Читать книгу The Antiquities of Constantinople - Gilles Pierre - Страница 26

Table of Contents

THE Walls on the Side of the Continent have six Gates; one within the Palace of Constantine, another, which is call’d the Adrianopolitan Gate, and a third on the Brow of the seventh Hill. Besides these, there is the Porta Aurea or Gilded Gate, the Gate of Selymbria or Rhegium, and the Gate of the seven Towers. On the Side of the Bay Ceras is the Gate of the Blachernæ, at present call’d Xyloporta, seated near the third Angle of the City. There are also the Gates call’d Cynigos, or Porta Palatina, Phanaria, Agia, Porta Jubalica, Farinaria, Lignaria, Seminaria, Piscaria, the Gate of the Neorium, and the Gate of Demetrius, which stands on the Ridge of the first Hill. On the Side of the Propontis there are about five; every one of which has Stairs, or a Landing-place, and a Haven for Ships, besides the Gates of the Imperial Palace. There is also the Porta Stercoraria, Leonina, Condescala, two of which stand at the Foot of the seventh Hill. Those which have been principally taken Notice of by Historians, are the Gates of Cynigos, Rhegium and Xylocerum, also the Gate of Eugenius, the Porta Aurea, that call’d Myriandros, the Porta Condescala, and Porta Carsiana. In old Byzantium there was the Thracian Gate. For we are told by Dion, that the seven Towers reach’d from the Thracian Gate to the Sea, which Cedrinus tells us was the Bay Ceras. If any one spoke any thing in the first of these Towers, it immediately flew to the second, and so through all the rest, so that you might hear the Voice distinctly repeated in every one of them. Pliny tells the very same Story of Cyzicus. In that City, says he, near the Thracian Gate there are seven Towers, which multiply the Voice by Repetition, or Reiteration, more than seven times. This, he adds, was look’d upon by the Grecians as somewhat miraculous, and was call’d the Echo. I never found any Mention made of the Thracian Gates in any Historian but in Pliny, though it is not altogether improbable, that there were such Gates there; for Apollonius, in the first Book of his Argonauticks, mentions the Thracian Haven in Cyzicus; and Plutarch is very express, that near this City there was a Street call’d the Thracian Street. This is also attested not only by some more modern Writers of Constantinople, but also by Dion and Xenophon; the latter of whom writes, That when Alcibiades appear’d before the Town, the Byzantians open’d the Thracian Gates to him of their own Accord.