Page:The International - Volume 3.djvu/15

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CHAPTER
5

THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 5

YENI MEVLIVI of Asia,the barbarians of the North, haughty Casars, Grecian autocrats and fanatic Cru- saders of the West, fell covered with wounds in a fruitless assault. Besieged twenty- nine times, twice only has Constantinople yielded to an outside foe; first to the Cru- saders, and lastly—when weakened by re- volt within her walls, and the defection of the provinces which usually flew to her aid— to the Turks.

No wonder that when that day of ven- geance did come, still serene in the confi- dence of the impregnability of her walls, the Greek priest continued tranquilly to fry his fish, unable to comprehend the possi- bility of the fall of that carefully guarded city. While no authoritative traces remain of the earlier Byzantine wall, which rounded the pointed beak of land extending into the Bosphorus and encircled the present Serag- lio, its history is associated with all the great men of the' Byzantine period. Built by Byzas; reinforced by Pausanius the Spartan; only just saved from entire de- struction at the hands of Philip of Macedon Go gle

KHANEH KAPUSI. by the appearance of a miraculous light in the heavens, and the more practical pro- vision of a row of cook shops along the ramparts; restored by Leo; razed to the ground by the quick tempered Roman Severus, and rebuilt when he recognized his own folly, it became the last and inade- quate defence of Licinius in his war with Constantine.

In one of the subterranean rooms belong- ing to the network of dark and secret chambers built underneath these walls for treasure storehouses or state prisons, was found a few years ago the sword of Palxo- logus, which is now numbered among the treasures of St. Irene’s Museum.

With the merging of Byzantium into Con- stantinople a new line of defences became necessary. Anxious to impress upon his followers that his choice of the capital that was to unite both the Eastern and Western Roman Empire was due to celestial inspi- ration, the astute emperor summoned all his engineers and nobles to witness the tracing of its boundaries. On foot, lance in hand, Constantine led the solemn proces-

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