The Walls of Constantinople
by B. Granville Baker · English · Gutenberg #46353 · 344,200 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Walls of Constantinople
Author: B. Granville Baker
Release date: July 21, 2014 [eBook #46353]
Most recently updated: November 28, 2024
Language: English
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THE
WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE
[Illustration: frontispiece, Constantinople from the Sea of Marmora]
THE WALLS OF
CONSTANTINOPLE
BY
CAPTAIN B. GRANVILLE BAKER
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON: JOHN MILNE
1910
PREFACE
Romance and the history of walled cities are inseparable. Who has not
felt this to be so at the sight of hoary ruins lichen-clad and
ivy-mantled, that proudly rear their battered crests despite the ravages
of time and man's destructive instincts. It is within walled cities that
the life of civilized man began: the walls guarded him against barbarian
foes, behind their shelter he found the security necessary to his
cultural development, in their defence he showed his finest qualities.
And such a city--and such a history is that of Ancient Byzantium, the
City of Constantine, the Castle of Cæsar.
What wonder then that man should endeavour to express by pen and pencil
his sense of the greatness and beauty, the Romance of a Walled City such
as Constantinople. The more so that a movement is on foot to remove
these ancient landmarks of the history of Europe and Asia.
True there are other works on this same subject, works by men deeply
learned in the history of this fair city, works that bid fair to
outlive the city walls if the fell intent of destroying them is carried
into execution, and from these men and their works I derived inspiration
and information, and so wish to chronicle my gratitude to them--Sir
Edwin Pears and Professor van Millingen of Robert College,
Constantinople. There are many others too in Constantinople to whom my
thanks are due--His Majesty's Vice-Consul, my host, his colleagues, now
my friends, and many others too numerous to mention. They all have
helped me in this work, and I am grateful for the opportunity offered me
of here recording my thankfulness for their kind offices.
B. GRANVILLE BAKER.
NOTE.--As I have taken the historical events recorded in this book not
in chronological order, but as they occurred to me on a tour round the
walls of Constantinople, I have appended a brief chronological table,
for the guidance of my readers and for the elucidation of this work.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I CONSTANTINOPLE 13
II THE APPROACH TO THE CITY BY THE BOSPHORUS 28
III SERAGLIO POINT 54
IV SERAGLIO POINT (_continued_) 84
V THE WALLS BY THE SEA OF MARMORA 101
VI THE GOLDEN GATE 124
VII THE GOLDEN GATE (_continued_) 147
VIII THE WALLS OF THEODOSIUS TO THE GATE OF ST. ROMANUS 172
IX THE VALLEY OF THE LYCUS 198
X FROM THE GATE OF EDIRNÉ TO THE GOLDEN HORN 225
ENVOI 252
APPENDIX 255
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CONSTANTINOPLE FROM THE SEA OF MARMORA _Frontispiece_
_Facing page_
GENOESE CASTLE AT ENTRANCE TO BOSPHORUS FROM THE BLACK SEA 31
ANATOLI HISSAR, OR THE CASTLE OF ASIA 39
ROUMELI HISSAR, OR THE CASTLE OF EUROPE 43
THE TOWER OF GALATA 51
THE LANDWARD WALLS OF THE SERAGLIO 58
THE PALACE OF HORMISDAS, OR JUSTINIAN 101
THE SEA-WALL 117
THE MARBLE TOWER 122
POSTERN WITH INSCRIPTIONS OF BASIL II AND CONSTANTINE IX 124
THE GOLDEN GATE FROM SOUTH-WEST 126
THE APPROACH TO THE GOLDEN GATE FROM NORTH-WEST 146
YEDI KOULÉ KAPOUSSI, OR GATE OF THE SEVEN TOWERS 170
PART OF TURKISH FORTRESS OF YEDI KOULÉ 172
THEODOSIAN WALL AND APPROACH TO BELGRADE KAPOUSSI,
SECOND MILITARY STATE 183
THEODOSIAN WALL--A BROKEN TOWER, OUTSIDE 188
THEODOSIAN WALL--A BROKEN TOWER, INSIDE 190
GATE OF RHEGIUM, OR YEDI MEVLEVI HANEH 193
TOP KAPOUSSI, GATE OF ST. ROMANUS 194
THIRD MILITARY GATE 196
THE VALLEY OF THE LYCUS, LOOKING NORTH 199
THE VALLEY OF THE LYCUS FROM INSIDE THE WALLS 201
THE VALLEY OF THE LYCUS, SHOWING WHERE THE LAST EMPEROR FELL 224
THE PALACE OF THE PORPHYROGENITUS FROM THE FOSSE 226
THE PALACE OF THE PORPHYROGENITUS FROM WITHIN THE WALLS 228
TOWER OF MANUEL COMNENUS 232
GATE OF THE BOOTMAKERS, OR THE CROOKED GATE 241
WALL OF PALÆOLOGIAN REPAIR 244
TOWERS OF ISAAC ANGELUS AND ANEMAS 246
OLD HOUSE IN THE PHANAR 249
THE
WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE
CHAPTER I
CONSTANTINOPLE
Byzas the seafarer stood in the sacred copse, the copse of fir-trees
dedicated to his father Poseidon. His soul was filled with awe, for he
was listening for an answer to his prayer; he had prayed for help and
guidance in his next venture out upon the seas, and had brought rich
gifts with him.
Hush! the faint murmuring of the evening breeze--a sound--a whisper
only--it is the voice of the Oracle: "Build your city opposite the City
of the Blind, for there you shall prosper." The voice died away in the
stillness of evening. Gently, with reverence, Byzas placed his offerings
upon the ground, turned and went his way without looking behind him.
Before the dawn arose, Byzas had joined his comrades. "To sea," he
cried, "for the Oracle has spoken thus: 'Go to the Country of the
Blind--there build you a city opposite their own--you shall prosper.'"
Silently the stout vessel that carried Byzas and his fortunes stood out
to sea as the rosy dawn touched the high peaks of the Peloponnese and
tinted with pale carmine and gold the unruffled water of the Ægean. And
ever bearing to the north, to that unknown region, with Byzas at the
helm, the ship held on. They sounded here and there, and asked of those
they met, "Is this the Country of the Blind?" Their question met with
little sympathy; the answers are nowhere recorded. After many vain
inquiries the adventurous crew drew out into the Sea of Marmora. Towards
evening they sighted land.
No doubt Byzas was drawn towards the Prince's Islands 'twixt him and
Asia as he sailed northward up the quiet inland sea. But sternly he
resisted the temptation of these lovely isles, and held on his way. His
long craft pulled nearer in towards the narrow mouth, and through the
twilight a great city loomed up before him on his right--the city of
Chalcedon, better known by its modern name of Kadekeuy. Now in the days
of Byzas suspicious-looking craft of no ostensible occupation were not
encouraged, piracy was too common and, indeed, considered one of the few
occupations fit for a gentleman--night was falling; so we imagine Byzas
putting in to the spit of land that projects boldly into the sea as if
to meet the Asiatic shore and offer stepping-stones for any migrant
Titan that might pass that way. Rounding the point, he saw before him a
broad waterway winding inland till lost to sight behind the tree-clad
heights to northward. So Byzas steered towards this fairway, holding to
the southern bank, and then, some little distance from the point, his
comrades lowered the broad sails, dropped anchor and awaited the light
of day. Only when it dawned were they conscious that they had reached
their goal, the country mentioned by the whispering Oracle.
A fair sight that, by the first rays of the rising sun: the east aglow
with many colours, repeated in the waters of the winding bay, henceforth
to be known as the Golden Horn; first touches of pink in the small
clouds over the rose-tipped mountain of the East; and, swimming in a
silvery haze, the islands they had passed.
Then the keenest and most fleet-footed of the crew betook themselves
ashore. They searched diligently everywhere, and brought back word that
all day long never a man had they seen of whom they could inquire, "Is
this the Country of the Blind?" So Byzas spoke: "This is the Country of
the Blind, for those are blind who could pass by this most favoured
spot, and build their city on the other side."
So Byzas settled here and built a city and prospered--the Oracle had
spoken truly.
All this happened many centuries ago, when the world, at least the
Western World was young, and Rome--Imperial Rome, the eternal city, was
still wrapped in the legendary mysteries of her birth.
And so arose Constantinople,--a city known by many names, the one
familiar to the majority of those of Western race is that of the City of
Constantine, Constantinople, familiar but with subconscious charm of
strange remoteness: the Slavs still talk of Tsarigrad, the Castle of
Cæsar; to the Turk this is Stamboul, a corruption of [Greek: eis tên
Polin]--the phrase they must have so often heard on the lips of the
vanquished Greeks, but through all ages this is Byzantium in romance.
The first thing a man does when he comes into any kind of property, is
to safeguard it somehow. If this property be land, however acquired, the
natural thing is to build a wall around it, and this no doubt Byzas did
too. But of his walls nothing is left--the city grew and prospered, the
Oracle said it would, so the matter was in a sense already settled, and
new walls were thrown out further until Imperial Byzantium, like
Imperial Rome, stood on seven hills.
Behind these walls a busy populace increased the wealth and importance
of the place, and others who wanted wealth and importance flocked in
here for it. Byzant became a thoroughfare to all those of the West who
did business with the East, but was chary of being too much of a
thoroughfare for those who came from the East. For these latter had the
habit of coming in swarms and armed, otherwise empty-handed, but with a
sincere wish not to return in that condition. Against such as these the
walls were built, strong and cunningly planned. And so ancient Byzant
grew into the mart for those who traded from the West along the coasts
of the Mediterranean, away through Dardanelles and Bosphorus to the
Black Sea, to Trebizond, where the old Greek tongue yet lingers in its
purest form, the Crimea--even distant Persia. So also Byzant became the
bulwark that met, and broke, successive storm-waves of Asiatic attack,
until in due season a strong Asiatic race forced its way in, and has
stayed there, and still holds its hard-won stronghold.
It was this position that made Constantine, the man of genius, transfer
the capital of his empire from Rome to Byzant, after defeating his rival
Licinius at Chrysopolis (Scutari) opposite the mouth of the Golden Horn,
and henceforth to make the city known as his--Constantinople, the Castle
of Cæsar. This alone would justify his claim to be called Great, and, as
Dean Stanley remarked, of all the events of Constantine's life, this
choice is the most convincing and enduring proof of his real genius.
It is to be doubted whether any city walls have such a stirring history
to relate as those of Constantinople, except perhaps the walls of Rome.
Of former, older fortifications traces have been found, and they reach
back to very ancient history.
Echoes come to us from those dim ages of history, shadowy forms of
warriors, seafarers, priests and sages pass by in pageant, with here and
there the bearer of some great name in bolder outline. Somebody has said
that the East is noteworthy as the grave of monarchs and reputations. Of
no spot is this truer than it is of Stamboul.
Chroseos, king of Persia, emerges from the gloom, and with him hordes of
warriors trained to ride, to shoot, to speak the truth. He is seen for a
brief space encamped before the walls to bring its citizens to
submission: he fades away with his phantom host. Then comes one better
known, and he stands out in bold relief, the light of history gives him
more definite outline,--Pausanias. He drove the Persians from the city
after defeating them in the field. His handiwork, 'tis said, can still
be traced in some gigantic blocks that went to fortify yet more the
walls that Byzas built. He was recalled in disgrace: well for him had he
never come. It needed but a little of the splendour and luxury of an
oriental court to corrode the old iron of the Spartan character. For him
the watery soup and black bread of the Eurotos valley could never have
quite the same flavour afterwards. He left the city a discredited
politician of more than doubtful loyalty to the land that reared him and
the great confederacy which had set him at its head.
Then follows an everchanging array of warriors of many nations, many
races. Seven times did the fierce sons of Arabia, fired by their
new-found faith, lay siege to old Byzantium, and seven times their
impetuous valour broke against these walls in vain. Albari, Bulgarians,
Sclavi, Russians, vainly spent their strength in trying to force an
entrance into the Castle of the Cæsars. Great bloodshed or great
treachery could alone serve as the key to what latter-day poets call
"the Gate of Happiness." Crusaders too, men of the same faith, besieged
the city, and after one short period of success, they too vanished, to
leave the imperial city standing as before; to leave her, perhaps, a
little wickeder, perhaps a little more luxurious, but still as perennial
and unchanging as she is to-day.
Then came another, stronger race out of the East. They laid their plans
cunningly and boldly executed them, they hovered for years over the city
and around it, and for years their efforts proved abortive, until the
time had come when this bulwark of Europe, that had for centuries hurled
back the waves of warriors that dashed themselves against its ramparts,
had fulfilled its mission. Vain it was to cry for help to the Christ
whom they had persistently dishonoured, and to whom their very
existence, corrupt and luxurious, was a standing insult. No, they in
their turn were compelled to make way for the stern realities and honest
animalism over which the Crescent cast its protecting shadow. Then did
the conqueror Mohammed enter into possession, he and his people; here
they settled after centuries of storm and stress, and here they are
still, and they too are prospering--as said the Oracle in those dim
distant ages before the Greek seafarers landed here.
Meantime, behind those sheltering walls, Europe was working out its
destiny.
The Western Empire centred in Imperial Rome succumbed before the on-rush
of barbarians from the north, those warriors from primæval forests,
blue-eyed and strong, whose very aspect reduced the stout Roman
legionaries to tears of terror and despair, with fair hair floating in
the breeze as their long boats (sea-serpents they called them) bore them
from shore to shore, or as astride of their shaggy horses they crossed
the frontiers guarded by Roman legions, and conquered as they went. Then
these took root, the Langobards in northern Italy, Goths in the Iberian
Peninsula, Saxons and Angles in Britain, and, by degrees, became
conscious of political existence.
Some vanished before the fury of the Arab as did the Goths in Spain,
while others grew and prospered like the Franks. Races emerged from
darkness to add to the confusion of Europe's seething mass of humanity.
Christianity shed its light upon them, and by degrees order appeared, to
make way again from time to time to wild disorder.
And all the time the walls of Constantine's proud city prevented the
irruption of any Eastern foes whose advent would have made confusion
worse confounded.
So on the eastern frontier of the eastern empire a wonderful revival of
the power of Persia was held in check by those who held the fort of
Constantine, and a vigorous attempt to regain the possessions of
Hellas-hated Xerxes was frustrated.
Transient states arose and vanished--the republic of Rome, the exarchate
of Ravenna, mythical Celtic kingdoms like Armorica and Cornwall, and the
Vandal kingdom of Africa. Thereupon appeared the more lasting dominions
of the Moors at Cordova and Granada, and of the Normans in France and
Sicily, and the enduring Power of the Papal See.
Slowly, uncertainly, under the shelter of the walls of Constantinople,
Europe drew the first rough outline of her present political aspect, and
began to emerge from barbarism.
Ambitions and strange freaks of fanaticism flared up among young nations
and died away. Among the former the revival of the Roman Empire by
Germanic monarchs lingered longest. Conceived by Charlemagne with the
aid of the Roman pontiff and his own paladins, this dream lived on for
many centuries, caused endless bloodshed and such cruel deeds as the
murder of that hapless Conradin, the last of the Hohenstauffens, a race
of rulers that had given rise to many legends and heroic lays. Then the
Crusaders with all their fruitless sufferings, their lavish shedding of
blood and treasure, and the masses of private iniquity which they died
trusting to expiate by public sacrifice.
And yet Constantinople held the eastern foe at bay. The tradition of
Rome's all-conquering legions lingered yet, and old Byzantium boasted of
a standing army, highly trained and disciplined through all these
centuries--those stormy times for Europe, when every man's hand was
against his neighbours. Then bands of armed men roamed over Europe,
following this leader or the other, each bent only on his own
advancement.
Little by little degeneration set in within and without the walls of
Constantinople. One fair province after another was regained by those
barbarians from whom they had been conquered, and the mighty Eastern
Empire fell to pieces. The spirit of the people was no longer bent on
upholding the traditions of the past, or, mayhap, lived too much in
those traditions.
So when the nations had begun to settle, the day of Constantine's city
was over and its task accomplished. The eastern foeman achieved the
oft-attempted end, and possessed himself of those ramparts which so long
had kept him at bay, and established a new empire in place of the
vanished power of Roman tradition. There is yet another aspect to the
history of Constantinople. It was here that its second founder embraced
Christianity. St. Sophia and St. Irene still stand as monuments to mark
that happening, albeit the crescent, not the cross, now glitters from
their pinnacles; although portly, bearded Imams now take the place of
the long-haired Greek priests, and the high altars have been turned
awry, so that the faithful may know that their gaze is fixed direct
towards Mecca.
Here much of St. Chrysostom's life and energy was spent; here, since the
schism with the Church of Rome, has been the Seat of the Patriarch, head
and high priest of the Greek Church.
Rulers, dynasties, even governing races have replaced each other, yet
here the Patriarchate still maintains the dignity of the great Church it
represents. For the strong man who vanquished this proud city did not
seek to turn his new subjects to his faith, but rather gave them full
liberty to follow their own. And this has been the policy of his
successors; thus it is that a Greek patriarch, Joachim, third of that
name, this day watches over the interests of his flock. Adherents to
every creed, save that of the Armenians, have enjoyed complete religious
freedom, and Jews who were hounded out of Catholic Spain took refuge
under the Chalif of Islam.
The same policy is continued by those clear-headed men who have but
recently revived the Empire of the East, and trust in time to give it a
government conceived on modern lines. Romance! Are not the pages of
history, even the most recent, made glorious by it? So who will deny the
attribute of romance to the story of a walled city?
Think of the enterprise, the ingenuity, the steadfast endeavour that led
to the encircling of ever-increasing areas within the embrace of those
stout walls; of the life of the people who pressed onward out of
paganism to Christianity, from despotism to constitutional
government.--Romance!
In younger days wars were waged because some fair lady had been carried
off, some rich jewel stolen, and in order that black insults might be
wiped out. We live nowadays beneath a more sombre sky. From isolated
incidents our motives have crystallized into definite principles, and it
needs the delicate eye of the artist to see any of the old lustre in our
honest if humdrum efforts to defend them.
Constantinople--the name conjures up dreams of Eastern colour, Eastern
sights, and Eastern smells: visions of Turks in baggy breeches and
jaunty fez; visions of bearded elders in flowing robes and turbans,
white, green or multi-coloured according to the wearer's calling,
descent, or personal taste, for only he who is learned in the Koran may
wear white. Those who claim descent from the Prophet bind their fez with
green, and divers colours are worn more by Ottoman subjects from over
the water. Then you dream of stalwart sunburnt Turkish soldiery whose
bearing speaks of Koran-bred discipline and stubborn fighting, and a
fanaticism which takes the place of imagination. Gorgeous cavasses,
frock-coated followers of Islam with unshaven jowls and green
umbrellas, smart Bedouins and copper-coloured eunuchs from Abyssinia,
immaculately-attired dragomans, veiled ladies, more mysterious even than
their Western sisters--in fact, splendour, squalor, light and life, and
all as picturesque and romantic as dreams can be. This is the vision,
and the reality to whosoever is fortunate enough to see Constantinople
is its fulfilment. All but the dragomans, perhaps, for you may pass one
by and not know he is that wonderful omniscient being--a dragoman. He
will hide his greatness under a straw hat, maybe, he may even affect an
air of Western hustle.
But every other effect makes up for any disappointment one may
experience over dragomans. In a golden haze kaleidoscopic changes, every
type of face a study, every street corner its own distinctive character,
even the spick and span liners that lie along the quays, or have their
station in the fairway of the Golden Horn, seem to adopt a catchet other
than their register provides for them. Over all, the domes of many
mosques with their attendant minarets, from which the call to prayer
goes forth, they point the way to the goal of all good Moslems, and few
there are who allow this world's cares to interfere with their
devotions. Later in the day these mosques, silhouetted in the gold of a
Stamboul sunset along with the other tall columns "qui s'accusent"
against the sky, go to form, as Browning (who had never seen them)
suggests, a sort of giant scrip of ornamental Turkish handwriting.
So, having followed this sketch of Constantinople's history from Byzas
to these days, in which an almost bloodless revolution has been
accomplished, let us approach the city, and mark the bulwarks that are
left, and hear what those massive towers and battlements have to tell
us.
CHAPTER II
THE APPROACH TO THE CITY BY THE BOSPHORUS
Author and Artist have, for the sake of compactness, been rolled into
one. This method leaves to both a free hand and ensures absolute
unanimity: their harmonious whole now proposes to the reader a
personally conducted tour around the walls of Constantinople, within and
without, stopping at frequent intervals to allow the Artist to ply his
pencil while the Author holds forth to an eager circle of intelligent
listeners.
Constantinople should not be approached by those who hail from the West
with any Western hustle--no charging to the agents or the booking-office
at the last moment to demand a return ticket by the quickest possible
route, to traverse all Europe, passing through many strange and
interesting countries with the determined tourist's reckless haste, to
tumble out on to the platform of the German-looking Stamboul railway
station, worn out and wretched and wishing to be back at home again.
Rather should the traveller wean his mind from many Western notions.
Let him disabuse himself of the hackneyed superstition that time is of
any moment. In the East it is not. Men have all the time there is, and
plenty of that. In this respect it corresponds to the biblical
description of Heaven: "There is no time there." Conscious of their
easily won eternity, trains, and more particularly boats, make no
attempt to start at the hour mentioned in the schedule, aware that by
doing so they would only cause inconvenience to the large majority of
their passengers. Any one who has had official relations with the Turk
knows that his most frequent exclamation is "Yarsah--yarsah"
("Slowly--slowly"), but to most foreigners the system is, at first, a
little disconcerting. Again, the traveller should prepare his mind for
what he hopes to see--a walled city,--so should, ere starting, let his
mind's eye travel beyond his garden wall, against which perchance he may
safely lean as aid to meditation, to what he has heard of walls, walls
that were built by many devoted generations and in return protected
their descendants from those hungry powers that seek to destroy whatever
prospers.
And travelling toward his Eastern goal the reader passes through many an
ancient city whose walls chronicle the history of its inhabitants. He
should take his journey easily, should move eastward with no undue
haste. Let him go down the Danube, that mighty river which arises from a
small opening in the courtyard of a German castle, flows majestically
through the lands of many nations, where before the days of history Saga
held her sway and gave birth to the Nibelungs. In its waters many ruined
castles are reflected, amongst others Dürnstein, where Blondel's voice
at length brought hope of deliverance to his imprisoned liege, Richard
Coeur-de-Lion. He will pass many fair historic cities, Vienna,
Budapesth, Belgrade, the White Fortress, and so on through the Iron
Gates, whence the great stream swells with increasing volume through the
plains of Eastern Europe to throw out many arms to the Black Sea. It is
here that Author and Artist await you; for to worthily approach
Constantinople you should do so from the north, and by sea. And you are
in good company, for by this seaway came the Russians in their several
attempts on the Eastern capital. The Turks, too, the present masters of
the situation, found this way and followed it to victory. These, too,
overcame great difficulties--they sailed in small vessels and were much
at the mercy of wind and weather; in fact, the Russians found their
plans frustrated by the elements. They met with anything but a pleasant
reception, whereas the traveller nowadays steams in great comfort in a
racy-looking Roumanian
[Illustration: GENOESE CASTLE AT ENTRANCE TO BOSPHORUS FROM THE BLACK
SEA.
A narrow entrance this--strongly fortified it was too, in olden times,
for on that height to the left stands a frowning ruin, a Genoese
Castle.]
liner, and is sure of a courteous welcome from his hospitable host, the
Turk.
Along the coast of Bulgaria--that kingdom of strong men under a strong
ruler, whose history, with a long and melancholy hiatus, is taken up
again, is in the making, and bids fair to rival that of older nations as
a record of devotion and steadfastness of purpose. And so to the mouth
of the Bosphorus, a narrow entrance through which the strong current of
the Black Sea forces its way to join the warm waters of the
Mediterranean.
The Argonauts found their way through here, braved the crash of the
Symplegades, and sailed out into the unknown in search of the golden
apples of the Hesperides. Let no man say that these were simply oranges,
for these a man may cull in many a Greek garden to-day. No--it was an
ideal they sought, and, like true men, they found and followed it.
A narrow entrance this, and strongly held, as it deserves to be if
Nature be man's handmaid. Strongly fortified it was, too, in olden
times, for on that height to the left stands a frowning ruin, a Genoese
castle, commanding the entrance for many miles round the open sea and
the rolling, wooded heights of Asia inland.
Intensely interesting are the naval exploits of the city republics of
Italy during the Middle Ages. It is not easy to realize the power
developed by such towns as Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, and the enormous
importance of the part they took in the development of Europe. Other
cities are so much overshadowed by Rome, that those who are not
historians hear only echoes of their greatness.
Primarily there seems to be a divergence in the origin of empire between
those gained by a northern or southerly race. Latin empires grew out of
cities--Rome and Constantinople, and Athens with her Delian Confederacy;
the States of Pisa which owned large oversea possessions, Genoa which to
a long strip of coast counted Corsica among her spoils, Venice which
with varying fortunes controlled Dalmatia and Istria and built the stout
fortress of Nauplia commanding the Gulf of Argolis. Whereas England,
France, Germany, in fact those empires founded by the men of a Northern
race, began, it appears, by the conquest of other people's cities, and,
making themselves masters of a number of such towns, started states of
their own, drawing liberal and very elastic boundaries round them which
they could enlarge when strong enough by the simple expedient of picking
a quarrel with their neighbours. These depended for their defence more
on those who lived in fortified seclusion on the marches of their domain
than on the town-dwellers.
The Genoese navy, composed of ships fitted out alike for battle as well
as for commerce, was free to look further afield as soon as Pisa, their
whilom ally against the Saracens of Africa, Spain and the Mediterranean
islands (but a formidable rival at all other times), had been finally
crushed at Meloria. Opportunity soon offered, for trouble arose as usual
in the Eastern Empire. The Latin dynasty put into power by the crusaders
was sinking lower, and a feeling for the restitution of the Greek Empire
was growing. Also, the Venetians, new rivals, had assisted the Latins,
so there was every reason to interfere. The interference proved
successful, Michael Palæologus conceded the suburbs of Pera and Galata
to the Genoese. These places were fortified, and served as a base from
whence to push Genoese enterprise further into the Black Sea, and in the
Crimea a factory was established. From time to time the Genoese turned
against the Greeks, no doubt in order that their swords might not rust
for want of exercise during the piping times of that peace which in the
East was a seldom acquired taste. They stood by the Greeks, however,
when trouble came from elsewhere, and to the last upheld their high
reputation for bravery and devotion.
The Genoese tower of Galata still stands overlooking the Golden Horn. A
yet more notable monument to those gallant seafarers are the so-called
"Capitulations." The Genoese colony was ruled by a magistrate sent from
home, and to this day that right is still granted to the Powers of
Europe, and can only be fully appreciated by those familiar with the
ordinary standards of Eastern justice.
On the next height the Giant's Mountain, also on the left bank, is
another monument of yet greater antiquity, though perhaps its historical
value is less easily assessed--depending more than ever on personal
opinion and a romantic nature completely undisturbed by the galling
limitations of probability--the Tomb of Joshua. Its origin is shrouded
in mystery, as it well may be considering the countless ages that have
passed over it--there are so few records of Joshua's travels that no
doubt that eminent warrior may have gone on leave to travel for the
improvement of his mind like his colleagues of the present day without
our hearing anything of his experiences in foreign parts. It is equally
possible that he may not have returned from furlough--owing to decease.
This is purely speculation--very real, however, is the tomb itself. A
long, narrow, walled-in space in connection with a small mosque and
under the care of the Hodja in charge contains this, his resting-place,
enclosed by iron rails and about 24 ft. long by 10. It also serves as
fruit garden, or orchard--for several fig-trees grow here, so we see
that, unless the legend lies, Joshua must have been a tall strapping
fellow and the sons of Anak can have caused him no real surprise or
alarm.
The correct thing to do is to walk round the tomb a great many times
(there is a fixed number, but it does not matter much), tie a bit of rag
to the railing and express a wish, keeping it strictly to yourself. The
next best thing to do is to forget the wish, pay two-pence in baksheesh
and ride away to get the most of a glorious view. Artist and Author
alike do so.
And a pleasant thing it is to ride on into Asia Minor on an alert,
sure-footed Arab; he need be sure-footed, for at one time your road
leads along the very edge of a steep decline, at another over the bed of
what is a rushing torrent in the rainy season. Everywhere a changing
vista, bold, rolling hills, now covered with short scrub and heather,
with black rocks peering through it--now under oak and beech, everywhere
the glorious bracing air of the uplands mingled with breezes from the
Northern Sea. Here and there you find patches of cultivation, the
patient team of oxen drawing the primitive plough, merely an iron-shod
staff at an angle to the shaft to which the team is yoked. Near by, a
village, small wooden houses sheltered by fig-trees, a little shady café
where of an evening the men smoke a solemn hubble-bubble and discuss
events in the measured sentences of a conversation which begins about
nothing in particular and ends in the same district.
What changes those fields have known! armies pouring into Asia full of
enterprise and the lust of conquest, returning to escort a victorious
emperor in triumph through the Golden Gate, or beaten remnants of a host
to seek refuge behind the city walls. And a plough of the same
construction, drawn by the same faithful servants, stopped its course a
while to watch, and then went on its way unchanging.
But the fairest road is still that glittering waterway with its
ever-increasing number of craft, so we pass on to Constantinople. With a
fair breeze from the Black Sea dead astern small sailing vessels hurry
on towards their goal--the Golden Horn. They are high in the bows,
higher still in the poop, with an elegant waist but withal a reasonable
breadth of beam, brightly painted too, with cunning devices on the prow
and sails that glisten white under the Ottoman ensign; they carry for a
flag a crescent argent in a field gules (the Artist insists on heraldic
terms, as they are so picturesque). These little ships have been busy
collecting many things for the Stamboul market along the Black Sea
Coast. Heavy-laden tramps thump onward to Odessa to return with corn or
wool. We overhaul a yacht-bowed Russian mail-boat and get a shrill
whinny of greeting from the stout little passenger steamers, Tyne-built,
that ply between the many landing-stages along the Bosphorus bringing
officials, business men and even artists back from the city to those
quiet, cosy little bungalows that hide among the trees on either side.
White-painted caiques flit across from side to side, one-oared and even
two-, some more pretentious ones with more oars still, the boatmen
dressed in becoming uniform, veiled ladies in the stern sheets. A
hustling steam-pinnace shoots by from one or the other "stationaires,"
for every larger Power keeps one here; and there on the right, that row
of gleaming palaces by the waterside is Therapia, those palaces the
different embassies in their summer quarters. Here homesick travellers
of many nations may feast their eyes on the war-flag of their country
and get up a thrill, if the scenery should have failed to cause one. It
certainly is a pleasant sight to see a sturdy British bluejacket again
or his smart colleague of the U.S. Navy in his jaunty white hat.
Therapia will tell you that this is the only place to live in during the
summer; other places along the road on either hand claim the same
advantage, and the claims must be allowed where the choice is so
difficult. For there is Candilli, and who that has spent some sunny
weeks under the trees of that favoured spot, has dived from the garden
wall (displacing volumes of water) into the evening phosphorescence of
the Bosphorus, but wishes to return and to repeat the performance? And
Arnoutkeni, where, on a hill-top, lives the most hospitable of
consuls-general.
The silvery way narrows and widens, and winds, though slightly, past
ever-increasing signs of human habitation. Wooden Turkish houses with
the jealously latticed windows of the harems dipping their stone
foundations in the sea, some with a little scala leading to a stoep,
where the veiled ladies of the house may take the air while children
play around them. Stately palaces walled off towards the land, the
sea-front open and mayhap the lordly owner's steam-yacht moored just
opposite, barracks and cafés with vine-clad trellis-work, and behind the
narrow stone streets and little shops. Every now and then a mosque, its
dazzling minarets pointing to the sky, and also, too frequently, a very
modern residence in the very latest bad taste, which is saying a good
deal.
To all this a background of trees, the warm depth of pines, the pleasant
green of oaks and beeches, the bright shining green of fig-tree, and
everywhere larger or smaller groups of slim cypresses, close-serried
beneath whose shade rest faithful sons of Islam--and
[Illustration: ANATOLI HISSAR, OR THE CASTLE OF ASIA.
Within the precincts of this castle, entered by narrow gates, are other
small houses, still smaller shops and cafés.]
surely none of them might wish for a more lovely and decorous
burial-ground than here, looking out upon the narrow strait their
fathers won so dearly.
There are open spaces too, where groups of people, gay patches of bright
colours, disport themselves: a game of football is no unusual sight
here. Even a factory chimney stands out here and there, not emphatically
belching out defiant volumes of black smoke to insist on the power of
the _main-d'oeuvre_, but in a gentler manner, as if rather apologizing
for this outrage upon nature and trying its best to adapt itself to its
surroundings by the kindly aid of quaint-looking craft, blackavised, but
free from any suggestion of machine-made regularity; these craft carry
the coal necessary to enterprise, just to oblige, they seem to say.
The Channel widens, then narrows again, and here stand two ancient
fortresses, one on either hand. Ancient, compared to Western notions,
though too recent to be mentioned by chroniclers of Old Byzant, for they
are of Turkish origin, and date back but a few odd centuries. On the
Asiatic side stands Anatoli Hissar, or the Castle of Asia. Wooden houses
of all ages cluster about it, the wood of some painted in bright
colours, pink or ochre, or others left to be coloured by time and
climate, ranging from warm purple greys to the strongest burnt Sienna.
Within the precincts of this castle, entered by narrow gates, are other
small houses, still smaller shops and cafés. To southward broad green
streams join the Bosphorus, the sweet waters of Asia, along the banks of
which are pleasant open spaces, a mass of colour on Friday afternoons;
for here the Moslem ladies take their leisurely walks abroad on that
day, and spend many pleasant hours chatting under the shady trees,
though what they find to talk about except their children, Allah alone
knows. The bridge leading over the northern arm of these waters in an
attractive spot: here the Artist put up his easel to sketch the
continuous stream of passers-by--grave merchants, portly of person on
small donkeys, small horses laden with baskets, pedestrians many and of
all manner of races, mostly Eastern, now and again a squad of cavalry on
active little Arabs, or a body of infantry with the fine decisive tramp
of a conquering race. At the foot of the rather high-arched wooden
bridge a number of caiques, white-painted with crimson cushions, their
oarsmen dozing in the sun, while heavier boats laden with fruit and
vegetables go out to market at Stamboul. Across the bridge quaint wooden
houses with the usual latticed windows, and, connecting them across the
narrow street, vine-covered trellis-work beneath the shade of which some
business is transacted, buying and selling conducted with all the
leisure and decorum of men for whom a year more or less means little.
Behind and crowning all, the frowning though dismantled fortress. Here
the Artist had an experience that struck him enormously. His morning
sketch was of the scene described above, his afternoon work was from
inside a boat-builder's yard, looking over the sweet waters to some
Turkish houses, glorious in colour with quaint wood carving, each with
its tiny well-kept garden by the sea.
The second day while at work on the morning sketch, the genial
boat-builder approached and confided the key of his establishment to the
Artist, at the same time intimating that the yard would otherwise have
been found closed and thus the afternoon's sketch delayed. Would this
have happened on Clyde or Tyne?
Over against Anatoli Hissar stands Roumeli Hissar, the Castle of Europe,
a yet more imposing mass of ruins. Its plan is said to be the cypher of
Mohammed. The whole fortress is said to have been built in two months by
the forced labour of Greeks, to each of whom was delegated a measured
area. The towers that command the upper part are of the construction
peculiar to the Turkish architecture of that period, a tower of smaller
dimension superimposed on the lower one is what it looks like, and we
shall see it again at Yedi Koulé. This castle encircling a picturesque
village is peculiarly beautiful in the spring, for then the flaming
colour of the Judas tree, swamping with its vivid tone the delicate pink
of almond sprays, lights up the deeper ochres and purples of the
surrounding masonry, and makes the dark cypresses that stand all about
strike even a yet deeper note than when the glamour of high summer
bathes all things in a golden haze and draws light even from these
sombre trees. And they are so beautiful, though perhaps a bit wistful
also--their slender shape, the warm grey and purple of their stems and
branches and the cool depth of their foliage.
Close by this castle stands Robert College.
Further south, obliquely opposite is Candilli, a place where it is good
to be. At first glance, but for its prominent situation, it may appear
to be much like other places along the banks of the Bosphorus. A short
bit of narrow street, stone-paved and very bad to walk on, leads to a
cross-road, the cord that connects all these little villages. It is
equally badly paved, but as many of the blocks of stone that once served
as pavement have vanished, there are quite a number of softer spots
wherein a man may set his feet when walking. There is a café by the
waterside, where Turks, Armenians, Greeks and others take their
[Illustration: ROUMELI HISSAR, OR THE CASTLE OF EUROPE.
Over against Anatoli Hissar stands Roumeli Hissar, the castle of Europe.
Its plan is said to be the cypher of Mohammed.]
leisure, drink endless cups of coffee and gaze into the water.
The gentleman who sells tickets to those who leave by boat, and collects
them from those who land here, may generally be seen fishing from the
landing-stage. He is a philosopher; it is but little that he wants, and
he takes a long time getting it. There is a mosque close by whose Hodja
is counted among the Artist's personal friends. He is a busy man, as
Turks go: he sweeps out his mosque, trims and lights the candles that
adorn it by night, and fulfils all the Koran's requirements in daily
prayer, encouraging others in the same commendable practice. He also
possesses a magnificent tenor voice which is heard to best advantage
rising up from his minaret to the hill overlooking Candilli, when
exactly one hour and a half after sunset he announces to the world that
"Allah is Great. There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His
Prophet." He has a son who is learning to chant the same refrain and to
quote the Koran. Like most of the early apostles, he is a fisherman.
All around by the seaport, on the hillside, in garden and under trees,
stand the houses of those who live in Candilli, either permanently or as
summer tenants only. Should the reader ever visit here, let him turn
sharp to his right and keep along the sea-front, a stone-paved terrace
about 8 feet broad occasionally broken to admit boats into the
boathouses, caverns in the stone foundations of the houses that stand
here. These breaks are planked over for the convenience of
foot-passengers; and so we keep on till a sharp turn to the left takes
us to a flight of steep steps. We ascend and join the high-road, the
cord referred to above. You are welcomed there by a sportive litter of
pariah pups who have an _al fresco_ lodging here on a luxurious bed of
melon-skins, which provide food and bedding at the same time, and quite
a plentiful supply of each during the season. The neighbourhood for
miles round, city and suburbs, is full of little corners convenient for
receiving things that you no longer want. A few hundred yards along the
high-road another sharp turn to the left, another litter of pariah pups
and their white mother, generally called the "old lady," all most
pleased to see you; another ascent, short but sharp with holes torn out
of the pavement as if the shell of a cow-gun had struck it, and you
arrive at a doorway in the wall. It is quite unpretentious, in fact its
modesty is carried so far that a piece of string that dangles out of a
hole will, when you pull it, lift the latch and so give you admittance.
You enter an unpaved yard, in fact after a few days' rain you may call
it a garden, for grass grows up without any other encouragement, just
as it does in all Eastern gardens. Before you stands a wooden house,
shrouded with vine and overshadowed by a fig-tree; there is yet another
fig-tree in the garden, and a walnut-tree and another sitting-out-under
tree, which finds that sufficient avocation, and therefore yields no
fruit of any kind.
Entering the house, the first thing that meets your eye and holds it is
a row of boots on the left-hand side of a stone-flagged apartment called
the hall. Your eyes rest on the boots, for you know at a glance that
they are British made--they are, for Englishmen live here. A doorway
opposite the entrance leads to the kitchen; here the Greek cook, Aleko,
reigns supreme, and with him the butler, Kotcho, which being interpreted
means Alexander and Constantine. A wooden staircase leads to upper
regions, to a spacious sitting-room, where no one ever sits save in wet
weather. But why this lengthy description of an ordinary English
bachelor abode? the reader asks of the Author. He gets behind his
collaborator--the Artist lived here, and thus history is made.
The Artist lived here as the guest of those whose work lies in
Constantinople. There were several, their numbers had frequent additions
towards the weekend, and the assembly went by different names, the most
common being the "Y.M.C.A.," because one of the number nearly lunched in
the company of a bishop one day, and a bishop in the Levant is rare
enough for comment.
They lived in great contentment, did these Britons abroad; at work
during the day, they foregathered at dinner in the variegated garb that
betokens ease and talked of many things between the peals of the pianola
wafted from a villa higher up on the hillside. They listened to the
Eastern sounds that came to them from afar, to the warning hum of the
mosquito, the distant barking of a dog, the tapping of the watchman's
iron-shod staff on the pavement outside. One night they heard his cry of
"Yungdin Var" ("There is a fire"), as in accordance with time-honoured
custom he proclaimed some distant conflagration, while his colleagues
all along the coast on either side gave the same warning. This call
sounded in the lane below the bungalow, and was vigorously repeated from
within. The watchman answered, "Pecci, pecci, effendi" ("All very fine,
gentle sirs"--or words to that effect), but tell me where it is? and
then himself announced the place and went on his way rejoicing in a
"score."
Now and then these men would sally forth of an evening to one or the
other hospitable house, to dance or dine, a solid phalanx of dazzling
shirt-fronts.
The nights on the shores of the Bosphorus are very fair. Quite still,
the lights of Stamboul and Pera gleaming in the distance, the swish of
passing steamers whose searchlights flash unbidden through your windows,
and the moonlight reflected in their wash in myriads of sparkling
facets. And then the rosy dawn dispelling the faint haze upon the
waters, when the tall trees that are silhouetted black against the clear
nocturnal sky, lose their sharply-defined shape as they resume their
colours and merge with the glorious scheme of awakening chiaroscuro.
And for many ages night on the Bosphorus has enjoyed this deep repose,
making an occasional disturbance such as happens where men inhabit seem
incongruous. Imagine the deep stillness when Byzas first settled in his
City, set out in early morning to search out the land on his own side of
this broad waterway, that led to lands remotely known to him through
legend only. His constant pleased surprise at finding more and more
treasure beautiful and material in the wooded bays where safe anchorage
offered. And his return at nightfall in the stillness till he saw the
ramparts of his City purple against the evening sky, faint lights
twinkling and fainter sounds reaching him across the water betokening
the activity of his settlers.
These peaceful waters have known much strife and turmoil, the valleys on
either hand, the hills of Europe and Asia have echoed back the sounds of
battle. Fast sailing ships brought swarms of adventurers down time after
time to try their fortunes before the walls of Cæsar's Castle. From
Roumeli Hissar, the fortress built by Mahomed the Conqueror, right down
beyond Seraglio Point and into the Sea of Marmora stretched that
monarch's fleet. But it was of no avail against the seaward walls.
Entrance to the harbour was impossible, as a chain had been stretched
across the mouth of the Golden Horn, and behind it the larger vessels of
the Genoese and Venetians rode at anchor. So Mahomed conceived a plan
bold and in keeping with his character and ability. He decided to convey
a portion of his fleet across country to the upper reaches of the Golden
Horn and to attack the walls that guarded the upper harbour.
There appears to be some doubt still as to the exact spot where these
galleys were beached and as to the route they took. Galata, the Genoese
fortress, must be avoided, and at the same time the shortest route must
be taken. Galata stands in a position somewhat similar to
Constantinople, on a promontory formed by the Hellespont on one side and
on the other by the Golden Horn, which bends slightly to the north
after passing west of where the land-wall of Theodosius joined the
sea-wall of the Bosphorus, towards the sweet waters of Europe. At any
rate we pass the place where this great feat was accomplished, and this
is how it was done. Mahomed made a road of smooth planks covered with
grease, and along this road a host of men pulled eighty galleys in the
night. The next morning these ships were riding at anchor in the upper,
shallower part of the harbour beyond reach of the larger vessels of the
Genoese and Venetians. According to the Byzantine chronicler Ducas,
every galley had a pilot at her prow and another at her poop, with the
rudder in his hand, one moved the sails while a fourth beat the drum and
sang a sailor's song. And thus the whole fleet passed along as though it
had been carried by a stream of water, sailing, as it were, over the
land.
Certainly a most remarkable feat carried out to the sound of the drum.
The drum an instrument, some say of torture during the month of Ramazan,
for it serves to arouse the faithful Moslem an hour before sunrise that
he may eat--for he may touch neither meat nor drink between sunrise and
sunset during this fast, and it cannot fail to wake others in the
neighbourhood. Entirely oriental in its origin--no doubt an ancient, its
enthusiasts think venerable means of producing sound--its appearance in
Europe is of comparatively recent date; in fact, not till after West and
East met in the Crusades did the drum become part of a European army's
outfit, and to this we may directly trace the creation of military
bands, for where would any band, save a German one performing in
England, be without a drum? We may conclude that in all probability it
served a double purpose, the uncanny noise both struck terror into the
heart of the enemy and cheered on "the Faithful" to battle. The Roman
armies sounded the tuba, Frank or Teuton put his soul into a bullock's
horn, which a later period imitated in brass, and that so successfully
that not even the best of modern composers can altogether do without it.
The Crusaders rallied their bands by means of horns, each in a different
key, no doubt; the Saracens beat drums to draw their followers to the
Crescent standard, and a happy blending of these two, with the addition
of some attempts at harmony, now brighten the soldier's life when
marching to church in sections, or returning heavy footed from a field
day.
The traveller is at liberty to choose any spot he likes, given that it
be on our right, to settle where Mahomed's galleys left the waters; that
safely accomplished, he should look before him. We have passed many
charming little villages quaintly named--Beylerbey,
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF GALATA.
Galata's proud Tower comes into view, and right at its feet the Golden
Horn, all life and bustle and glittering harmonies of colour.]
the Bay of the Beys; Tshengelkeui; Beshiktache; Kabatache. On the
heights above palaces, palaces on the sea-front, as we sail on towards
Constantinople, and there it is before us.
We see Seraglio Point, and then the view increases, showing a glorious
vista of mosques, gleaming domes and tapering minarets. We pass on our
right a couple of steam-yachts, bright and trim, moored opposite a
splendid palace. H.M. the Sultan's yachts lie here, and his residence is
the Palace of Dolma Bagche. On the heights above Pera, the city of
Italian origin, now inhabited by those Western by birth or inclination,
and standing some distance away from it, is Yildiz Kiosk, the deserted
haunt of baleful associations.
Galata's proud tower comes into view, and right at its feet the Golden
Horn, all life and bustle and glittering harmonies of colour. The very
smoke rising from the tall funnels of tramps and ocean liners catches
the light, reflects it, and add another beauty to the aspect.
Over our port bow we look down the smooth, shining expanse of the Sea of
Marmora, in which the Prince's Islands seem to float as in a sunny haze.
These have their history, and sad it is for the greater part, and
reference will be made to that later, when the Artist has finished
talking about the scenery, and has returned to his legitimate
occupation. Behind these islands are faintly seen the mountains of the
Asiatic mainland, then the coast draws in towards the Golden Horn, and
here are Modar and Kadikeui, villages so called, though perhaps more
truly suburbs, wherein you may find many hospitable houses. One of them
gave shelter to a Turkish gentleman, a high-placed personage whom an
angry soldiery were in search of during the last counter-revolution, the
last dying effort of reaction. And here below Modar lie many yachts, for
it is a fair sea for yachting is the Sea of Marmora, and the coast and
the islands offer ever-varying change of scene. Then close to Kadikeui
and north of it is Haidar Pasha, with its blot upon the landscape, the
terminus of the Bagdad railway, an edifice German in construction and of
consummate ugliness. Close under this eyesore is a peaceful spot where
many tombstones and a monument bear record of the deeds of the English
soldiers, victims of the Crimean War. A peaceful spot, and oh! so
beautiful. Above it stands a large yellow building many storied, with a
background of tall cypresses in thousands that shade the Turkish
cemeteries, where many lie who fought side by side with Britons and our
gallant friends the French against their old northern enemy, Russia.
This building may fall to ruin and perish, the dead that lie about here
and their deeds may be forgotten by all but the straight-stemmed
cypress-trees, but the memory that lives about this place will never
die, for it tells the glorious story of a noble woman's work--this
building was Florence Nightingale's hospital.
And near here another work by women is in progress, work devoted to
rising generations at the American Girls' College.
The traveller may cast a glance backward to the way he came and see a
small tower standing in the sea--this is a trim-looking tower and shows
a light o' nights--this is called the tower of Leander.
But no more looking back. We have arrived opposite Seraglio Point, and
our goal is before us; for here is the starting-point of the strange and
glorious history of the City of Constantine, here the foundations of the
city of Byzas were laid--here is Constantinople.
CHAPTER III
SERAGLIO POINT
Persons of importance like our travellers land at Seraglio Point instead
of travelling round to the bridge of Galata. Byzas did so, we have it in
black and white a few pages back, so it must be true. We can without
much fear of contradiction suppose that Constantine the Great landed
here also, though perhaps he went to one of the harbours on the Sea of
Marmora. Indeed, he is more likely to have done so, for the current runs
pretty strongly and the sea is more than a little choppy at this point.
Byzas had no harbour to turn into except the Golden Horn, and he must
have been too eager to land and survey his new property to have followed
that waterway any considerable distance. Just a little west of the point
is perhaps the best place to land, somewhere near the Turkish Custom
House.
It is, of course, very interesting to land at the bridge of Galata,
passing through crowded shipping on the way up the Golden Horn. On one
hand, to the south, one sees the irregular mass of buildings, mosques,
and public offices which go to form Stamboul. You may descry that vast
square of solid ugliness owned by the international creditors of the
Ottoman Empire and known as the Public Debt. Close by you catch sight of
the head-quarters of Government--the Sublime Porte. Drowsy fox-hunting
squires, to whom their wives read the paper of an evening, must often
have started at the reiteration of this familiar phrase, and wondered to
what year the marvellous Eastern vintage belonged.
Opposite the business quarter of Galata, crowned by its tower. The life,
the colour ever changing, on the highway across the Golden Horn is
extraordinarily fascinating. Sons of every race and nation upon earth
are freely mingled here. The Western official or the business man, whose
garb is allowed to betray no ease or originality, here brave the fierce
suns of summer clad in the drab discomfort of business attire, with the
Perote or native of Pera and Levantines of European origin who have
imbibed some longing for oriental display without the requisite taste.
Western ladies unveiled, Eastern ladies veiled, the latter in many cases
beautifully shod and gloved. Also the Artist raves about a little hand
he has seen ungloved, such a dainty, beautiful hand, and according to
his own estimate he is an expert in such matters. Then there are Turks,
Western Turks, whose costume is also Western, the fez and seldom-shaven
cheeks being the only things in which they differ from others, for many
are fair and most are fine, handsome men with every sign of the
self-control good breeding gives. Hamals, the porters, push their way
with backs bent double and their packs joined upon the leather rests
provided for that purpose. Great men in carriages drawn by dashing,
spirited Arab steeds roll by you, a servant in gorgeous livery beside
the driver on the box. Asiatics of all kinds and colours, fantastically
yet harmoniously clad, move past with silent, unhurried footsteps. And
then a batch of soldiers, fine, upstanding fellows in business-like
khaki, march past on their way to embark for the Yemen, the Sierra Leone
of the Turkish Empire, for which men even volunteer nowadays, since the
bad old order changed.
But we have landed our travellers on the northern extremity of the
promontory on which stands Constantine's ancient city. This part serves
as a public promenade, and here people take the air, admire the glorious
view, and generally behave like people do everywhere else, when they
find time for a leisurely stroll, the only difference being that here
men find time for one more often. The point is open to the sea, for
there is no further occasion for the walls and towers that encircled
this the starting-point of Byzantine history. Here was the first
settlement of Byzas that grew into an Acropolis, walled, and strongly
held, the heart of a growing empire. So we go inland, crossing by a
bridge the railway that discreetly hides its unloveliness in a cutting
before running into a terminus that might have been picked up from one
of the Hanseatic towns and planted here by some malignant fairy.
The road leads upwards to the Seraglio buildings, and here is much of
interest. There is the Museum containing many treasures, among them two
of wondrous beauty--two sarcophagi, one of which claims to have held the
remains of Alexander the Great, the other is presumed to be the last
resting-place of one of Alexander's higher officers, and is known as
"Les Pleureuses," from the beautifully-sculptured female figures in
mourning garb that adorn it. Within these precincts is the School of
Art, where much good, earnest work is being done under the guidance of
Humdi Bey, to whose efforts the recovery of the sarcophagi and other
monuments is due as the result of excavations in Asia Minor.
A broad road leads us with park-like plantations on either hand up from
the sea towards the Seraglio buildings. These buildings stand on a
height, the first of the seven hills that form the immovable
foundations of the city.
The Seraglio no longer serves its original purpose, the Imperial Museums
and School of Art have taken up a considerable portion of them, and
others find accommodation for troops. Here you may see the stalwart
Anatolian peasant being made into a soldier after the German pattern,
and a very good pattern too. Bugle-calls, reminiscent of those heard in
Germany, tells the Turkish soldier the time for all the many duties he
should attend to. Sergeants in manner emphatic and teutonesque impart
the mysteries of that solemn, high-stepping march which takes the place
of route marching in an army that has to train its men to reach
perfection in two years' time. Slim-waisted subalterns, whose moustaches
follow Imperial precept, superintend these operations, and an anxious
company commander may be seen in conference with his colour-sergeant.
It would sound invidious, it would savour of interference, to wonder
which is the better use for the Seraglio buildings, that of the present
or the past. The Artist doth profess loudly on this point, that no
building can serve a higher purpose than that of housing in comfort
those who are taken from their homes to learn how to defend the honour
of their
[Illustration: THE LANDWARD WALLS OF THE SERAGLIO.
Romance and mystery cling to the place and live in the name Seraglio. It
is jealously walled in, the wall being of Turkish construction and
comparatively recent, and to it may be seen clinging quaint wooden
houses.]
country, and that again the honour and glory of a community is well
served by making ample provisions for the encouragement of art. Both
Author and Artist wish these Seraglio buildings a glorious future in
their present warlike and peaceful missions.
But romance and mystery cling to the place and live in the name
Seraglio. It is jealously walled in, the wall being of Turkish
construction and comparatively recent, and to it may be seen clinging
quaint wooden houses.
No doubt Byzas dwelt somewhere about here, though the exact spot is
possibly beyond the ken of the keenest archæologist. Remains of solid
masonry, huge blocks of stone, have been discovered near the Seraglio
kitchens, of which a fine view is offered from the railway, peeps of the
massive, high-standing building through the ranks of its solemn escort
of cypress-trees.
When Byzantium became the City of Constantine it was found necessary to
extend the enceinte of the older fortifications, as the number of
inhabitants had grown prodigiously, and this first rampart was of
greater extent than the present Seraglio walls. The many improvements
made by Constantine, the palace he built unto himself, the Forum and
Hippodrome he laid out, and the churches he erected, are nearly all
within the immediate neighbourhood of the Seraglio, if not inside its
precincts. So here again was the centre of the civic and religious life
of the city, rising rapidly to the zenith of its power, and here it has
remained until most recent times.
There were walls and towers round the point to guard the city both
against her enemies and the violence of the elements, and, sooth to say,
it was the latter caused more damage than the former. These had need to
be constantly repaired. Of the very earliest walls no trace remains, yet
they too had their page in history. Not far from where our distinguished
travellers landed, just round the eastern point and looking east, is Top
Kapoussi, which means cannon-gate, for here stood a gate dedicated to
St. Barbara, who is the patron saint of gunners. But a more likely
reason for the Turks to retain the memory of the original name is that
close by stood a magazine or military arsenal when they conquered the
city, and may have stood for years after. It seems that there was a yet
older gate at this spot, a gate through which the Spartan admiral
Anaxibius entered the Acropolis when he escaped from the city by boat
along the Golden Horn, what time Xenophon and his truculent Greeks were
in possession.
After Constantine had led his people, or at least those under his
immediate influence, into the fold of the Christian community, many
churches sprang up about this northern extremity of the promontory.
(There are, no doubt, those who will differ from the Author on the
subject of Constantine's conversion, who may say that his people led
Constantine to adopt Christianity, and that reasons of policy rather
than the conviction born of a sudden inspiration guided him, but the
Artist will on no account allow such a prosaic version.) Five churches
stood about here, one dedicated to St. Barbara, as we have seen, another
to St. Demetrius, a third to St. Saviour, yet another to St. Lazarus,
and a fifth one built to St. George on the highest ground available just
there, according to custom, for in former times all churches dedicated
to the warrior's patron saint were built on higher ground, as if to give
the saint an opportunity of keeping a good look-out from his sanctuary.
This church gave to the Sea of Marmora its mediæval name of Braz St.
George.
There were evidently other buildings in connection with St. George's
Church, a monastic institution most probably, for here under the name of
Joasaph the Emperor John Cantacuzene dwelt in seclusion after his
abdication until he withdrew altogether from among his former subjects
to a monastery on Mount Athos. Another great feature of this
neighbourhood was its holy well, which may be springing still, though
for this the Author cannot vouch, as he has not seen it. The Church of
St. Saviour guarded this holy spring--its water had healing qualities,
and pilgrimages were made to it on the Festival of the Transfiguration.
The life of the capital of an empire stirred the precinct of what is now
the Seraglio enclosure and the vicinity outside it for close on twenty
centuries. We have seen the city rise under the fostering care of Byzas
its founder, and followed those dim paths of remotest history when the
world was young, though no doubt the sad young cynics of the period
thought it as old and foredone as they do to-day. Then came the glorious
epoch of Constantine and his successors--glorious indeed in the new
light of Christianity, but in that name much evil was done, and by it
murder and violence and civil war were held to be excused. But through
it all the city, this seat of empire, exhibited a most astounding
elasticity and power of recovery. True the Palace of Cæsar built by
Constantine was not within the precincts enclosed by the Seraglio walls
of to-day, but the brain of the empire held its sway hard by here, and
its tumultuous heart beat everywhere among the ruins and decay that now
mark the site of palaces.
Constantine in his glory and genius passes, and others follow him in an
unbroken sequence, some good, many bad, all human, and thus surrounded
by the romance that envelops those that played their part in history
and did their share in making it. A noble sequence taking them all in
all from Constantine, who reigned from 306 to 337, then his successors
down to the last emperor, another Constantine of the house of
Palæologus, twelfth of the name who fell before his city walls to be
succeeded by a conqueror of the house of Ottoman, the house that has
filled the throne of the Eastern Empire until to-day.
If we take but a few of this unbroken line of sovereigns, more than one
hundred altogether, such names stand out in the world's history as
Valens, whose aqueduct still stands as a monument to perpetuate his
name. Then Theodosius II, whose master mind gave to the city its
furthest limit in those proud walls that have encircled it since the
beginning of his reign, and still stand as testimony to the genius of
man. Justinian the Great, too, first of that name of whom we must say
more when we come to the ruins of the lordly palace he inhabited. Leo V
the Armenian who entered the city as a poor groom, they say, but served
his Imperial master, Michael I the Drunkard, so well that he then
ascended his throne and restored the expelled Government of the Empire.
And there are many others of whom mention will be made elsewhere in
connection with fortifications and palaces that were erected far beyond
the first narrow limits of the city that Byzas had founded and the great
Constantine made his own.
About this neighbourhood centred the life of the city; there was a broad
esplanade near where the Church of St. Lazarus stood, down by the Sea of
Marmora, its site probably not far from the foot of the Seraglio
kitchens. This esplanade was called the Atrium of Justinian the Great,
for it was his creation. And a fair place it was, all built of white
marble. Here the good citizens might walk and breathe the soft air,
looking out towards the Prince's Islands and the coast of Asia, across
the Sea of Marmora, reflecting in its translucent depths the glorious
colours of an Eastern sunset. And here they walked and talked, and no
doubt discussed all subjects upon earth, religion, politics, those chief
incentives to resultless argument, and the news, with all its
variations, which were nothing uncommon even in the days before a daily
paper first appeared. How portly burghers must have smiled with
satisfaction at the sight of bellying sails that drove their galleys
back from the shores of many countries to the great market.
Or a racing craft under full sail with all its rows of glittering oars
rising and dipping in strict accord would round the point into the
Golden Horn, leaving the gazers in the Atrium the prey to many
conjectures, until a gentle sound coming from the north, round by the
Senate, growing to a roar conveyed the news of some great victory.
Perhaps an anxious heart of mother, wife or sister would beat against
the coping of the Atrium, as tearful eyes followed the swift sails of
departing war fleets that pressed onward into the morning. And the sun
would rise to arouse the golden glories of the city, and yet leave that
heart unlightened.
Here, too, good folk would meet to discuss the pomp and splendour of the
escort that had brought the Emperor's bride-elect to the sea-gate of
Eugenius down by the Golden Horn. How Cæsar there had met her with great
pomp and ceremony, and had himself invested her with the insignia of her
exalted rank. The talk would then go on to the high doings at the
palace, and all those good things that had been brought together from
every quarter of the earth for the delectation of the wedding guests.
When lowering clouds obscured the brightness of the sun of Cæsar what
whisperings, what anxious glances out to sea! Yes, and perhaps what
black looks when an alliance was proposed, and indeed consummated,
between a princess of their royal house and the polygamist ruler of
their enemies the Turks, Amurath I.
What troublous times and discontents when every messenger brought news
of fresh disaster, of yet another portion of the Empire torn from its
enfeebled grasp. What grumbling at the supineness of the Christian world
that looked on with apathy when it could find the time to spare from its
own internal quarrels, while the most Eastern bulwark of the faith was
being hard pressed by those who carried Islam with fire and sword
wherever they went. And then a ray of hope when as a last resource John
VI Palæologus betook himself to Rome to implore the Pope to exert his
influence on behalf of his expiring fortunes, and to stir up another
crusade among the nations of the West. Though at the same time the
Emperor sent one of his sons to serve in the Turkish army and learn
those secrets of success which that host alone seemed to know.
Intrigue flourished at Constantinople more perhaps than anywhere, unless
it be in Rome, and we well imagine how rumours of such matters filtered
down among the populace, giving rise to conjecture and wild, inaccurate
statements, the food that intrigue fattens on, rumour also of private
feuds and family dissensions not only among nobles and leaders of the
State, but among its lowliest citizens. So when John Palæologus betrayed
his weakness and the weakness of his Empire, many among those who walked
the Atrium of an evening might search their minds for some one who
could save them from the threatening devastation, and would gladly turn
to any who promised to strengthen the shaky edifice and re-establish
that sense of security without which all private enterprise was
crippled. For here, as in the time before Saxon England fell to the Duke
of Normandy, the conqueror's influence permeated, and attachments were
formed between the highest of both nations.
So Andronicus, another son of John Palæologus, entered into friendship
with Saoudji, one of the sons of Amurath. Saoudji was jealous of the
favour shown to Bajazet, his brother, and resented the latter's
popularity--well deserved too, for he was valiant and successful in the
field, and through the rapidity and vigour of his charges acquired the
epithet of Yilderim, or Lightning.
So while Amurath was away in Asia, Saoudji and Andronicus, with the
assistance of a band of Greek nobles and retainers, organized a combined
revolt against the Byzantine and Turkish Governments. Amurath got
tidings of this, and forthwith recrossed the Hellespont.
Suspecting Palæologus of complicity, Amurath compelled him to join in
his proceedings to quell the revolt. The rebel forces were encamped near
the town of Apicidion, and Amurath marched against them.
Unattended and under cover of night he rode to the entrenchments of
their camp and called aloud to the Turkish insurgents, commanding them
to return to their allegiance, promising a general amnesty. All these on
hearing the familiar voice deserted their new leader and their Byzantine
allies, and rejoined the forces of Amurath. Saoudji and Andronicus with
his Greek followers were speedily taken. Saoudji was brought before his
father, who commanded first that his eyes should be put out as unworthy
to look his last upon the day, and then that he should be slain. The
Greek insurgents were tied together and flung two or three at a time
into the Maritza, while Amurath sat by until the last was drowned. The
fathers of some of the rebels were ordered to slay their children before
him; those who refused were themselves destroyed. Amurath ended by
sending Andronicus in fetters to his father, commanding him to deal with
him even as he had dealt with his own.
And after all the suppliant Emperor's journey to Rome failed to arouse
the Western nations to undertake a new crusade. All that was achieved
was a confederacy to resist the future progress of the Ottoman power,
and if possible to dispossess it of its European territories. The
Sclavonic nations, at the confines of whose territories the Turks had
arrived, joined together at the instigation of Servia. Servians, then
the best troops and the most formidable the Turks had met in Europe,
Bosnians, Albanians and Bulgarians, and with them Magyars and men from
Wallachia took the field. Though at times successful, the alliance
failed eventually in its purpose, and not until most recent times have
those nations emerged from Turkish suzerainty to national independence.
The Battle of Kossova broke the power of the Sclavonic race in the
Balkans and led to their disappearance from the arena of the polity of
nations for many centuries. A fierce fight it was that raged all day
with varying fortunes and glorious display of chivalry and knightly
daring, where Bajazet the Lightning struck swift and sure, though a
Christian noble ended the conqueror's career when the fortunes of the
day had just turned in his favour.
It happened thus, one Milosh Kabilovitch galloped forth as if a deserter
from the Servian ranks and sought the royal presence of Amurath. He
alleged important intelligence concerning the plans of the allies.
Kneeling before Amurath, he suddenly leapt up and by one stroke buried
his dagger in the monarch's heart. By a miraculous exercise of strength
he beat off all the attendants who surrounded him again and again, but
finally fell under the sabres of the Janissaries just as he had reached
the spot where he had left his horse. Amurath survived but to the close
of the battle. His last act was to order the death of the captured
Lazarus, king of Servia, who had commanded the centre of the Christian
force, and who, standing in chains, regaled the dying eyes of his
conqueror.
News of this momentous happening reached Constantinople, and we can
guess that the faces of those who frequented the Atrium grew gloomier.
Was there no one who could help? The horns of the Crescent were closing
in on the City of Constantine, the Empire was shorn of most of its
former glory and its vast possessions. Little but the city and its
immediate surroundings were left unsubdued, all escape from the
conquering Turk seemed hopeless. And then what were their prospects? to
be conquered, and by such ruthless hands! The death of Saoudji may have
been reckoned an act of justice, but rumours came to them, and proved
true, of other deeds more cruel, of how Bajazet ascended the throne,
like Richmond on Bosworth field, of how his brother Yakoub, who had
fought valiantly in the Battle of Kossova, and had contributed largely
to its success, was summoned to the regal tent and there saw his
father's body, the first intimation of his death. How then and there in
the presence of that body Bajazet had immediately ordered his sorrowing
brother to be strangled. This act was done, says Seaddedin, the Turkish
historian, in conformity with the precept of the Koran, "Disturbance is
worse than murder." Surely a gloomy outlook for the watchers on the
wall.
But how awful would be the fate of their city which had so long resisted
the sacred Scimitar of Ottoman! What mercy could they expect? Help there
was none, and Bajazet was making preparations to submit Constantinople
to yet another siege. But he was diverted by hostilities on his western
frontier, and hope revived again in the hearts of those that looked over
the city walls across the Sea of Marmora. For the Christian natives of
the West had at last begun to realize the danger threatening them from
the East. They were moved not by the recommendation of a heretic Greek
emperor, but urged by the supplications of the King of Hungary, a
spiritual vassal of the Roman See. Pope Boniface IX proclaimed a crusade
against the Turks, and promised plenary indulgence to those who should
engage in an expedition for the defence of Hungary, and the neighbouring
Catholic States.
There were fewer sinners in need of indulgence in those days than there
are now; but the population of Europe was proportionately smaller. Yet
many rallied to the banners of Philip of Artois; Comte d'Eu, Constable
of France; Vienne, Admiral; and Bourcicault, Marshal of France. The
Count of Hohenzollern, Grand Prince of the Teutonic order, led a force
of Germans; the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, led by their Grand
Master Naillac, joined the force of some 120,000 allies, all, as
Froissart says, "of tried courage and enterprise." Their aim was to
break the power of Bajazet in Hungary, and when this was done to advance
on Constantinople, cross the Hellespont, enter Syria, gain the Holy
Land, and deliver Jerusalem with its Holy Sepulchre from the hands of
infidels.
How anxiously those citizens of Constantinople must have longed for news
of the enterprise, how hope revived as the fall of Widdin, Orsova, and
Raco were reported. What a heavy time of waiting it must have been while
the Christian host lay before Nicopolis. Still hope held on, for Bajazet
was in Asia, and was never expected back. But suddenly he appeared
within six leagues of the Crusaders' camp. The news was brought in by
foragers, and the impetuous French knights, sitting at their evening
meal, at once buckled on their arms, and demanded to be led against the
foes. Against the advice of Sigismund of Hungary the French charged
impetuously. They charged and broke the ranks of the Akindgi, the
advanced guard of the Janissaries and of the heavy regular cavalry, and
pressed on till they encountered the main body of the Turks under the
command of the Sultan himself. Meanwhile the disordered ranks of the
Akindgi and Janissaries left behind, reformed and attacked the French in
their rear. All gallantry was unavailing--they were almost all killed or
taken. The German knights fell around their sacred banners. The day was
lost; of the ten thousand prisoners taken, nearly all were massacred on
the following day by Bajazet, who sat out from dawn till evening
watching, according to the custom of his race, the gratifying spectacle
of slaughter.
This dashed the hopes of the Greek Christians, and they began to prepare
for the last hours of their Imperial City. But Bajazet was called away
to his Eastern Asiatic frontier, where the Mongols were making fierce
inroads on his territory, under their famous leader Tamerlane. A respite
was thus granted while thus occupied, for the army of Bajazet was
annihilated at Angora, and he himself was slain. No doubt the news of
Bajazet's defeat and death was welcome to those who took their walks on
the Atrium, no doubt many a good bargain was concluded then and there
in a friendly way, when the news from Asia promised better security, and
at least a postponement of the Eastern terror. And indeed the Ottoman
power was prostrate for awhile after the Battle of Angora, and to make
matters worse the sons of Bajazet quarrelled about the succession. In
the chaos that ensued even the Greek Empire profited directly, for
several portions of lost property were recovered, and no doubt hopes ran
high that a turning-point in its fortunes had arrived, that the dark
clouds of Eastern predominance so long threatening were to be finally
dispelled, and that the sun of Rome would shine again over Byzantium.
But the old terror revived again, though not perhaps to the same extent.
Certainly, ere long the Turks were knocking at the city gates again.
This time under Musa, a son of Bajazet, who on being released from
captivity in Tamerlane's tents, joined in the fray of brothers, and laid
siege to Constantinople, because the emperor supported the claims of the
eldest brother Solyman, who had taken unto himself the Sultanate of his
father's European possession, but had been overcome and slain by Mahomed
the younger son.
Manuel II Palæologus, Greek emperor, besought the protection of
Mahomed, and for a time a Turkish army actually garrisoned the Castle of
Cæsar. But Mahomed had to take his troops back to Asia. There he
overcame and slew his brother Musa, and then, all rival claimants having
been removed, became Sultan of his father's dominions.
But a few years longer was the respite granted to the failing power of
Byzantium. John VII Palæologus retained some semblance of Imperial
dignity; but under his successor, a bearer of Constantine's illustrious
name, the death-knell sounded alike to the house of Palæologus and to
the Roman Empire of the East. The curtain rang down on what may be
called the second act of the drama of Byzantium--the reign of the
Christian emperors. The curtain rose again on a scene strewn with ruins
of Imperial splendour, on heaps of slain, the victims of the conqueror's
lust of blood, and the succession of emperors in the Imperial City of
the East was restored by one of the greatest and perhaps the most cruel
of the able sons of Othman.
Mahomed II the Conqueror broke the proud record of those stout walls of
Constantinople, and made the place his own. The ancient capital of the
Ottomans, Broussa, and the more recent one, Adrianople, receded into the
background; the former to become a relic of satisfied ambitions,
treated with the respect usually meted out to a stepping-stone, the
latter a mere base for frontier defence. Mahomed transformed all the
life of his nation, and centred it in the City of Constantine, choosing
that part of it where Byzas first landed, the point of the promontory.
For here he separated a space of eight furlongs from the point to the
triangle and built his Seraglio.
And here the history of Constantinople continued its course with just
that break of a few days when ownership was forcibly transferred. Nor
did the religious life of the city suffer any lengthy interruption.
True, the monasteries disappeared, the Cross fell from the Christian
churches, the Crescent added minarets, and due ceremony made them into
mosques. But who can say that the religious life had ceased with the
alteration in creed and dogma. And the Turks with some exceptions,
usually political, have always respected the faith of others.
It must have been one of the most marvellous and astounding scenes ever
witnessed by mortal eyes that took place not long after the city fell,
and long before the sights and signs of the desolation there wrought had
been removed. The Greek remnant had gathered together and returned in
crowds as soon as they had sufficiently been assured of their lives,
their liberties, and the free exercise of their religion. To solemnize
this fast the Sultan held an investiture on old Byzantium lines, with
all the pomp and traditional splendour of the ceremony, an investiture
of the Patriarch of Greek Orthodoxy. With his own hand the Conqueror
delivered into the hands of Gennodius the crosier or pastoral staff, the
symbol of his ecclesiastical office. His Holiness was then conducted to
the Gate of the Seraglio, presented with a horse richly caparisoned, and
led by viziers and pashas to the palace allotted for his residence.
And this happened within the Seraglio walls! Surely an astounding event.
The successor to the throne and empire of the Cæsars, the conqueror
whose hands were red with the blood of massacred Christians, the
victorious leader of that fanatic race whose life is more influenced by
their creed than that of perhaps any other human community, himself
approved the chosen Patriarch, the head of his new subjects' religion,
and with his own hands elevated him to that high office. Thus from the
centre of Constantine's city in its new aspect of purely oriental
colouring, the Seraglio, the latticed prison of those whose privilege it
is to give birth to the sons of Islam, new life was given to Greek
Orthodoxy by him whose sword had hitherto been raised against it.
So the life of the old city, the heart of a new empire continued, and
one ruler followed another, and like those of the second act, some were
good, others bad, but none wholly indifferent. Another Bajazet followed
on Mahomed the Conqueror and carried on the victorious traditions of his
house. Mahomed died suddenly among his soldiers, leaving two sons, who
contested for the sovereignty, as has so often happened in the history
of empires raised by the hand of one strong man. Zizimes, the younger
son, suggested a division of the empire, Bajazet to rule over Roumelia,
Zizimes to govern Anatolia with the Hellespont as boundary between their
realms. But Bajazet would none of it. "The Empire is a bride whose
favours cannot be shared," he said, and Zizimes was defeated and had to
seek refuge at the Courts of other rulers, some Christian, but none of
them favourable to the furtherance of his hopes. His death was caused by
poison, administered by a servant of the Pope, Alexander Borgia, who
thereby gained a reward of 300,000 ducats from the brother Bajazet, the
sum that Borgia had agreed to for the deed, and would probably have
earned himself had not Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and carried
off Zizimes from the guardianship of the Roman Pontiff.
And the romantic history of this chosen spot of Byzas continues within
the walls of the Seraglio, one Sultan following another and making his
throne secure by murdering others that stood near it. Thus did Selim I
to his brethren. He was the youngest, the ablest and most daring of the
sons of Bajazet, and in his father's lifetime intrigued against him for
possession of the throne. His efforts proved successful. A rabble of
soldiers and citizens surrounded the Seraglio and demanded audience of
the Sultan. "What is your desire?" inquired Bajazet. "Our Padishah is
old and sickly, and we will that Selim shall be our Sultan." So Bajazet
abdicated, to die a few days afterwards, and Selim reigned in his stead.
Having secured the throne Selim bent his mind on conquest and the
suppression of schism among the followers of the Prophets. The Shiites
repudiated the claim to the caliphate of Mahomed's immediate successors,
Abu-Dekr, Omar and Othman. So for reasons probably as much political as
religious, Selim proclaimed himself champion of Orthodoxy, and sullied
his reign by the St. Bartholomew of Ottoman history. In all there were
70,000 of his subjects who held to the Shii doctrine within the Ottoman
dominion in Europe and Asia, 40,000 of these were massacred and 30,000
sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. And Selim became Caliph of the
Moslem faith.
Then follows one whose name looms large in history, Solyman I the Great,
his title nobly earned not only by valour in the field, but by wisdom in
the council--and he was great among a galaxy of great Christian
sovereigns, Charles V, Francis I, Henry VIII and Pope Leo X. The world
was then entering on modern times, and many changes were in progress.
But who will deny to this the first inception of the modern spirit, the
glamour of Romance. The art and practice of war was undergoing a change,
the arts of peace were reviving. Holbein was making illustrious
sovereigns yet more illustrious by his cunning hand, and the bold
spirits of a new Europe found yet newer countries across the seas.
The name of Solyman conjures up visions of the glowing glory of the
Eastern Empire, of the force and vigour of Islam, for Selim had enjoined
upon his son to carry war into the countries that professed the faith of
the Cross. Through this monarch's enterprise was Romance enriched by the
story of his wars, as when against Hungary he penetrated even as far as
Vienna, which he besieged, what time the Poles came stoutly to the help
of Europe, to be rewarded later in history by the partition of Poland
and a period of oppression which is not yet ended. With him we connect
another glorious name, who brought to his master, victorious on land,
new laurels won at sea, Barbarossa, Solyman's great admiral.
Yet another name that rings out from within the walls of the Seraglio,
and is known by all who love Romance, is that of Roxalana. Solyman's
favourite Sultana in the earlier part of his reign had been a beautiful
Circassian. Her son Mustapha inherited his mother's beauty, and was a
pattern of manly and chivalrous excellence.
But the Circassian Sultana lost the Imperial favour. A lovely Russian
girl, Khourrem ("The joyous one"), enkindled anew the passion of love in
the Sultan's breast. She was a slave, she obtained her freedom from her
royal lover and induced him to wed her. Khourrem, or as the Christians
called her "Roxalana" became Sultana. Her aims and ambition was to
forward the chances of her own children, and to that end Mustapha had to
be removed. She ruled Solyman to the day of her death, and had the
satisfaction of bringing about the murder of Mustapha before she died.
He was appointed Governor of Carmania, and so skilfully did Roxalana
work upon Solyman that he was at last induced to believe that Mustapha
was plotting to usurp the throne. Mustapha was ordered to enter the
Sultan's presence alone, and Solyman looking on from an inner chamber
saw seven mute executioners carry out his command to strangle his son
with the bowstring.
And so the Romance that sheds a glamour over the history enacted within
the Seraglio walls flows on, while fortune favours those who merit it,
and wrong-doing is often punished by those drastic measures to which
these grey embattlements had long become accustomed. Roxalana herself
was buried in all due state not a stone's throw from the spot where her
sovereign lord afterwards found his rest. But in the two chambers where
they lie you will notice a difference. To enter that of Solyman you must
take off your shoes, the place is holy ground--the grave of a warrior
who is almost a saint. You may, however, pass to the chamber of the
"Joyous one" shod as you are. She has no soul, that makes all the
difference.
They tell of Selim, Solyman's successor, Roxalana's son, who broke the
Law of the Prophet and died drunk; Othman II, of the revolt of the
Janissaries and their choice of Sultan--until the seat of Government was
moved from the place where Byzas first made his choice and Constantine
and his successors reigned, until they in due time gave way to those of
the house of Ottoman.
But is the present state of this Seraglio less romantic than in those
days of fierce passion untrammelled and only expressed in blood? The
head priest, the Sheik-ul-Islam, has decreed that there is no
infringement of the Laws of Islam in its sons expressing higher thoughts
by means artistic. And so the life of the Seraglio goes on, peaceful,
more beautiful, and just as much Romance as heretofore.
CHAPTER IV
SERAGLIO POINT (_continued_)
Seraglio Point itself, or rather the extreme end of it at least, is now
open to the sea. It was not always so, and is only safe now that
long-range guns have completely revolutionized the methods of defence.
Where our travellers alighted was a wall flanked by strong towers, 188
in all, says Bondelmontius; this extended all along the coast by the Sea
of Marmora, until it joined the angle where the land-walls that cut
right across the peninsula commence. Remains, and fine remains, of their
sea-wall are still here, at one place dipping their stout foundations
into the sea, at others further inland on spots which were in former
times the harbour.
No doubt the first wall here was built by Byzas, but it has vanished and
made room for the ramparts which Constantine the Great erected to defend
his new capital. What yet remains is full of interest and has a beauty
of its own.
When looking towards the city from Modar or Kadikeui on the Asiatic
side, the city seems to arise from out a girdle of embattled walls, to
lose itself in a forest of slender minarets. On approaching these walls
their interest increases, for here are arches built up and strange
inscriptions, gateways that each contribute many pages to history.
Theodosius II and his præfect Constantius have here left records of
their rule; the Emperor Theophilus is mentioned in the same manner as
the restorer of the walls, and so is the share that Emperor Isaac
Angelus contributed to their repair.
No doubt there was much need of walls to guard the ever-extending
sea-front of the city along the shore of the Sea of Marmora; for though
the Greeks, and after them the Turks, were generally able to forestall
an attack by striking first, this policy in the degenerate times of the
Empire was not always practicable.
Still the sea-walls were not exposed to the assaults of an enemy to such
an extent as were the landward ones; their worst enemy was the sea in
its destructive phases, and other elements aided in rendering insecure
man's tenure of this precious slip of land.
The traveller must remember the first sight of Constantine's glorious
city; he approached it at high noon and saw it melting in a golden haze
rising out of tranquil waters, which mirrored faithfully the colour of
the sky, while many other colours flamed and fleeted like sparkling
diamonds. Yet as we approached Seraglio Point the strength of the
current became evident, the current against which those heavy-built
sailing craft, aided by their oars, battled so manfully, while it bore
other small craft swiftly out into the Sea of Marmora. This current with
its constant wear and tear put a severe strain on the foundations of the
seaward walls upon Seraglio Point. The traveller's first view was in the
fairest of fair weather; but in the winter, when the piercing icy gale
tears down through the narrow channel of the Bosphorus, ploughing up its
waters to dash them against the facings of the promontory, another side
of the picture is revealed, and helps to account for the constant
repairs that were needed to keep the seaward ramparts in a proper state
of defence. Not only those storms that scourge the racing billows to the
charge, but other forces have helped to frustrate man's efforts to
shelter himself from fierce foemen and fiercer elements.
For in 447 an earthquake visited this fair spot and wreaked much havoc
among the stout walls and stouter towers that Constantine constructed.
Again, some three centuries later, a most severe winter held all that
Eastern neighbourhood in an iron grip. According to Theophanes, the
Black Sea along the northern and western shores was frozen to a
distance of one hundred miles from land, and that to a depth of sixty
feet. Upon this foundation a huge mass of snow some forty-five feet in
height had gathered. With the softer breath of spring the ice broke up,
and floating on the swift currents of the Bosphorus came the floes in
such numbers that they blocked up the narrower passages and formed a
floating barricade across the channel from Scutari to Galata. When this
mass in its turn was loosened and drifted south, huge icebergs crashed
against the bulwarks, so high that they overtopped the towers and
ramparts of the sea-wall, so great that their weight and impetus crushed
all that opposed their progress. And thus the walls along the apex of
the promontory had to be entirely reconstructed by Michael II, who
commenced the work, and his son Theophilus, who completed it.
Author and Artist have discussed most seriously how best to show the
traveller these walls along the Sea of Marmora, for there is much to be
seen. The Artist loves the view from across the Sea of Marmora seen at
sunrise, of the city swimming in a sea of pearly grey; or at sunset,
purple against a glowing mass of orange, red and green, colours which
are all truthfully reflected in the placid waters. And the centre of the
composition is the Seraglio lighthouse. Close behind it rise
battlemented walls and towers, and then in tiers of little red roofs
above the grey wooden houses, among trees of all kinds, while everywhere
the immortal cypress strives after the minarets that stand as sentinels
to the many mosques which crown the heights of the city.
Here, too, on that tranquil sheet of water, pages of history have been
unrolled, filled up, and set aside for the guidance of future
generations. For though the seaward walls were strong and bravely
manned, though they were further guarded by a current which could dash
an enemy's fleet to atoms on the strong surface of the defences, or
carry it harmless out to sea again, many a shipload of adventurous
spirits has tried conclusions with the men who held them and the
elements which guarded the approaches with equal jealousy.
Perhaps the first serious attempt upon the seaward walls was made by
those scourges of the Mediterranean, the Saracens. It was on this
occasion that mention is first made of the use of a chain to close the
entrance of a harbour against an enemy. It was stretched across the
Golden Horn, from a tower near the apex of the promontory to one upon
the northern bank.
Those were stirring times, when the sons of Arabia Felix, the first
disciples of the Prophet, spread out over all the Mediterranean and the
neighbouring countries. They conquered in breathless advance Egypt and
all north of Africa, and held their own still in its most western
region. They invaded Persia, they overflowed into Spain, overthrew the
Gothic monarchy, and remained, despite the heroic efforts of Charlemagne
and his Paladins. Syria and the Holy Places were theirs, and they
snatched what was best and most worth having among the islands of the
Mediterranean. What wonder, then, that they turned their eager, flashing
eyes towards Constantinople? As we stand gazing at the beautiful city
that rises proudly out of a tranquil sea, the waters become troubled,
and dark-blue and iron-grey storm-clouds gather in the south. They race
up from the Dardanelles, and hundreds of rakish-looking craft, rigged as
those that the traveller may see any day off the north coast of Africa,
fly before the wind. The rain falls in torrents, and then suddenly all
is still again, the sea is quiet, and the rearguard of the tempest
sweeps away up the Bosphorus, to leave the sun in possession of its
former battlefield. Even so came the invincible navies of Egypt and
Syria, carrying the swarthy sons of Arabia towards the treasures they
descried within the walls of Constantine's Imperial City. And up it
comes, this storm-cloud, over a smooth sea, and borne on a gentle
breeze like a moving forest overshadowing the surface of the strait.
Others of their fierce race and fiercer faith were arrayed before the
land-walls; and no one of the invaders doubted that any bulwarks,
however strong, however well defended, could resist the tide of
passionate bravery that was about to break over the devoted city.
But the time was not yet come. Leo III the Isaurian, a man risen from
the people to the Imperial Purple through his ability and valour, knew
how to defend his own. He had the chain that guarded the entrance to the
harbour lowered, and, while the enemy hesitated as to which course to
adopt, Greek fireships sailed amongst them carrying destruction as to
the Armada. This, and the tempests that arose, so seriously damaged the
hitherto invincible fleet that only a few galleys were spared to return
to Alexandria and to relate the tale of their moving misadventures.
Though peace was never the lot of the Eastern Empire for any protracted
period, it was more than a century later that an unfriendly keel
furrowed the waters of the Sea of Marmora. And this time the trouble
came from within. Michael II the Stammerer had gained the throne when
Leo V the Armenian was slain at the foot of the altar grasping a weighty
cross in his hand. Thomas contested Michael's claim and sailed towards
the city to enforce his own, but a storm arose and compelled him to
withdraw. So Thomas and his galleys are wafted from the scene to be
followed shortly afterwards by other hardier adventurers. They came down
from the Black Sea, a black cloud their canopy, on black waters that
turned to silver where the prows of their vessels cleared a path.
Fierce, reckless foes these, who in 865 first made acquaintance with the
Eastern Gate of Europe, a goal that for ten centuries represented the
sum of their ambition. Fair men of big stature with high cheek-bones,
speaking a barbarous language, they sped down on the wings of a fierce
gale towards the Golden Horn. But here the tempest gained the mastery,
and this the first Russian fleet to disturb the peace of Constantinople
perished in the storm.
Again a visionary host crowds the further banks with their glittering
arms and pennants waving overhead; all the chivalry of the West is here
assembled. Their numbers are so great that the Byzantine agents gave up
the task of counting them. They came from all the West: from Rome to
Britain, from Poland and Bohemia and all Germany under the banner of
Conrad the Kaiser. Louis of France too, and his nobles, swelled this
throng, who, with the cross emblazoned on their shields and embroidered
on their garments, set out upon this conquest of the Holy Land. We see
them cross the waters, while hope beats high in their unconquered
hearts, and would rather draw a veil over the return of the mere remnant
of survivors.
Then later on came others in larger vessels, from the South: Genoese,
experienced travellers and determined fighters; also Venetians, the only
race of sea-dogs that ever succeeded in an attempt on these sea-walls. A
striking scene this. In double line the ships and lighter galleys of the
Venetians bore down upon the walls. Soldiers leapt from the swifter
sailing craft on to shore and planted scaling-ladders against the walls.
In the meantime the heavier ships filled up the gaps with their high
poop-decks and turrets, as platforms for those military engines then in
use, and from them drawbridges were lowered to the summit of the wall.
On the prow of his galley stood Dandolo, the venerable Doge, in full
armour. He was the first warrior on the shore. The standard of St. Mark
waved from the ramparts and twenty-five of the towers were speedily
occupied, the Greeks being driven by fire from the adjacent quarters.
But Dandolo decided to forego the advantage thus gained in order to
hasten to the aid of his Latin comrades, whose small and exhausted bands
were in sore straits among the superior numbers of the Greeks.
Nevertheless, their firm aspect awed the coward Emperor Alexius. But he
collected a treasure of 10,000 pounds of gold, and basely deserting his
wife and people crept into a barque and stole through the Bosphorus and
sought safety in an obscure Thracian harbour.
Two mighty heroes of history and Romance, both known as Barbarossa, add
yet more colour to the vivid pageant that plays over these placid
waters. For further to the south, where the Sea of Marmora narrows into
the Channel of the Dardanelles, the Redbeard Frederick, Conrad's son and
successor to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, if not the greatest,
at least the best known in the romantic story of the house of
Hohenstauffen, crossed into Asia to find, after many deeds of derring
do, his watery grave in a small Cilician torrent. There were many who
believed he was not dead, but only slumbering deep among the ruins of
Kyffhausen--his long red beard grown through the table on which his hand
supports his head, the while he dreams even as he has dreamt through all
the troublous times that visited Germany. Dreamt while the last scion of
his house perished; dreamt while a war of thirty years, provoked like
all the cruelest wars by religious differences, devastated the fair
fields of Germany and laid waste many a walled city; dreamt while the
march of the first Napoleon's armies made Europe tremble--only to awake
when all Germany arose and marched towards the Rhine and into the Empire
of the third Napoleon, and returning thence to build up a new and
stronger empire.
The next to bear the epithet of Barbarossa lived his eventful life when
Francis I was King of France and Charles V King of Spain, Naples and the
Netherlands, and by election German Emperor, ruled over many states and
provinces of the old world and the new.
Solyman I the Great was Sultan and Chief, and reigned at Constantinople,
extending the empire of the Crescent by land far into Western Europe,
while Barbarossa carried the victorious symbol everywhere in the
Mediterranean Sea. His name was Khairedden Pasha, one of four brothers
who were trained to merchandise with its usual concomitant piracy, and
amassed great wealth in these pursuits. Barbarossa and his brother
Urudsh sailed at first under the flag of the Tunisian Sultan but paid
tribute to Solyman, and eventually transferred to him their allegiance.
They conquered Temnes, Algiers, and all the Barbary coast, which they
held as fief of the Porte. All his ventures seemed to be successful. A
strong fleet was sent against him under command of Genoa's great
admiral, Doria, by Charles V, but Barbarossa defied him. A stately
pageant passed down the Sea of Marmora in 1534. Barbarossa and his fleet
of eighty-four vessels, with which he scoured the Mediterranean Sea,
ravaged the coasts of Italy, Minorca and Spain, and beat the combined
fleets of the Emperor, the Pope, and Venice off Prevesa. After many
years of successful marauding we see the Turkish fleet return, still
under command of their veteran admiral, Barbarossa, whose beard was
turning white. A peaceful end in Constantinople was his, and now the
body that held that turbulent spirit rests worthily enshrined by the
shore of the Bosphorus.
With the passing of Barbarossa a new power first makes its appearance
under the walls of old Byzantium, its colours the white ensign
emblazoned with St. George's blood-red cross. Tight-built English ships,
some of which may possibly have borne their brave part in the defeat of
Spain's great Armada, are next seen sailing smoothly upon the waters of
the inland sea. They bring messages from Elizabeth, Queen of England, to
Amurath II, Sultan and Chief.
Again, a century later, when Ibrahim, an evil ruler, reigned over the
Turkish Empire, and excesses of all kinds went unpunished, some English
ships lying in the Bosphorus were plundered. It was the custom then in
Turkey, when any one had received an injury from a minister or official,
for him to put fire on his head and run to the palace. Stout Sir Thomas
Bentinck, the English Ambassador--redress for the outrage to English
ships having been refused--brought them up from Galata and anchored them
immediately before the windows of the Imperial Palace. Adapting the
custom we have mentioned, he lighted fires on every yard-arm. No sooner
was this seen on shore than the Vizier hastened to the Ambassador, paid
him a large sum of money, and engaging to pay the surplus of the sum
demanded, besought him to extinguish the warning blaze.
But now, at the bidding of the Author, we move landwards again. As we
approach, bearing somewhat to the south of the Seraglio lighthouse, the
buildings above us stand out more clearly. Constantine's Church, now
Mosque of St. Sophia, looms over all the attendant minarets, relieving
the imposing mass of masonry of its too heavy aspect. Near by the Mosque
of St. Irene, also of Constantine's building. In this mosque is still
kept the chain that barred the Golden Horn to the Turks during the last
siege. A long yellow building stands out near St. Sophia, and shows a
pillared front to the smooth waters of the Marmora. This is now the
Turkish Parliament, though in a short time that young and vigorous
assembly is to transfer its deliberations to one of the more gorgeous
palaces of the Bosphorus. Fittingly enough it stands almost on the site
of the Senate of Roman, Grecian and Byzantine empire. Here centred much
of the life of the old City of Constantine, hard by is the Hippodrome
which that emperor laid out. It was here that the city's
pleasure-seeking denizens met to enjoy the games, the chariot-races, and
other pastimes peculiar to that age. What fortunes must have been
wagered or dissipated by a single crashing blow of the cæstus, or by one
slip of the runner as he left the starting-line! How many a delicate
girl must have held her hands in horror to her eyes, when under the
brazen tripod fell the charioteer who had swerved too closely to the
corner, and drawn down the other competitors with him in his ruin. Here,
also, in later times of trouble or internal strife the citizens would
meet and clamour to be taken to the palace, there to acclaim a heroic
emperor, or abuse an unpopular leader. How fickle and ill-balanced that
turbulent cosmopolitan crowd must have been, we realize from the curious
history of Justinian.
Justinian, bearing the name of a triumphant lawgiver, entered into the
heritage of the Roman world in 685. He was a lad of strong passions and
feeble intellect. He ruled with a cruelty gross even for that age and
place, through the hands of his favourite ministers, a eunuch and a
monk, by whose aid he succeeded for ten years in braving the growing
hatred of his subjects. A sudden freak, rather than any sense of the
justice he habitually outraged, induced the emperor to liberate
Leontius, a general of high repute, who, with some of the city's noblest
and most deserving men, had suffered imprisonment for above three years.
Leontius was promoted to be Governor of Greece. A successful conspiracy
was headed by him, the prisons were forced open, and an excited populace
swarmed to the Church of St. Sophia, where the Patriarch, taking as text
for his sermon, "This is the day of the Lord," influenced the passions
of the multitude. They crowded into the Hippodrome, Justinian was
dragged before the insurgent judges, who clamoured for his immediate
death. But Leontius, already clothed in the Purple, was merciful, and
spared the life of his benefactor's son, the scion of so many emperors,
and, slightly mutilated about the face, the deposed sovereign was
banished to the Crimea. Here he abode, and watched events of which the
news trickled through but sparingly. News of another revolution arrived,
in which Leontius fell from power a mutilated victim, to make room for
Apsimar, who henceforth called himself Tiberius. Meanwhile Justinian
had contracted an alliance with the Khan of the Chazars by marrying that
chief's sister, Theodora. But the Khan proved venal, and bribed by the
gold of Constantinople sought to bring about Justinian's death. In vain,
for Theodora's conjugal love frustrated this design, and Justinian with
his own hands strangled the two emissaries of the Khan. He then sent
Theodora back to her brother. Thereupon Justinian sailed away, and with
the aid of the Bulgarians laid siege to his own city, which having tired
of their present ruler admitted him to the throne again.
So we find Justinian in the Hippodrome surrounded by his people. The two
usurpers, Leontius and Apsimar, were dragged one from his prison, the
other from his palace, and cast prostrate and in fetters before the
throne, where Justinian sat and watched the chariot-race, a foot on the
neck of each vanquished rival. The fickle people meanwhile shouted in
the words of the psalmist, "Thou shalt trample on the asp and basilisk,
and on the lion and the dragon shalt thou set thy foot." Even in those
early days the use of a well-known text, taken conveniently apart from
its context, was a political weapon not to be despised.
When the games were over Leontius and Apsimar were taken down to the
Kynegion, the place of execution near the Church of St. George of
Mangana, and there Justinian requited the ill-judged clemency of his
former conqueror. But his own capricious cruelty so disgusted the troops
he had dispatched to carry out the sentence of those on whom the Emperor
had sworn to be avenged, that they revolted, and invested Bardanes with
the Imperial Purple. Destitute of friends, and deserted by his Barbarian
guard, there was none to ward off the stroke of the assassin, and by it
Justinian, along with his innocent son, Tiberius, perished, and thus
ended the line of Heraclius.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF HORMISDAS OR JUSTINIAN.
This place is full of the memories of dark and strange events, it is the
Palace of Justinian.]
CHAPTER V
THE WALLS BY THE SEA OF MARMORA
Let us go ashore under the sea-walls of Constantinople. We now approach
the white Seraglio lighthouse, keeping a little south of it and yet a
little more, rounding a slight bend of the coast to westward. Here,
beyond a strong square tower which formerly showed a flare of Grecian
fire to guide the mariner, is a stretch of beach, Author and Artist
insist on landing. The tower we left on our right joins on to a large
front of masonry, built stoutly of rough stones as you may see where the
walls are broken, and where a few marble pillars frame hollow openings
for the windows. This place is full of the memories of dark and strange
events, it is the Palace of Justinian.
Old chroniclers called this the Palace of Hormisdas, or Hormouz, Prince
of Persia, who sought refuge here with Constantine the Great. Others,
again, suggest that this palace was built by Justinian himself before he
began his long and useful reign.
At any rate, great and famous names occur to us as we survey these
ruins. It is an astounding chapter of history this, which tells how
Justinian came to inherit the Imperial Purple. His uncle Justin was the
founder of his house, a simple Dacian peasant who left his native
village and the flocks he tended to enter the military service of the
Eastern Empire. Through his own strength, his own ability and valour in
the field, Justin the Dacian peasant rose step by step until he took his
place next to Cæsar himself in importance. Then when the Emperor
Anastasius died, after carefully excluding his own kinsman from the
throne, Justin was acclaimed Emperor by the unanimous consent of those
who knew him to be brave and gentle, his soldiers, and by those who held
him to be orthodox, the priests. So in his old age, for he was
sixty-eight when Anastasius died, Justin climbed the throne and reigned
for nine years. Strange, too, it is, that he and yet another ruler of
his time, Theodoric, the King of Italy, even in those days when learning
was by no means uncommon, should both have been unable to read and
write. Justin had brought his nephew Justinian out of Dacia, and had him
educated in Constantinople to be trained for the Purple.
His was a curious and eventful reign. Of great strength and comely of
face, full of the best intentions and restless in his pursuit of
knowledge, Justinian entered into his inheritance; he had been his
uncle Justin's right hand, and so was well acquainted with all the
devious ways of statecraft. So everything promised well, and in a
measure he succeeded. The wars he undertook were brought to a successful
issue, the laws he framed should have earned him the people's gratitude,
yet Justinian was not beloved.
No doubt these walls could tell the reason--you may almost hear them
whisper, "Theodora, the actress, the dancer, and Justinian's empress."
Surely those were stirring times, when Justinian and Theodora sat side
by side upon the throne, when circus and streets rang with the cries of
factions, Blue and Green. And Theodora favoured Blue--her cause for
doing so dates back to the day of her earliest appearance in
Constantinople--in the theatre. Here she and her sisters, daughters of
Acacius, whose office was to tend the wild beasts that the Green faction
kept for the games, were brought by their mother in the garb of
suppliants. The Green faction received them with contempt, the Blues
with compassion, and hence the reason that Theodora favoured that
colour.
Then some time elapsed, during which it were best not to follow
Theodora's fortunes. During this epoch a son was born to her. Years
after, the father of the child when dying told him: "Your mother is an
empress." The son of Theodora hastened to Constantinople, hurried to the
palace to present himself--and was never seen again. When in seclusion
at Alexandria Theodora had a vision which told her that one day she
would wear the Purple, so she returned to Constantinople, and ere long
won Justinian's love. So they reigned side by side, and Justinian first
of that name is still called "the Great." Let whatever evil she may have
done be forgotten. Are not the scandals of that time softened by the
mists of romance which enshroud them, for all but those who like to peer
about among the secrets of dead men, and to cavil at their failings, and
tear what tatters of reputation they can find into yet smaller shreds.
Nearly four centuries had passed, and yet again the Palace of Justinian
was witness of Imperial weakness. The Greek fleet rode at anchor beneath
the windows of the palace, and from his ship the Admiral Romanus
Lecapenus made his way into the presence of the Emperor. There he
demanded of Constantine VII, called Porphyrogenitus, a share in the
government of the Empire, and was proclaimed co-Emperor. At one time
during this reign five Cæsars wore the Purple; he who was born in it,
Constantine VII, Porphyrogenitus, ranked least among them, but he
survived them all in office to die of poison, it is said administered
by Theophane, the wife of his son, Romanus II.
Again a woman plays a strong part in the history of these palace walls.
A woman of low origin, this wife of the Eastern Emperor, son of
Constantine VII, and under the careless reign of her good-natured
husband, she made her vigorous personality a power in the land. Four
years did Romanus II reign, and in that time did nothing that could
afford the historian excuse for lingering on his name. Strongly built
and fair to look upon, his time was spent in the pleasures he best
loved. While the two brothers Leo and Nicephones triumphed over the
Saracens, the Emperor's days were spent in strenuous leisure. He visited
the circus in the morning, feasted the senators at noon, and then
adjourned to the sphæristerium, the tennis-court, where he achieved his
only victories. From time to time he would cross over to the Asiatic
side, and there hunt the wild boar, returning to the palace well content
with what he probably considered a good day's work.
Theophane tired of her useless spouse, and mingled for him the same
deadly draught which killed his father. She then aspired to reign in the
name of her two sons, Basil and Constantine, one five, the other only
two years old, but found she could not support the weight of such
responsibility, and looked about for some one to protect her.
She found the man in Nicephorus Phocas, who was then accounted the
bravest soldier in the land. In other ways he appeared suitable, for he
combined with the military genius that had led to many victories the
reputation of a saint. For the rest, in person he was deformed, so that
perchance Theophane's spacious heart was aided by her head when she set
about to choose the successor to Romanus in her affections. Another like
him lived many centuries later and ruled over England, Richard of
Gloucester--and through the hazy veil wherewith romance so kindly
clothes the crude outlines of history, it is difficult to decide to what
extent the religious practices and utterances of these two monarchs were
prompted by sincerity or guile. For Nicephorus wore hair-cloth, fasted,
and clothed his conversation with pious terms; he even wished to retire
from the business of this world into the serene seclusion of a
monastery. Whatever the value of the sentiments he expressed, the people
and the Patriarch trusted him, and so he was invested with the command
of the oriental armies.
No sooner had he received the leaders and the troops than he marched
boldly into Constantinople at their head. He trampled on his enemies,
avowed his correspondence with the Empress, and assumed the title of
Augustus. Unlike his double, Richard, he spared the lives of the young
princes.
After some dubious dealings, the silence of the clergy made his union
with Theophane possible, so he reached the height of his ambition--the
Imperial Purple. But, strange to say, the once so popular general when
in the Purple lost the affection of his people. No doubt the faults were
equally divided, the Greeks disliked him for his parsimony, and he had
ample precedent of how easily a fickle population can change from favour
to fierce hatred. A demonstration of this change caused Nicephorus to
fortify the Palace of Justinian; he had been stoned by his own people,
and had barely reached the palace in safety.
Whilst standing by the sea under this mass of ruins, let us go back to a
winter's night in 969. The additions to the palace that Nicephorus had
made to guard him against the fury of his subjects had that day been
completed. The gates were locked and bolted, the windows strongly
barred, and, as a further precaution, the Emperor had moved from the
couch and room he generally occupied at night, and lay asleep stretched
on a bear-skin on the floor of a smaller chamber. But treachery lurked
within the palace walls; murderous plans were rife, and they were
conceived in the brain of an adulterous empress. And listening by those
dark waves we hear the sound of muffled oars. A boat takes shape in the
gloom at the foot of the palace stairs. Headed by John Zimisces, lover
of Theophane, a man of small stature but great strength and beauty, and
a soldier of renown, shadowy forms ascend a rope ladder, lowered from a
window by some female attendants. Other conspirators were hidden in
Theophane's most private chambers; they reached the Emperor's retreat,
and with much cruelty and insult Nicephorus II Phocas was done to death.
John Zimisces reigned in his stead, but ere he was allowed to assume
full power with the sanction of the Church he had to face at least one
upright man. On the threshold of St. Sophia, whither he went to his
coronation, the intrepid Patriarch stopped his progress, charged him
with entering the Holy Place with blood upon his hands, and demanded, as
a sign of penance, he should separate himself from his guilty companion.
So Theophane was banished from the place that still is haunted by her
baleful influence, and died unmourned in exile.
Another vision, less sombre, equally dramatic and more fleeting, comes
and fades away. Amaury, king of Jerusalem, visits Manuel Comnenus in
1170, to implore his aid against Saladin. A brief pathetic scene thus
re-enacts itself, brief as the reign of those, the Christian Kings of
David's Royal City, pathetic in the waste of life, the misery, the
abject hopelessness that marked those chivalrous enterprises known to us
as the Crusades.
One final scene before we turn away from this historic spot, the last
scene in its history, and splendid in its utter despair. Here, at the
last siege of Constantinople by the Turks, stout-hearted Peter Guliano
and his gallant catalans held out when all else was lost.
A steep incline leads from the beach, past little wooden houses perched
anywhere against the ruined walls. They look like that old house--that
dear old house--Hans Andersen speaks of in the shortest of his fairy
tales. We climb up the steep ascent, and at the top find more ruins--the
base of a gigantic marble pillar, broken arches built of brick and
glorious in their subdued colour; and then--the railway. Yes, gentle
readers, the Roumelian Railway, to give it its full and awesome title.
And we must follow this railway if we would see more of the city walls.
You may walk anywhere you like along the single track. A little pathway
winds about here and there and everywhere, and on either hand are
houses, some of wood, some more pretentious, scattered about with
irregularity.
Above us is the ridge on which the Hippodrome, theatre, and circus used
to stand in days when a pleasure-loving population spent time and money
in much the same way as do some Western nations of this day. No doubt
they too considered themselves sportsmen; no doubt they too danced
abject attendance and stood numerous dinners to the stalwart hero who
was awarded his "Blue" or his "Green," as the case might be. And as to
some forms of sport in those days of the Byzantine Empire, we have
already given account of one sportsman's strenuous day, the Emperor
Romanus, and we have seen how his wife discouraged his proclivities, by
methods effective, but far too drastic for the present age.
Ancient chroniclers make mention of a polo-ground, but it is too much to
expect such very learned men to tell you how the game was played. Yet
this concerns the Author and Artist nearly, for both have spent much
time and pleasantly in the saddle. No doubt the game, under whatever
rules, was extremely picturesque; the life, the colour, the movement of
horses and men engaged in such a keen pursuit can never fail to give a
series of brilliant and entrancing pictures. But when you come to
details! No trim pigskin saddles, but possibly some coloured bolsters,
with loose bits of braid or tassels for adornment; no doubt
bright-coloured brow-bands--that abomination! And then the ball. The
Artist wonders whether it was painted the colour of one of the many
factions that made up the political life of the city--Blue, Green, or
Red--or whether, like keen sportsmen, such differences were dropped in
contests of this kind.
Undoubtedly party feeling ran high when races--chariot-races
chiefly--were in progress at the Hippodrome. These Green and Blue kept
up a continual wordy warfare, and no doubt backed their own fancy colour
with the same indiscriminate ardour not altogether unfamiliar even in
the world's greatest Empire of to-day. And here again another likeness
presents itself, for the games were played and contests entered by men
paid to show their skill, while thousands sat and watched, shouted
advice, or yelled their disapproval, though quite unable and unwilling
to venture on the game themselves.
Of fishing there is no mention as a sport. The Author much regrets to
have to make this statement, as he would have liked to give Walton's
disciples of to-day some account of how their gentle art was plied in
the days of Old Byzantium. But then the necessary implements were not
available, for the West had not yet swamped the East with cheap
manufactures and easily-twisted pins in penny packets.
The Artist has watched with interest gallant attempts with the bent pin
to draw fish from the Bosphorus. The small boy with his little rod so
evidently cut by himself, and one sticky little hand full of dead flies,
served to remind the Artist of his own efforts in that line. Oh the
unholy joy of impaling a fat blue-bottle on the point of that bent pin!
But the chief pleasure of this form of sport is lacking on the banks of
the Bosphorus; the long arm of the law does not interfere, and so the
charm of the "strictly forbidden" is denied you.
A noble form of sport was practised in the Middle Ages, and until
comparatively recent times a pastime that has given rise to much that is
beautiful in poetry and painting--the art of falconry. This was a
favourite pursuit of many a sultan, this and hunting with those strong
hounds whose descendants (though to judge from their appearance one can
scarcely believe it) now roam the streets of Constantinople, and act as
rather unsatisfactory scavengers.
A mighty sportsman in these particulars was Achmet I, who reigned in the
beginning of the seventeenth century. It was in this monarch's reign
that the Turkish theologians propounded a peculiar doctrine. Achmet had
ordered all the dogs in Constantinople to be transported to Scutari, on
the opposite side of the Bosphorus, with an allowance of bread and
carrion for their maintenance. By a later decree they were again
removed, this time to an island sixteen miles away, where they all
perished for want of food. The lives of dogs, though held unclean by
Turks, were deemed of such importance that the Sultan thought fit to ask
the Mufti whether it were lawful to kill them. After due deliberation
the head of Islam answered (for he can give no fetvah or decree unless
first consulted) that every dog had a soul, and therefore it was not
lawful to kill them.
What subsequently happened to the dogs is not recorded; some legends say
that they swam back to their old haunts, and incidentally to their
ladies, who it appears had not been exiled. Certain it is that their
lives were spared, for there are plenty to be seen everywhere in Old
Stamboul and its neighbourhood, for of course Achmet, a pious Moslem,
would not disregard the Mufti's momentous utterance.
That Achmet was a pious man is without doubt; his mosque bears witness
to his devotion, a mosque which far out-rivalled that of St. Sophia in
the splendour of its decoration, though it is somewhat smaller. Great
treasures were spent upon this mosque, and neither trouble nor expense
were spared to make it more glorious than any other. But Achmet left
behind an unpaid, discontented army and an empty treasury, having
grasped the secret of laying up for himself treasure in heaven by the
ingenious method of robbing other people's possessions on earth. In
those days East and West drew nearer to each other than heretofore.
Where formerly the West had paid sporadic visits which were by no means
always welcome, commerce had begun to spread its tendrils, and found the
policy of Turkey singularly liberal. So all the greater nations
established relations on that friendly basis with the Porte; England,
France and Holland had each a regularly accredited ambassador at the
Ottoman Court. This inaugurated a more peaceful method of settling
disputes, as, for example, when the Moors of Granada brought to the
Sultan their grievance against France, telling how, in their passage to
that country on being expelled from Spain, they had suffered bodily harm
and loss of goods. A chaus or ambassador from Sultan Achmet to Henry IV
soon set matters right without resort to what diplomats call the _ultima
ratio_. While on the subject of ambassadors a romantic story should be
told, an incident which nearly disturbed the peace of Europe.
Achmet left seven sons, all infants, into whose hands he could not place
the reins of government, which he himself had held but loosely. On his
accession he had not found it necessary to clear his path and prevent
further trouble by the usual remedy of fratricide. His only brother,
Mustapha, was thoroughly incompetent, almost an idiot. Yet it was he
whom Achmet declared as his successor, and the Mufti, the Ulema, the
high college of priests, and the high officers of State approved his
choice and placed Mustapha on the throne. In all his acts Mustapha
emphasized his incapacity to rule, and one of them went near to cause a
rupture with France. It fell out thus.
Two captives languished in the dungeons of a castle on the Black Sea.
One was Prince Koreski, a Pole, who had been taken prisoner in Moldavia
during the last reign, and was confined here because he had refused to
turn Mahomedan. The other who shared Koreski's cell was Rigault, a
Frenchman, who kept up a clandestine correspondence with a
fellow-countryman, Martin, Secretary to the French Embassy at
Constantinople. Now Martin loved a young Polish lady, who with her
mother and her maid was held prisoner by the Turks. Martin succeeded in
purchasing the freedom of these ladies by a payment to the Sultan of two
thousand five hundred crowns. But when the ladies returned to their
home in Poland the father refused to accede to the arrangement and
practically forbade the banns. So in his trouble Martin confided all to
his friend Rigault, who in his turn told all to the Prince. Now Koreski
was a man of great influence in his own country, and told Rigault to
assure his friend that if their escape from prison could be managed,
Martin should not pine long for his lady-love.
So Martin set to work right eagerly. A Greek priest who went to visit
the prisoners concealed under his garments a long piece of pack-thread,
and by these means the captives gained their freedom. Mustapha's police
sought diligently, but only managed to discover Martin's share in the
transaction, so the whole French Embassy were put under arrest. The
ambassador was confined in the Grand Vizier's Palace, Rigault and the
domestics were put to the torture.
The protests of the English and Dutch ambassadors failed to move
Mustapha, and it was only through large donations to the chief officers
of State that the French Embassy was set at liberty.
While listening to the tales the Author has to tell, our travellers have
picked their way along the railway-line, and have threaded in and out
among the picturesque inhabitants of this quarter. Here
[Illustration: THE SEA WALL.
These remnants of massive walls with battlemented summits, or perhaps
little wooden houses are perched on top.]
stand broken arches, loopholes looking out to sea; there remnants of
massive walls with battlemented summits, or perhaps little wooden houses
are perched on top, with their latticed windows; while beneath them one
sees gardens, where part of a prophecy is at least fulfilled, for every
man has his own fig-tree. And as we walk on these remains, the walls
recede inland and disappear altogether, for here was formerly a harbour,
and the name of the station we are passing, Koum Kapoussi--sand-gate--was
given to the gate that opened out on the harbour of the Kontoscalion.
A fair-sized harbour too, now all silted up and built over.
What life and bustle was here in the days of old Byzant, those days of
the great traders from the East, West and South. And what stores of
treasure were landed at this spot. Work from the looms of Greece was
stapled here, manufacturers of linen, woollen and silk--the former
industries which had flourished since the days of Homer, the latter
introduced about the time of Justinian. Perhaps it was here that those
rich gifts arrived for Basil I from his generous friend, Danielis, the
rich matron of Peloponnesus, who had adopted him as her own. Doubtless
the goods she sent were products of the Grecian looms. Even an Emperor
of Byzantium must have greeted with pleased astonishment the beauty of
the presents sent by his friend. A carpet large enough to overspread the
floor of a new church, woven of fine wool and cunningly designed to
represent and rival the brilliant eyes that adorn the peacock's tail. Of
silk and linen each six hundred pieces, the latter so exquisitely fine
that an entire piece might be rolled into the hollow of a cane, the silk
dyed with Tyrian crimson, and the whole ornamented with fair needlework.
Duties were raised on all the goods that entered, and went towards
suggesting the splendour of the Emperor and his Court. It is not
possible to accurately compute the value of the goods and the vast sums
they realized, but at least one traveller of experience was much
impressed by what he witnessed here. A Jew, and therefore no mean
authority on pecuniary matters, one Benjamin of Tudela, speaks of the
riches of Byzantium, which he visited in the twelfth century--
"It is here in the Queen of Cities that the tributes of the Greek Empire
are annually deposited, and the lofty towers are filled with precious
magazines of silk, purple and gold. It is said that Constantinople pays
each day to her sovereign 20,000 pieces of gold, which are levied on the
shops, taverns, and markets, on the merchants of Persia and Egypt, of
Russia and Hungary, of Italy and Spain, who frequent the capital by sea
and land." Nowadays the main source of public revenue is the crushing
import duty on all new articles of 11 per cent., soon with the consent
of the powers to be raised to 15. Until recently every Turkish subject
resident in the capital paid also a capitation tax in lieu of the
military service, which is now to be endured by all alike who cannot pay
an exemption fee of £50.
We walk on but a little further along the line, still past ruined walls
and towers, and come to yet another gate, Yedi Kapoussi, or New Gate.
This was the entrance to a very ancient harbour--the oldest, it is said,
along this stretch of coast. Its origin is ascribed to Eleutherius, who
was one of the first to see this city rise. The site of the harbour is
now entirely covered, and market-gardens are to be seen where formerly
war-galleys sought refuge from enemies or elements.
It is not certain at what date this harbour was abandoned, but it had
happened before the final assault by Mahomed the Conqueror. The
difficulty of keeping this harbour dredged must have been very
considerable, for not only does the sea constantly cast sand along this
coast, but just here the Lycus, an historic stream, empties its waters
into the Sea of Marmora, and deposits at its mouth an ever-increasing
burden of rich mud washed down from above.
According to tradition the harbour of Eleutherius served not only for
the safety of the Empire's ships of war, but also as an entrance to the
slave-market, which is said to have been somewhere in this
neighbourhood. It is too sad, sadder than all the tales of cunning
intrigue, ferocious crime and unscrupulous ambitions which make up so
large a portion of the history enacted behind these city walls, to
remember the vast multitude of human beings bartered here like the
beasts of the field. Innocent victims of misfortune were sold here, and
many families must have met, possibly for the last time on earth, in
this ghastly and degrading place, while captives that had escaped the
sword in some bloody war of conquest or reprisal were here put up to
auction, to be led away by their new masters and die in hopeless misery.
But that sombre vision vanishes too under the sun that draws such
brilliant colours from the ruined walls that so long sheltered this
chartered and unchallenged iniquity, and we move onward by a laughing
sea towards the west, turning south by a point or two as we leave the
harbour of Eleutherius behind us.
We linger for a minute at the Gate of Psamathia--sand-gate again--and
look out across the sea from a shady Turkish café standing on a small
spit of land that shelters a tiny harbour to westward. Here are a number
of those craft that we have seen flying down the Bosphorus under full
sail. The leisurely process of unloading is going forward, and stacks of
wood are piled up carelessly and anywhere without undue hurry, while
nimble-footed donkeys thread their way amongst the merchandise, and the
driver follows sunk in his Eastern reverie. And everywhere are dogs
lounging together in little knots like elderly gentlemen in a club
smoking-room (and always in the way), taking no interest in anything
save the adventurous flies, and only giving an occasional languid snap
at them.
From here we thread our way through a maze of little narrow lanes of
quaint wooden houses teeming with life and colour. Here at a street
corner a modest general store, showing some melons in their thick green
coats, one with a large slice cut out by way of charity or
advertisement, the green skin merging from pale lemon to a delicious
crimson. Near these a basketful of ripe tomatoes in their flaring red,
contrasting strongly with the golden green of luscious grapes exposed
for sale on delicate pink paper; yet all these colours harmonize, and in
the cool depths of the background the owner sits and drowses
cross-legged, amid all their glory.
As we continue on our way we lose sight of these ancient sea-walls, for
we have to turn inland awhile and follow the high-road that leads out
into the open country. But now and then we see between the houses a
glimpse of high towers and battlements in front of us. We turn down from
the high-road, recross the railway-line, and find ourselves again
amongst imposing ruins. Standing out boldly is a fine tower, almost
intact. As we draw nearer to it we understand how it came by its name,
for this is the Marble Tower. It is a building of four storeys,
constructed from the topmost string course downwards of large marble
blocks, its white and gleaming foundations washed by the blue waters of
the Sea of Marmora. To eastward, and joined on to the Tower, stands a
two-storied mass of masonry, with deep-arched window looking out to sea.
These are the ruins of a castle that stood here to mark the place where
sea-and land-walls joined. Most probably it was the residence of some
high military officer. Surely a pleasant place to live in, strong and
secure, with a spacious courtyard and perhaps a shady garden therein.
Or more likely still, this space, now a market-garden, was the scene of
military life for many
[Illustration: THE MARBLE TOWER.
Standing out boldly is a fine tower, almost intact. This is the Marble
Tower.]
centuries; here the heavy-armed infantry of Roman tradition made way for
lighter troops whose dexterity replaced the armour they had abandoned.
What discussions must have taken place when news came that a powder had
been invented in the West, a powder which could hurl stones and leaden
shot with greater impetus than any engines then in use, that a
breast-plate and helmet and even stone walls were no protection against
this deadly stuff. And the sentry pacing the ramparts on his lonely post
at night would ruminate upon this matter, and wonder what power of evil
could let loose a force capable of destroying both the stout walls under
him and that fair marble gleaming white in the light of the moon.
Probably with the simple faith of his time he laid the whole matter at
the door of Satan himself, and his chosen agents--the workers of black
magic--and no doubt glanced fearfully out to sea and crossed himself
piously when he realized how much influence these unpleasant people
still possessed even in a Christian world which caused them to be burned
on the barest suspicion of such malpractices.
Moon and stars and the plashing waves are now the only guardians of
these walls.
CHAPTER VI
THE GOLDEN GATE
A small, deep-arched postern leads our travellers out of the precincts
of the ruins that surround the Marble Tower. The masonry above the
postern bears inscriptions dating back to the days when several emperors
reigned together. Basil II and Constantine IX, who have been already
mentioned in connection with the Palace of Justinian, left records of
their reign upon this section of the walls. The postern leads us outside
the city walls, and as we turn for a last glance at the Marble Tower and
the wonderful view it commands, we notice a strange Byzantine device
carved on its keystone.
A narrow tongue of land runs out into the sea just here, and under its
lee the cargo of several small sailing craft is being leisurely brought
ashore, for staring us in the face is commercial enterprise and all it
entails in the shape of a tannery. Here in former days was open country
which many a time had witnessed thrilling scenes. For at this small
harbour
[Illustration: POSTERN, WITH INSCRIPTIONS OF BASIL II. AND CONSTANTINE
IX.
A small, deep-arched postern leads out of the precincts of the ruins
that surround the Marble Tower.]
the hero of a victorious campaign in Asia Minor was wont to land, and
with him his troops. Spoils taken in the war were stacked and hapless
prisoners paraded to follow in procession through the Golden Gate at the
conqueror's chariot wheels. From this harbour the Turkish fleet of 305
vessels attempted to cut off the five gallant ships that brought
provisions from the island of Scio to the city during the last siege;
these managed to force their way to the Golden Horn.
The sentry on the ramparts over the postern we have left behind us,
looking over this rolling plain, would see the glittering domes and
pinnacles of yet another lordly place away on the curving sea-coast--the
palace of the Hebdomon. This, it appears, served as a rustic retreat for
the emperors of the East. Important functions took place there, for here
Valens was inaugurated as colleague of his brother, the Emperor
Valentine, and proclaimed Augustus. And others followed him, such as
Arcadius and Honorius, raised to imperial rank by Theodosius the Great,
Leo the Great and Leo the Armenian, and he with whose fate we became
familiar when talking of Theophane, Nicephorus II Phocas.
But we will hasten away from that malodorous evidence of progress, the
tannery, for we are strongly drawn towards those towering ruins gleaming
through the dark cypresses. We cross the railway-line and note where it
has cut a path through the ancient defences of Byzantium.
Climbing a bank, we reach a little Turkish cemetery, its weird and
tumbling tombstones shaded by those solemn, watchful cypress-trees. Now
look towards the walls: between us and them is a deep fosse, where
fig-trees grow and throw out their twisted branches as if to protect
these ancient ramparts from crumbling further to decay. Ivy in dense
dark masses clings to the crenulated scarp, and beyond that a broad
roadway, all neglected, rises in gentle gradient till it turns sharply
towards an archway, guarded on either hand by massive towers built of
blocks of polished marble.
This is the Golden Gate, the "Porta Aurea" of so many glorious moments
in the life of Constantine's great city.
Here the procession that had formed on the plain down by the harbour
made its triumphal entry, and worthy was this monument in those days to
serve as frame to a conquering Augustus. Walls and towers were crowned
with parapets, over which glittered the glint of armour and the flashing
light of spear-heads. The gates, too, were all on fire with the precious
metal from which its name comes, though it now lives
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN GATE, FROM SOUTH-WEST.]
This is the Golden Gate, the "Porta Aurea" of so many glorious moments
in the life of Constantine's great city.]
only in memory. Statues and sculptured ornaments added to the splendour
of which the only traces now to be seen are some remains of marble
cornices, and, at the south-western angle of the northern tower, a Roman
eagle with wings outspread in solitary grandeur.
The Golden Gate had three archways, of which the central one was loftier
and wider, like those more familiar to us in the Roman Forum. These were
dedicated to Severus and Constantine respectively, and the gilded gates
of these three arches were those of Mompseueste, placed here by
Nicephorus Phocas to commemorate his victorious campaign in Cilicia.
Of all the many works of art that went to decorate the Golden Gate no
traces but those just mentioned can be found; but there are records of
them, and some are strange reading--for instance, the transactions
between an English ambassador to the Porte from 1621-28, Sir Thomas Rowe
and the "Great Treasurer." Good Sir Thomas, it appears, had mentioned in
his dispatches that two bas-reliefs which figured here were really well
worthy of note. This led to another English gentleman, a Mr. Petty,
being sent to Constantinople to see to the removal of these treasures to
the Earl of Arundel, who sought to share them with the Duke of
Buckingham. Much English gold changed hands and found its way into the
hungry pockets of the Great Treasurer, who, like all other Turkish high
officials before and since, had frequent and pressing need of money, and
was not plagued with petty scruples as to the means employed to obtain
it. The bargain was completed and all arrangements made, but at the last
moment, when it came to removing these marbles, the populace, under the
castellan of the castle, rose in mutiny. The precious life of the Great
Treasurer was in danger, and as he had probably pouched the money by
that time, he discovered it to be quite impossible to carry out his part
of the contract, at least for the present; and stout Sir Thomas reported
to head-quarters in these words, "So I despair to effect therein your
grace's service, and it is true, though I could not get the stones, yet
I allmost raised an insurrection in that part of the cytty."
We are standing now before the ruined remains of this, the culminating
point of many a page of glorious achievement in the history of the
Eastern capital. But let us now regard it with the eye of retrospection;
let the past ages envelop the broken, ivy-covered monument and restore
it to us in its pristine glory, for we, too, would take part in the
splendid pageant that once animated this now-deserted stronghold.
So we go back into the depth of time from which perchance we issued. The
fourth century of the Christian era is big with the names of those who
stamped themselves upon their time for good or evil, and thus the
capital of the Eastern Empire owes its second birth to one whose
glorious name is writ large upon the scroll of fame--to Constantine the
Great. Second only to Constantine in this succession of rulers of the
Eastern Empire comes Theodosius I, also called Great, and rightly so,
for Constantinople owes to him a debt almost as great as to the second
founder of the Imperial City. Constantine gave to this city a new lease
of life, and Theodosius insured it against capture by assault for many
centuries; for all those strong defences, the remains of which, some
broken beyond recognition, others practically intact, extend from the
Golden Gate to the Golden Horn, are a lasting monument to the Theodosian
dynasty.
This Golden Gate itself is said to have been erected by Theodosius to
celebrate his victory over a formidable rival; and to enter fully into
sympathy with the great incidents this monument has witnessed, let us
take note of the events that led Theodosius both to the Imperial Purple
and the towering place he holds in the history of the world.
The final separation into East and West of Rome's Imperial power had
not yet taken place, and Gratian was emperor. The latter years of his
reign were hard and full of troubles. Northern Barbarians ravaged the
provinces of Rome at their will, and none seemed capable of checking
their savage onslaughts. The legions of the Roman army had time after
time failed of their old tradition, and had so often been vanquished
that they held their foes to be invincible. Fiercest of all these fierce
foemen were the Goths, and it was they who caused the most distress.
Valens had fallen in the battle of Hadrianople, and with him two-thirds
of the Roman army; the rest had barely effected their escape under cover
of night. The Roman Empire was in sore straits; the Goths were flushed
with their victory, and likely to take advantage of it.
Five months after the death of Valens the Emperor Gratian did a deed
perhaps unparalleled. He sent for Theodosius, presented him to the
troops, who acclaimed him as Augustus, and invested him with the
Imperial purple. The strangeness of this act lies in the history that
precedes it. Theodosius the Elder, father of the new emperor, had but
three years before been put to death unjustly and with ignominy by
Gratian's orders, and his son banished. So Gratian's messengers found
Theodosius managing his estates in Spain. They gave him their message,
and forthwith the emperor-elect proceeded to his new duties imposed on
him by one whose keen discernment found the right man in the time of
need, and whose sense of right had sought the way towards redeeming a
terrible injustice.
Theodosius was thirty-three years of age when he ascended the throne of
the eastern division of the Roman Empire. In grace and manly beauty, in
his qualities of heart and intellect, contemporaries held him to
outshine Trajan. Like other military heroes--Alexander, Hannibal and the
second Africanus--he had been trained young in the profession of arms
under the stern discipline of his own father. Even at this early age he
had gained renown for valour in the field, where his experiences had
been many and varied. He had fought against the Scots in their inclement
climate, had heard the war-cry of the Saxons echoing among the primeval
forests of Germany, and faced the Moors under the fierce power of
southern suns.
He was now called upon to meet Rome's most dreaded foes, those mighty
Goths, who, as their king said, drove the Roman legions like sheep
before them. Theodosius showed no impetuous haste to gain new laurels
for his own adornment. Rather, he bided his time, placed his troops
cunningly, and kept himself so well informed that whenever an
opportunity offered of attacking a small force of the enemy in superior
numbers, or from some vantage ground, he would seize it, and always
proved successful. Thus he restored the confidence of his troops, who
now no longer believed the Goths to be invincible. In this manner
Theodosius had already earned his title as Great as a firm and faithful
servant of the Republic.
His statecraft helped him further in his plans for the welfare of the
Empire, of which a considerable portion was now under his control, for
Dacia and Macedonia were added to the Eastern Empire, which consisted
then of Thrace, Asia and Egypt.
The death of Fritigern, who had held together the Barbarian alliance of
Eastern and Western Goths, Huns and Alani, was another factor which
Theodosius knew well how to take into account. Once the bonds of the
alliance loosened, and the different parties to it went different ways,
the jealousy of Ostrogoths and Visigoths revived, and made it possible
to win the services of one or other discontented leader. The aged
Athanaric collected many of Fritigern's subjects round him, and with
them listened to a fair proposal of an honourable and advantageous
treaty. Theodosius met him outside the city walls, invited him to
enter, and here entertained him with the confidence of a friend and the
magnificence of a monarch. Athanaric marvelled at all the wondrous
things he saw, and, according to the chronicler Jornandes, exclaimed,
"Indeed, the Emperor of the Romans is a god upon earth; and the
presumptuous man who dares to lift his hand against him is guilty of his
own blood."
The Gothic king did not live long to enjoy the friendship of Theodosius,
though his death was probably of greater advantage to the Emperor than
his alliance might have proved to be. Athanaric was buried with all
proper ceremony, a monument was erected to his memory, and his whole
army enlisted under the standard of the Roman Empire. In consequence of
the submission of so great a body as the Visigoths, other independent
chieftains followed, and four years had barely elapsed since the defeat
and death of Valens when the final and complete capitulation of the
Goths was an accomplished fact.
The Ostrogoths, however, went their own way. They left the banks of the
Danube to visit other countries, where, having made themselves extremely
unpopular, they returned after many years to their former haunts,
reinforced by many of the fiercest warriors of Germany and Scythia.
Theodosius, by skilful tactics, brought about their destruction. His
spies had spread among the Goths a rumour that the Roman camp could, on
a certain night, be easily taken by surprise. One moonless night the
whole multitude of Goths hastily embarked in 3000 dug-outs, and set out
to reach the southern bank of the river, certain of finding an easy
landing and assailing an unguarded camp. But they found an insuperable
obstacle in a triple line of vessels strongly bound one to another; and
while they yet struggled to find a way out of this difficulty, a fleet
of galleys bore down the stream upon them, vigorous rowing giving them
irresistible impetus. The valour of the Barbarians was all in vain;
Alatheus their king perished in the fray, together with the flower of
his army, either by the swords of the Romans or in the waters of the
Danube. Those who escaped surrendered and became Roman subjects.
The Goths soon settled in the Empire, the Visigoths in Thrace, the
remnant of the Ostrogoths in Phrygia and Lydia, while many took service
under the Roman eagles. They were allowed to retain their own free
government, but the royal dignity was abolished, and their kings and
chieftains ranked as generals, to be appointed and removed at the royal
pleasure. Under the name of Foederati 40,000 Goths were maintained for
the perpetual service of the East; they were distinguished by their
golden collars, liberal pay, and licentious privileges. So here we find
the walls of Constantinople guarded by its former enemies, while the
population lose more and more of the military spirit of ancient Rome. No
love was lost, we fancy, between the citizens of Old Byzantium and these
haughty Barbarians. Indeed, one old chronicler relates how the city was
deprived for half a day of the public allowance of bread, to expiate the
murder of a Gothic soldier. There is no record of how many Greek
citizens a Barbarian guardsman was allowed to murder if he thought fit
to do so; probably statistics would be striking.
No doubt the idea was that a fine blend of races might thus be induced,
an idea that has occurred to other conquerors and has not always proved
successful. So in this case: the Goths, it was supposed, would acquire
habits of industry and obedience, while Christianity and education
smoothed over the very apparent roughness of their disposition.
Though gratitude is a virtue that is generally attributed to Barbarians
and denied to highly civilized races, the Goths made no signal display
of it, and from time to time deserted in large bodies to make the
neighbouring provinces unhappy. Thus on one occasion, when their
services were particularly required in a civil war against Maximus, the
Goths considered that the time had come for a little private
entertainment. They therefore retired to the morasses of Macedonia, and
indulged in a course of quite unnecessary outrage. It required the
presence of the Emperor himself to persuade them to return to their
allegiance. Some attributed these alarums and excursions to the sudden
rise of the barbaric passion, to which a strong, undisciplined race is
always prone. But others maintain that there was much method in their
madness, and that these outbursts were the result of deep and
long-premeditated design, for it was generally believed that when the
Goths had signed the treaty binding them to peace and service, they had
previously sworn never to keep faith with Romans, and to neglect no
opportunity favourable to revenge. The second opinion seems to have been
formed on quite sufficient grounds, and one occurrence tends to prove
it. Two factions there were among the Goths: the one led by Fravitta, a
valiant, honourable youth, considered itself friendly to peace, to
justice, and to the interests of Rome; the other and more numerous
faction asserted its independence under a fierce and passionate
leader--Priulf.
On one occasion, when a solemn festival had gathered all the great
officers of State together, Priulf and Fravitta, having according to the
custom of their race duly overheated themselves with wine, forgot the
usual restraints of discretion and respect, and betrayed in the presence
of Theodosius the secrets of their domestic disputes. The meeting ended
in tumult. Theodosius was compelled to dismiss his guests. Fravitta,
exasperated by his rival's insolence, followed him, drew his sword and
slew him. Priulfs companions flew to arms, and in their superior numbers
would have overcome Fravitta and his followers had not the Imperial
guard stepped in to save him.
Now Author and Artist are at variance in their views of the incident
just related. The Author looks upon the subject from a lofty pedestal
built of historic facts, and has just given this account of an abrupt
and unpleasant ending to a dinner-party in order to shake his head
reprovingly over the want of self-control exhibited by the invited
Gothic guests. He would also point to the degeneracy of the Roman
Empire, when such scenes could be enacted in the presence of the
Emperor. What was the Lord High Guest-Inviter about to ask Fravitta and
Priulf to meet? He should have known that they would quarrel in their
cups, and have sent out his separate invitations for two repasts, though
perhaps for consecutive evenings. And the Lord High Bottle-Washer?
Surely one in his exalted station should have recognized from long
experience the first symptoms, and substituted something less
stimulating than the blood of the grape on the third or fourth circuit
of the decanter. For surely concoctions equally tasty and considerably
under proof must have been known to "the Trade" in those ages of
gastronomic culture. However, matters turned out as recorded, and the
Artist revels in the episode. The Church's solemn feast had been duly
observed that morning; no doubt the Goths had taken part in church
parade, and had, as usual, failed to be sufficiently impressed with the
solemnity of the occasion. Then all the great ones proceeded to the
palace, and, already chafing at the length of the sermon, grew yet more
impatient at the delay of dinner while waiting in some ante-room. The
Emperor Theodosius Augustus enters, and a stir goes through the
assembly. A kind word here and there in Latin, Greek, or some barbaric
tongue as the kind-hearted Emperor recognizes a familiar face, and then
into the banqueting-hall--a lofty, spacious apartment, with arched
windows looking out to sea.
As to the fare--the Artist is no expert, but would suggest that the
festive board groaned, like all boards do on such occasions, beneath a
quite superfluous amount of all the food-stuffs then available. No doubt
at first the strict decorum of a court was carefully observed, and the
weather or the latest scandal discussed in a duly Christian spirit; but
after a while a louder laugh would strike a stronger, healthier note in
the clangour of the table-talk, till all of a sudden angry voices rose
and all the courtiers stared aghast at two Barbarians gloriously drunk
and quarrelling across the very presence of Augustus. The sequel, too,
seems quite appropriate to the Artist, and he can silence criticism by
pointing back but one short century in the life of his own beloved
country. Mention was made of Maximus just now, and it was he who gave to
the Porta Aurea its origin--for had he not risen as rival against the
power of Rome Theodosius would not have taken the field, vanquished him
and erected this triumphal arch in memory of his victory. And,
indirectly again, this arch owes its origin to Britain, for there it was
that the trouble first arose like a small cloud over the Western seas.
A native of Spain, a fellow-countryman of Theodosius and his rival as a
soldier, Maximus won golden opinions from the garrison of Britain, the
province he was called upon to govern. The legions stationed in Britain
had already earned the reputation of being the most arrogant and
presumptuous of all the Roman forces; the country itself, by its
isolation, fostered the spirit of revolt and justified the image
Bossuet, whom we imagine smarting from his latest channel crossing,
gives: "Cette isle, plus orageuse que les mers qui environnent."
So Maximus rose as rival to the throne, and some say that against his
better judgment he was compelled to accept the Purple. The youth of
Britain crowded to his standard, and he invaded Gaul with a naval and
military force that could be likened to an emigration. Gratian, in his
residence at Paris, became alarmed at this hostile approach, and found
himself deserted when he tried to rally his forces, for the armies of
Gaul received Maximus with joyful acclamations. The Emperor of the West
was forced to flee, for even those troops whose stations attached them
immediately to his person deserted to the enemy. So Maximus pursued his
triumphant way, leaving Britons behind him as colonists in Bretagne,
where it is said that their descendants endure to this day.
A romantic legend attaches to this tale of conquest. The whole
emigration from Britain consisted of 30,000 soldiers and 100,000
plebeians, who settled in Bretagne. In a spirit of rare patriotism the
brides of these settlers left England under special convoy of St.
Ursula, 11,000 noble and 60,000 plebeian maidens, but they mistook their
way. They eventually landed at Cologne, and there were cruelly slain by
Huns. A window in Cologne Cathedral commemorates this martyrdom, so all
doubts on the subject are dispelled for ever.
Theodosius was unable, for reasons of State, to avenge the murder of his
benefactor Gratian, but as time went on the rivalry between him and
Maximus became intolerable. One or the other had to make way, and it was
Maximus who succumbed. Then it was that this triumphal arch, this Porta
Aurea, came to be erected, to stand as a perpetual monument to one who
ranks with Constantine the Great in the romantic history of
Constantinople.
Nearly three centuries later another Emperor, Heraclius, entered in
triumph through this gateway, on his return from the Persian wars. One
hundred years later Constantine Copronymus followed through these golden
arches, after defeating the Bulgarians. Then came Theophilus in the
middle of the ninth century, to celebrate his hard-won victories over
the Saracens. Basil I, the Macedonian, followed, and of his first
acquaintance with the Golden Gate mention will be made hereafter. Then
Basil II of that name, called Bulgaroktonos, for he wreaked savage
vengeance on the Bulgarians who had dared to disturb his peace. A weird,
romantic figure this of Basil, we have had a glimpse of him when telling
of those dark influences that coloured his earliest days. Those days in
the Palace of Justinian when Theophane, his mother, worked wickedness,
can have had but the worst effect on a character like his. Learning and
all the gentler arts and crafts he heartily despised, and cared for
nothing but military glory. He first drew sword against two domestic
enemies, Phocas and Sclerus, two veteran generals who rendered insecure
his tenure of the Purple. He subdued them both. Then he turned against
the Saracens, proved successful, and as has been said already,
vanquished the Bulgarians. In spite of his achievements in the field
Basil did not gain the affection of his people. He was one of those
mournful figures that flit from time to time across the pages of
history. His only virtues were courage and patience, but they were
counterbalanced by a tameless ferocity. A mind like his in such an age
lends a ready ear to the dreariest superstition, and after the first
licence of his youth, his life in the field and in the palace was
devoted to the penance of a hermit. He wore the monastic habit under his
robes or armour, and imposed upon himself vows of abstinence from all
the lusts of the flesh.
His martial spirit urged him to embark in person on a holy war against
the Saracens of Sicily, but death prevented him. He was then in his
sixty-eighth year, and left the world blessed by the priests but cursed
by his people.
Another in this glittering pageant that passes through the Golden Gate
in triumph is John Zimisces the Armenian, whom our travellers first saw
in that dark night under the windows of Justinian's palace. His life was
spent almost entirely in the field, and he well deserved the triumph
that awaited him on his return to Constantinople after defeating both
the Saracens and Russians.
The last of all the Emperors to whom triumphal entry through the Golden
Gate was accorded was Michael Palæologus, in August 1261. It is not easy
to discover why this honour should have been shown him, for he had
achieved no renown in his endeavour to regain his own. No doubt the
people gladly welcomed back one of the former race of rulers, not only
because like most people they wanted a change, but because that change
could not possibly be for the worse, inasmuch as they had suffered
grievously for more than half-a-century under the rule imposed on them
by the Latins, and were willing to accept any possible alternative.
Baldwin, the last of the Latin emperors, had fled, and Michael
Palæologus entered Constantinople only twenty days after the expulsion
of the Latins. The Golden Gate was thrown open on his approach, he
dismounted, and on foot meekly followed the miraculous image of Mary the
Conductress into the city as far as the Cathedral of St. Sophia.
But Michael's joy at entering the capital was marred by the sights that
met his eye. Whole streets had been consumed by fire, no signs of trade
or industry were to be seen, and even his palace was in a state of
desolation, grimy with smoke and dirt and stripped of every ornament.
Standing inside the enclosure we look up at the Golden Gate--the stones
and brick that block up the three arches fade away, and in their place
stand the gleaming gates that helped to give it its name. A surging mass
of people moves excitedly around us pressing forward towards the
entrance. A body of troops appears: big men, of fairer skins than those
who form the crowd, clear with long-handled spears a roadway, thrusting
aside with undisguised contempt the over-curious spectators. Scowls and
glances of resentment vanish as sounds of an approaching multitude,
accompanied by martial music, are heard proceeding from the plain
outside the gate. Here they come! and already in a golden haze the
pageant seems to move towards us. Huns and Alani, the light cavalry
trained by Theodosius, on wiry horses, shaggy, savage-looking men, they
hurry on, followed by sturdy, heavy-treading infantry, stout warriors
clad in skins of animals, with here and there a touch of finer stuff,
betraying them not all unused to the refinements of the Empire's
capital. They surround him whom they are pleased to call master, the
Roman Emperor. And then comes endless misery, unchronicled and
long-forgotten--the captives taken in the wars. Red-headed Celts and
fair-haired Saxons, swarthy Moors and Saracens with desperate, flashing
eyes. Among the captives big-limbed Slavs, and then more troops, some in
the primitive costume of their native wilds, others in armour of all
periods.
Thus passes this glorious array--Emperors on horseback or in chariots,
their guards and soldiery, captives and slaves both men and women,
trophies and spoils of war. In these few minutes while we watch, the
triumphs of seven centuries of Empire rise up before us and fade away
into that general oblivion which so few men survive, and even those
often, as it seems, only by some chance or trick of fortune.
Thousands and tens of thousands have passed this way in their brief hour
of victory, have made the heavens ring with their deeds, that lived a
day or two in memory, and then have silently moved onwards into the
place of forgotten things. The vision passes and leaves us but a name
or two by which we may remember what greatness and glory have swept by.
The gilded splendour of the gates is dimmed, the stones and bricks
resume their place within the arches, and here before us stands that
hoary ruin grey with age, lichen-covered and festooned with ivy, while
rank weeds spring up round its foundation and flowering bushes form its
ramparts--the Triumphal Arch of Theodosius--the Golden Gate.
[Illustration: THE APPROACH TO THE GOLDEN GATE FROM NORTH WEST.
Here before us stands that hoary ruin, grey with age, lichen-covered and
festooned with ivy--the Triumphal Arch of Theodosius--the Golden
Gate.]
CHAPTER VII
THE GOLDEN GATE (_continued_)
The Golden Gate was from time to time thrown open for other purposes
than to admit a conqueror. Persons of note who sought audience of the
Emperor have passed in through it, and their mission was in the service
of another victor, they came in the name of Him who overcame Death.
Among these was Pope Constantine, who came to confer with that Justinian
II whose acquaintance we made some chapters back. Another Emperor whose
history is familiar to our travellers, Basil II, admitted the Legate of
Pope Hadrian into the city underneath the same portals.
And yet another solemn procession moves in at the Gates while we watch.
No blare of trumpet, no martial sound of clashing arms, no steady,
resolute footsteps, scurry of horses or the grinding noise of chariot
wheels marks the progress of this host of shadows. It moves slowly, to
the rhythm of a solemn chant that rises into a more rapturous cadence
from time to time; moves through the crowds of kneeling figures with
bared heads and eyes lowered to the ground that they may not see the
glory of that which is passing, for is it not the sacred Icon, the Icon
of Christ brought from Edessa to find Sanctuary in the Church of St.
Sophia?
Christianity owes much to the personality of the first Eastern Emperors
to Constantine, the first Augustus to be baptized into that faith, and
again to Theodosius I, the ardent champion of the Cross.
Until the reign of this great Emperor the ancient faith of Rome still
lived on, both in that city and in the provinces. An altar to victory
accompanied the Roman legions in the field, the higher officers of State
in many cases laid claim to the title of pontifex and presided over the
old religious rites while the majority of the Roman Senate still adhered
to the polytheistic tenets of the old faith. The Emperor Gratian, fired
by the zeal of Ambrose, banished once and for all the Altar of Victory
from the Roman Senate. This led to a heated controversy, which was
decided by Theodosius. Returning to Rome "with all his blushing honours
thick upon him," the Emperor proposed at a full meeting of the Senate
the momentous question: Shall the worship of Jupiter or that of Christ
be the religion of the Romans?
In the Roman republic of those days it was not expedient to gainsay a
victorious Emperor, so by a majority of the Senate Jupiter was condemned
and degraded. Thus when we witnessed the triumphal entry of Theodosius
the Great into Constantinople by the Golden Gate, the gods of ancient
Rome, unseen by us, were fastened to his chariot wheels.
Theodosius was first of all a soldier, and though born of Christian
parents he did not embrace the Faith until towards the end of the first
year of his reign, when a severe illness carried conviction to the
Imperial heart. He received the sacrament of baptism before he again
took the field against the Goths, at the hands of Acholius, the Orthodox
Bishop of Thessalonica.
Once convinced of the beauty of the Faith, and sure of the unfailing aid
the Church affords, Theodosius acted as a soldier and a convert usually
does. No room for the doubts and fears of others, he had found the sure
haven of his soul, and all his people must needs be categorically
instructed in the right way. On ascending from the holy font he issued
an edict which must be given word for word. "It is our pleasure that all
the nations which are governed by our clemency and moderation should
steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the
Romans, which faithful tradition has preserved; and which is now
professed by the Pontiff Damarcus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a
man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the Apostles
and the Doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe the sole Deity of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, under an equal Majesty and a pious
Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume the title
of Catholic Christians, and as we judge that all others are extravagant
madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of Heretics, and declare
that their conventicles shall no longer usurp the respectable
appellation of Churches. Besides the condemnation of Divine Justice,
they must expect to suffer the severe penalties, which our authority,
guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them." So
we find little room in Byzantium for the Nonconformist conscience, or,
indeed, for any other save that of the ruler himself.
Like a soldier Theodosius adhered to his opinions, and all argument from
other sides failed to impress him. Once only was he found to show the
slightest inclination to listen to another version of the Christian
creed. He expressed a wish to converse with the pious and learned
Eunomius, who lived a retired life near Constantinople. The prayers of
the Empress Flaccilla prevented this dangerous and mistaken attempt even
to understand the position of others, and further confirmation in his
orthodoxy came about in a dramatic manner.
Theodosius and his son Arcadius, upon whom the title of Augustus had
lately been bestowed, were seated side by side upon a stately throne to
receive the homage of their subjects. Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium,
approached the throne and rendered due homage to Theodosius. He then
turned and addressed Arcadius in the patronizing tones some dignitaries
of the Church still use towards plebeian children. This insolent
behaviour provoked the monarch, and he gave orders to eject the priest.
While the guards were executing them, the Bishop turned in the doorway
and exclaimed in a loud voice, "Such is the treatment, O Emperor! which
the King of Heaven has prepared for those impious men who affect to
worship the Father but refuse to acknowledge the equal majesty of His
Divine Son." This convincing logic failed not of its effect, the
orthodoxy of Theodosius was safe against all further argument, and in no
other case was he tempted into the uncertain and unsettling paths of
philosophical speculation.
In matters religious Constantinople may perhaps be said to lead the
controversial way. It was for forty years, from 340 to 380, the centre
of Arianism, and is said to have admitted all manner of strange
doctrines from every province of the Empire--as was to be expected
among a population more prone to disputations than to serious thought or
that activity which takes religion as a staff to guide its daily task
and not as a subject for polemic exercise.
Let us return to a haunt familiar to the reader--the Atrium, down by the
Sea of Marmora, and listen, without venturing an opinion, to what the
men of the fourth century had to say upon an all-important subject. They
were, or the majority of them would probably profess to be, Arians, and
for many reasons, not alone dogmatic, would have closed their ears to
the echoes that came to them of a purer doctrine taught at Rome and
Alexandria. Yet they must have felt some apprehensions, for among them
in their own city blossomed that rarest of all fair flowers, a perfect
friendship between two men of the same way of thinking. Basil and
Gregory, both natives of Cappadocia, were of one heart and mind in their
endeavours at reform. They had pursued their studies together at Athens,
together had retired into the solitude of the desert of Pontus, and
together they set out upon their mission to Constantinople. Truly a
lovely sight, and altogether beautiful, this friendship of two earnest
men. No doubt the heads of those that walked the Atrium of Justinian the
Great wagged as they reflected that there must be great goodness in a
right so blessed.
But a cold vapour passed over this entrancing vision--Basil was exalted
to the Archiepiscopal throne of Cæsarea, and by way of favour to his
friend selected him as Bishop of Sasima, of all the fifty bishoprics in
his extensive province, the most desolate--sans water, sans verdure,
sans everything that one could wish a friend.
Some years later Gregory returned to Constantinople to try for further
preferment, and in the meantime started a tabernacle of his own, and
after much adversity attained his object when Theodosius entered the
city at the close of a successful campaign in November 380. Gregory had
gained many adherents, and was eventually elevated to the Eastern See by
the Orthodox Emperor. In spite of the unyielding orthodoxy which
Theodosius knew how to enforce, the Arians did not acquiesce without a
protest, and Gregory confessed pathetically that on the day of his
installation the capital of the East wore the appearance of a city taken
by storm at the hands of a Barbarian conqueror. No doubt the polemics
that raged around the question of the Trinity exasperated the soldier
Theodosius, he therefore determined to have the matter settled
definitely, and to that end convened a synod of one hundred and fifty
bishops to complete the theological system established in the Council of
Nicæa. No doubt this council arrived at some conclusion that satisfied
the Emperor, so that at least one man's mind was set at rest on a vexed
question. Many different Christian sects had sprung up before Theodosius
began to issue edicts, and that many of them returned to obscurity is a
reason for profound gratitude, for the world has on more than one
occasion proved too small for rival creeds. Still it is sad to reflect
that the office of Inquisitor in matters of religion was first
instituted by one of the greatest of the Eastern Emperors.
No doubt Theodosius was convinced that he had said the last word on
religious controversy, that being very sure himself his people would be
equally so. This, however, turned out to be rather too hopeful a view of
the matter, for synods, conferences and councils followed one after
another, leading to endless controversy and to no more gratifying result
than a more marked divergence of opinions.
Behind these walls of Constantinople the religious life of the people
showed uncommon vigour, though it may be doubted whether the general
effect was one of holiness. Strong men appear upon the scene and take an
active part provoking strong passions much at variance with the peaceful
precepts of the Christian creed, though quite in keeping with the
prophecy of Him who asserted that He came to bring "not Peace but a
Sword." Out of this chaos of ideas and ideals rises one form after
another, to stand out before his contemporaries in bolder outline than
historical perspective warrants. Of these one may be singled out as
truly great, though it is perhaps due to his personality more than to
the enduring good he did that he appeals to readers of the present day.
He came from Antioch with a great reputation as a preacher, so great
that people called him the Golden Mouth--St. John Chrysostom. His
induction to the Eastern See was carried into effect by somewhat unusual
means. Eutropius, the prime minister of Arcadius the young Emperor, had
heard and admired the sermons of John Chrysostom when on a journey in
the East. Fearing that the faithful of Antioch might be unwilling to
resign their favourite preacher, the minister sent a private order to
the Governor of Syria, and the divine was transported with great speed
and secrecy to Constantinople. The new archbishop did not fail to make
his influence felt at once, and his sermons gave rise to factions, some
in his favour, some against him, all united to make the most of an
excuse for religious controversy. As has often happened since, though on
a less magnificent scale, the ladies of the parish took very ardent
interest in the dispute. Some there were who approved of all he said
and did, others violently condemned him and all his works. These ladies
were for the most part of mature age, and therefore well qualified to
judge, and many of them were extremely wealthy, which of course gave
weight to their opinions.
Chrysostom was of choleric temperament and unsocial habits, the first
led him to express disapproval in scarcely measured terms, the second
prevented him from finding out what was going forward in those places
where he had been insisting on reform. So it came about that an
ecclesiastical conspiracy formed against him was all unknown to him
until he found that one Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, had
arrived by invitation of the Empress, together with a number of
independent bishops, to secure a majority at the synod. Theophilus had
taken the further precaution of bringing with him a strong escort of
Egyptian mariners to serve as practical warriors in the Church Militant
and keep the refractory populace in order. The synod brought various
charges against Chrysostom, who refused to attend the meetings, so in
default this august body condemned the Archbishop for contumacious
disobedience and sentenced him to be deposed. Chrysostom was hurried out
of the city to a place of banishment near the entrance of the Black
Sea, but before two days had passed he was recalled, his faithful flock
rose with unanimous and irresistible fury, the promiscuous crowd of
monks and Egyptian mariners were slaughtered without mercy in the
streets of the city, the waves of sedition roared and seethed round the
palace gates, and an earthquake came just in time to be interpreted as
the voice of Heaven, so the Empress Eudoxia had to implore Arcadius to
reinstate the favourite preacher. Chrysostom returned in triumph down
the Bosphorus and into the Golden Horn, through lanes of shipping that
vied with the houses ashore in the splendour of their illuminations.
From the landing-stage to the Cathedral thousands of his faithful flock
escorted him with frenzied exclamations. But St. John (the Golden Mouth)
was no courtier, he pursued his course with increased zeal. His sermons
made him yet more popular with the masses, and proved yet more
distasteful to the Court, until one directed in bitterest vein against
the Empress proved his temporal undoing for a second time.
Again he was banished, and this time to the distant ridges of Mount
Taurus. He spent three years of great activity in this retreat, carrying
on a correspondence with the most distant provinces of the Empire. His
enemies, however, were not yet satisfied, and brought about his removal
to the desert of Pityas, but on the way thither in his sixtieth year
St. John Chrysostom died.
Thirty years after, in January 438, the remains of this zealous,
high-spirited priest were transported from their obscure sepulchre to
the royal city. Theodosius II advanced as far as Chalcedon to meet them,
and falling prostrate on the coffin implored in the name of his guilty
parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia, the forgiveness of the injured saint.
The efforts of St. John Chrysostom proved effective during his lifetime
alone. After his death the religious cohesion of a large Empire,
composed of so many races, each with its own peculiar temperament fell
away and the divergence of opinion on matters of dogma became more and
more accentuated.
A peculiar instance of this is afforded by the Armenian Church, and the
Author apologizes to his fellow-travellers for having omitted to point
out the unpretentious cathedral of that community when visiting the
walls by the Sea of Marmora. The Armenians took up the Christian faith
in a most generous spirit during the reign of Constantine. The many
invasions their country suffered under, the constant disorders that
occurred there, as well as the fact that their clergy were generally
ignorant of the Greek tongue, all tended to separate them from their
fellow-believers in Europe. They clung to their doctrine that the
manhood of Christ was created of a divine and incorruptible substance,
and therefore scouted the notion that imputed to the Godhead the
infirmities of the flesh. Their priests were unable to assist at the
Council of Chalcedon, owing to the linguistic difficulty referred to, so
in time they became schismatics, their separation from other communities
dating back as far as 552. For reasons which it is not well to enter
into, the Armenians have not always enjoyed the toleration shown to
other creeds by the Moslem conquerors of the Eastern Empire--gruesome
tales have reached the ears of Europe from time to time, and the less
said on this subject the better, for the enlightened powers that now
rule over the destinies of the Eastern Empire give ample assurance that
those dark days of persecution are past.
Where Christianity has gained hold over the minds of men, it not only
influences their thoughts and actions more than any other motive power,
but it has the result, perhaps quite contrary to the intentions of its
Founder, of crystallizing the national characteristics of the different
races that become subject to its influence. This leads to a definite
expression of national sentiments, aims and ambitions, and so it
happened when Christianity was in the full vigour of youth. Those
communities whose life was lived under a southern sun, in lands where
tradition and history receded into the dim vistas that hide the origin
of all things, lands like Syria and Egypt drifted into a spiritual
nirvana of lazy and contemplative devotion. No wonder then that the
fierce onrush of those who were inflamed by Mahomed's fighting creed met
with no resistance, and Islam is now the faith of those lands of ruin
and golden sand.
The Western nations took to the new creed without any loss of the
fighting qualities of their race; and in fact the preaching of the new
religion seems to have had but little effect upon their methods of
expressing their convictions on any subject, and equally little power to
check ambition. So the Western Church was forced to adopt the strenuous
method of the people under its spiritual sway, aided therein by the
strain of stronger Northern races that had revived the moribund
communities in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome.
Then the direction taken by the Western Church led to absolute power
over the bodies and souls of men. The superstitions grafted on the
doctrines of the Church to enhance the power of its ministers proved a
weapon of irresistible force in the hands of an unscrupulous and
ambitious Pontiff. The warrior kings of warlike nations quailed before
the power of the Head of Western Christendom, and one of Germany's
haughty Emperors crept barefooted through the snow to Canossa, there to
implore the Pontiff's pardon.
This ambition has fired the Western Church through all these ages that
saw the gradual development of Europe, has led to many and most bloody
wars, occasioned revolting crimes, and still acts as an incentive to the
"Kultur Kampf," against which even Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, did
not battle with unqualified success. As may be supposed, the ambitious
strivings of the Roman See were not directed only against the Western
nations whom Christendom had reached mainly through its agents. It cast
longing glances at the Eastern capital. The Greeks, however, took their
religion in yet another form, approached it in yet another spirit. At
Constantinople the Emperor and the Patriarch lived side by side, and
were busily engaged in checking each other's authority, or offering a
united front against Roman interference. No attempt seems to have been
made on the part of any Archbishop of the Eastern capital to arrogate to
himself temporal power. It was politically impossible, so long as
successors to the throne of Cæsar were to be found among victorious
generals, whenever the scions of the Imperial family showed signs of
weakness. Again the genius of the Greek expressed itself in a different
sense.
The Roman Church laid down its dogmata, and no one was found to cavil at
them, or those that did, until Luther's time, met with a short shrift
and a blazing pyre. The populace of the Eastern Empire, and more
expressly of Constantinople, knew none of this intellectual submission
to ecclesiastical authority, and exercised their keen wits in
disputations, subtle or extravagant, according to individual taste.
Vehement controversies raged constantly around the mysteries of the
Christian Creed, and served at once to sharpen the intellect and obscure
the purity of the Faith. New sects were for ever springing up, some to
be suppressed by edict of an Emperor, or to prolong their precarious
existence under persecution, others to die yet more surely of neglect.
High and low entered into these contests, perhaps not always urged by
the purest motives--the Isaurian Emperors condemned the use of Icons,
and Theodora in sanguinary devotion restored them to the Churches.
Paulicians, who abhorred all images, were introduced from the banks of
the Euphrates into Constantinople and Thrace by Constantine, whom the
worshippers of images surnamed Copronymus, in the middle of the eighth
century. They suffered much persecution from time to time; and again
were encouraged and in fact reinforced by another Emperor, John
Zimisces, who transported a large colony of them to the valleys of Mount
Hæmus. Under good treatment they became arrogant, and being doughty
warriors resented the injuries they frequently received at the hands of
the Eastern clergy. They retired to their native land, and there were
subject to renewed attacks by their Christian brethren of the Eastern
fold, and by any armed and adventurous nation of a different Faith who
happened
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