted the Empress Eudoxia, herself a poetess, one of his admirers.^[180] In the competition between Greek and Latin for ascendency as the official language of the Government, he took the side of the former by issuing his decrees in Greek, a practice which made the conservative Lydus style him ironically, “Our Demosthenes.”^[181]

But in the midst of all his success, Cyrus remained self-possessed and sober-minded. “I do not like Fortune, when she smiles much,”^[182] he was accustomed to say; and at length the tide of his prosperity turned. Taking his seat one day in the Hippodrome, he was greeted with a storm of applause. “Constantine,” the vast assembly shouted, “founded the city; Cyrus restored it.” For a subject to be so popular was a crime. Theodosius took umbrage at the ovation accorded to the renovator of the city, and Cyrus was dismissed from office, deprived of his property, forced to enter the Church, and sent to Smyrna to succeed four bishops who had perished at the hands of brigands. Upon his arrival in that city on Christmas Day he found his people ill-prepared to receive him, so indignant were they that a man still counted a heathen and a heretic should have been appointed the shepherd of their souls. But a short allocution, which Cyrus delivered in honour of the festival, disarmed the opposition to him, and he spent the last years of his life in the diocese, undisturbed by political turmoils and unmolested by robbers.

Returning to the question of the identity of Cyrus with the Prefect Constantine above mentioned, the strongest argument in favour of that identity is the fact that, commencing with Theophanes, who flourished in the latter part of the eighth century, all historians who refer to the fortification of the city under Theodosius II. ascribe the work to Cyrus. That they should be mistaken on this point, it may be urged, is extremely improbable. On this view, the occurrence of the name Constantine instead of Cyrus in the inscriptions and in Marcellinus Comes, is explained by the supposition that the former name was the one which Cyrus assumed, as usual under such circumstances, after his conversion to the Christian faith.^[183] But surely any name which Cyrus acquired after his dismissal from office could not be employed as his designation in documents anterior to his fall. Perhaps a better explanation is that Cyrus always had both names, one used habitually, the other rarely, and that the latter appears in the inscriptions because more suited than the former to the versification in which they are cast. This, however, does not explain why Marcellinus Comes prefers the name Constantine.

On the other hand, the proposed identification of Cyrus and Constantine is open to serious objections. In the first place, not till the eighth century is the name of Cyrus associated with the land walls of Constantinople. Earlier historians,^[184] when speaking of Cyrus and extolling his services, say nothing as to his having been concerned in the fortification of the city in 447.

In the next place, the information of Theophanes and his followers does not seem based upon a thorough investigation of the subject. These writers ignore the fact that under Theodosius II. the land walls were built on two occasions; they ascribe to Cyrus everything done in the fifth century in the way of enlarging and fortifying the capital, and are silent as regards the connection of the great Anthemius with that work.

The only Byzantine author later than the fifth century who recalls the services of Anthemius is Nicephorus Callistus,^[185] and even he represents Cyrus as the associate of that illustrious prefect. If such inaccuracies do not render the testimony of Theophanes and subsequent historians worthless, they certainly make one ask whether these writers were not misled by the great fame of Cyrus on the ground of other achievements, and especially on account of his share in building the walls along the shores of the city in 439, to ascribe to him a work which was really performed by the more obscure Constantine.