Byzantine Constantinople: The Walls of the City and Adjoining Historical Sites

Without attempting any elaborate description of the site occupied by Constantinople, such as we have in Gyllius’ valuable work on the topography of the city, it is necessary to indicate to the reader, now invited to wander among the ruins of New Rome, the most salient features of the territory he is to explore.

The city is situated at the south-western end of the Bosporus, upon a promontory that shoots out from the European shore of the straits, with its apex up stream, as though to stem the waters that rush from the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmora. To the north, the narrow bay of the Golden Horn runs inland, between steep banks, for some six or seven miles, and forms one of the finest harbours in the world. The Sea of Marmora spreads southwards like a lake, its Asiatic coast bounded by hills and mountains, and fringed with islands. Upon the shore of Asia, facing the eastern side of the promontory, stand the historic towns of Chrysopolis (Scutari) and Chalcedon (Kadikeui). The mainland to the west is an undulating plain that soon meets the horizon. It offers little to attract the eye in the way of natural beauty, but in the palmy days of the city it, doubtless, presented a pleasing landscape of villas and gardens.

The promontory, though strictly speaking a trapezium, is commonly described as a triangle, on account of the comparative shortness of its eastern side. It is about four miles long, and from one to four miles wide, with a surface broken up into hills and plains. The higher ground, which reaches an elevation of some 250 feet, is massed in two divisions—a large isolated hill at the south-western corner of the promontory, and a long ridge, divided, more or less completely, by five cross valleys into six distinct eminences, overhanging the Golden Horn. Thus, New Rome boasted of being enthroned upon as many hills beside the Bosporus, as her elder sister beside the Tiber.

The two masses of elevated land just described are separated by a broad meadow, through which the stream of the Lycus flows athwart the promontory into the Sea of Marmora; and there is, moreover, a considerable extent of level land along the shores of the promontory, and in the valleys between the northern hills.

Few of the hills of Constantinople were known by special names, and accordingly, as a convenient mode of reference, they are usually distinguished by numerals.

The First Hill is the one nearest the promontory’s apex, having upon it the Seraglio, St. Irene, St. Sophia, and the Hippodrome. The Second Hill, divided from the First by the valley descending from St. Sophia to the Golden Horn, bears upon its summit the porphyry Column of Constantine the Great, popularly known as the Burnt Column and Tchemberli Tash. The Third Hill is separated from the preceding by the valley of the Grand Bazaar, and is marked by the War Office and adjacent Fire-Signal Tower, the Mosque of Sultan Bajazet, and the Mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The Fourth Hill stands farther back from the water than the five other hills beside the Golden Horn, and is parted from the Third Hill by the valley which descends from the aqueduct of Valens to the harbour. It is surmounted by the Mosque of Sultan Mehemet the Conqueror. The Fifth Hill is really a long precipitous spur of the Fourth Hill, protruding almost to the shore of the Golden Horn in the quarter of the Phanar. Its summit is crowned by the Mosque of Sultan Selim. Between it and the Third Hill spreads a broad plain, bounded by the Fourth Hill on the south, and the Golden Horn on the north. The Sixth Hill is divided from the Fifth by the valley which ascends southwards from the Golden Horn at Balat Kapoussi to the large Byzantine reservoir (Tchoukour Bostan), on the ridge that runs from the Mosque of Sultan Mehemet to the Gate of Adrianople. It is distinguished by the ruins of the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus (Tekfour Serai) and the quarter of Egri Kapou.