Religious institutions of old Byzant—The rise of monasticism—The conversion of the Bulgarians by Cyril—The spread of Islam towards Constantinople—The attacks of the Saracens and their conquests elsewhere—The decline of the Arab Caliphate and the rise of the House of Othman—The Mosque of Eyub and the sword of Othman—The Turk and his habits—The Mosque of Mohammed—Little St. Sophia—Achmet and the dogs of Constantinople, and the new regime’s dealings with the same problem.
Religious institutions of old Byzant—The rise of monasticism—The conversion of the Bulgarians by Cyril—The spread of Islam towards Constantinople—The attacks of the Saracens and their conquests elsewhere—The decline of the Arab Caliphate and the rise of the House of Othman—The Mosque of Eyub and the sword of Othman—The Turk and his habits—The Mosque of Mohammed—Little St. Sophia—Achmet and the dogs of Constantinople, and the new regime’s dealings with the same problem.
AS was only natural in a community so devoted to all manner of religious observances, such as the Greeks of Byzantium, monasticism made great headway and filled Constantinople with religious institutions of that order. Probably the idea first came to Europe from Africa, via the city of many churches, not long after the days of Anthony of Thebais, in the fourth century. Anthony was an illiterate youth who, suddenly seized with a desire to do penance for some wickedness (let us hope real rather than fancied), distributed his patrimony, left his kith and kin, and retired to a ruined tower among the tombs on the banks of the Nile. Perhaps he found this spot too sociable, for he wandered away into the desert east of the Nile, some three days’ march, and commenced his seclusion in a lonely spot which offered him shade and water. But Anthony’s repose was soon disturbed by numbers of others to whom had spread the fame of his sanctity, and they joined him as disciples in the wilderness, and no doubt in the beauty of holiness. Anthony lived long enough, one hundred and five years it is said, to start a considerable body of anchorites.The notion soon spread to Europe, and Constantinople took it up with enthusiasm; monasteries and convents sprang up in all directions, and soon became either popular resorts of penitent princes, statesmen, or others who wished to obtain some reputation for holiness to enable them to restart their old life with a clean sheet, or else the enforced retreat of emperors and empresses, patriarchs, and courtiers who had fallen from favour and were removed with more or less ceremony from the scene of their former activities. There was a monastery of St. George of Mangane near Seraglio Point, where John Cantacuzene took up his abode after abdication. I have told you of Empress Irene who went into the seclusion of a convent she had built on Prince’s Island.
Holy men went from their monastic institutions into the countries of the Empire’s heathen neighbours and made many converts. Cyril and Methodius were called to Bulgaria and converted Boris, the King, who sent his son Simeon to be educated at Constantinople. Many more Bulgarian youths followed, and it became customary to go to Constantinople in search of learning and the refinements of life. This practice continues to-day, and Robert College, an American foundation, standing high on the European bank of the Bosphorus above Roumeli Hissar, has trained many young Bulgars to a useful life. Among these was M. Gueshof, the present Prime Minister of Bulgaria, whose skill assists Tsar Ferdinand in piloting the fortunes of his kingdom through the troubled political waters of these days.
While the religious life of Constantinople was working out its destiny, while members of various monastic orders forgot the first precepts of their Master and plunged into all manner of political intrigue, a new and powerful creed had arisen in Asia and was drawing thousands out ofdarkness to the red glare of a militant faith. Islam was spreading ever nearer the coasts of Europe in a solid, devoted body, while Christians of the East were frittering away their strength in political discussions, thus paving the way for the conquest of a large part of Europe by the hosts of Othman inspired by a simple faith, and Constantinople fell. In vain the crusade organized by Pope Urban, the Eastern bulwark of Christianity was doomed. To-day the sons of Othman are in like case as were the Christians of the Greek Empire before 1453. They have assumed, but not assimilated, Western ideas, and in so doing have departed from the faith wherein lay their strength, have undermined the religious pre-eminence of their Lord the Sultan, and have brought a misunderstood version of advanced Western philosophy to a people inherently incapable of understanding anything but the fundamental facts that Allah is great, that Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah, and that his word is a law from which no man dare depart if he would enter into happiness after death.
The first to bring the Crescent up to the walls of Constantinople were swarms of fiery Saracens, who came up under clouds of lateen sails over the blue waters of the Sea of Marmora and laid fierce siege to the City. They came first in the seventh century and forty-six years after the flight of the Prophet from Mecca. Urged by their warlike faith, the Arabs had found conquest rapid and easy of achievement since they issued from the desert; they carried their triumphant ensigns to the banks of the Indus and the snow-capped peaks of the Pyrenees and thought themselves invincible. By the middle of the seventh century they had conquered Phœnicia, the countries watered by the Euphrates, Judæa, Syria, and all Egypt, Cyprus, and Rhodes, and had overrun the Iberian Peninsula from Africa. The richest prize they coveted was Constantinople,but they tried its strength in vain, and had to retire baffled. The Arabs transmitted their creed to a young race which had come out of Tartary, and laid thereby the foundation of the Ottoman Empire when Arab dominion was declining. The fortunes of the young race, the Turks, were very varied, but they were at last able to assist Caliph Motassem, who was no longer able to find among his own people those martial qualities which had led to Arab conquests. Fifty thousand Turks entered the military service of the Caliph, and they in time came to assume power and a decisive voice in the Government, like the Prætorian Guard before them, and the Janissaries of Constantinople and Mamelukes of Egypt since.
The Arab Caliphate dwindled into decay, making way for a Turkish dynasty, and so when Alexius Comnenus was Emperor of the East he was forced to acknowledge Suleiman as master of Asia Minor.
Othman, Osman, son of Erthogrul, succeeded in 1288, and to him is due the rise of the Ottoman Power. He roused the enthusiasm of his followers by proclaiming that a Divine Mission inspired him to carry the Crescent out to westward, and so he moved victorious over the last Asiatic possessions of the Eastern Empire. Where he came he conquered, and by the beginning of the fourteenth century nearly all Asia Minor was held by the Osmanli, and the Christians of Constantinople were becoming aware of the danger that threatened their religious and political existence. The sword of Othman and his victorious banner passed to Orchan, his son, and with them these words of advice: “Be just, love goodness, and show mercy. Give the same protection to all thy subjects, and extend the faith of thy fathers.” This advice was followed by Orchan, and he too carried the Crescent victorious nearer and nearer to the Eastern bulwark of Christianity, Constantinople. Here at Eyub, in the mosqueby the Sweet Waters of Europe, the sword of Othman and his banner are kept in reverent state and serve religious purpose, for every succeeding Sultan is girt with this sword, an act corresponding to the crowning of a Christian king, amid the prayers of his people: “May he be as good as Othman.”
The Mosque of Suleiman Built by this Sultan to commemorate his many victories. Flights of white pigeons hover round this shrine, and pious Moslems seldom pass by without buying some food for them from hawkers who have pitched their business here.The Mosque of SuleimanBuilt by this Sultan to commemorate his many victories. Flights of white pigeons hover round this shrine, and pious Moslems seldom pass by without buying some food for them from hawkers who have pitched their business here.
To-day grey threatening clouds are passing over the Mosque of Eyub, where these sacred relics of a warrior race are kept; the brightness that sparkles on the Sweet Waters of Europe which flow into the Golden Horn at this place has vanished under the dull pall of a saddened sky, against which the dark cypresses stand like mourners among the graves of the faithful who are buried round this sacred spot. The gilt crescent on dome and minaret no longer sends answering flashes to the sun that has shone for centuries over the shrine that holds these relics of a fighting race of sovereigns. To many here in this City the sky is overcast, the prospect dark and cloudy, for the Crescent has been waning where it was once supreme, in the countries of Eastern Europe, and the crusade called by the kings of former subject people has reached the outer defences of Stamboul, but fifty miles from the Mosque of Eyub the favourite disciple of the Prophet. The fate of the City is yet undecided, for the arms of Othman have met with reverse after reverse, and no one can say whether recent attempts at implanting Western philosophy on an Eastern creed has left enough of Islam’s virility to defend the last foothold of the Turks on Europe. Here in Stamboul, where stand so many mosques of conquerors, where the Christian churches of the Eastern Empire have been converted into mosques, there is among some a dread uncertainty as to the future. In the bazaars and the narrow streets Turks and Greeks, Armenians and Kurds, Arabs, Georgians, full-blooded negroes, go about their business with the utmost unconcern, as if Europe were not faceto face with epoch-making changes which affect the Ottoman Empire in Europe, and especially this City, its heart. Yet here in Constantinople, so full of memories of the great Christian Empire which shielded Europe’s development against the Pagan armies of the East for so many centuries, there is a feeling, subconscious but ever present, that the Turk is only in temporary possession. In all his ways, in all his views, he differs from those with whom he comes in contact in his Empire’s European possessions. He has few belongings and seldom desires more, and these can easily be stowed and transported elsewhere, whereas the races he has conquered and which have wrenched themselves free again are ambitious and greedy of gain. They have been carefully collecting for this final blow; while the Turk has been squandering his goods, they have constructed; whereas the Turk, if he has not destroyed what he found, has at last let it fall in ruins. Those other nations give of their best, put all their strength into the pursuit of one ideal, a great and prosperous Fatherland; the Turk knows only that “Allah is” and orders all things wherever the believer may be, and the ideal of Fatherland is quite beyond his comprehension. The very word, “vatan,” had to be explained to the Turkish people by the enthusiasts who broke the power of Abdul Hamid; but all explanation was useless, the Turk has not found his “vatan” in Europe, and those who broke the power of the Sultan were unable to replace it by anything which the Turk could understand. Devoid of art or science, incapable of political life, the Turk’s energies have been directed solely to works of destruction. Only in one direction has he shown constructive capacity and a desire to leave a lasting record, and that is in the mosques and turbehs, and almost all of these are monuments to men before whom nations went under in seas of blood, who trampled down all signs of prosperity, strangled growingcivilization, and levelled homesteads and palaces, churches and strongholds with the ground, on their ruthless march to victory.
Towering over the wooden houses of Stamboul, overshadowing the broken walls of Byzantine defence, which proved vain against the might of Othman, these mosques make Constantinople what it is. Massive masonry, with clinging turrets, crowned by a mighty dome surrounded by the Crescent, and round about the building the bulbous roofs of the medresseh,[1]tetinune,[2]darul ziafet,[3]and darul shifa,[4]emblems of the sycophantic East living on the bounty of the great; thus rises the Mosque of Mohammed the Conqueror, out of the eternal squalor, filth, misery, and unconcern of an Oriental city. And other mosques are much the same, and stand as the only evidence of the Turk’s capacity for construction, and the finest, most imposing of these buildings are due to the most ruthless destroyers among the sons of Othman. Sultan Mohammed the Conqueror built his mosque on the spot where once stood the Church of the Holy Apostles; not a trace remains of that former sacred fane, where in the “Heröon” the rulers of ancient Byzant were laid to rest in coffins of porphyry, granite, serpentine, green, red, or white marble, from Thessaly, Paros, and the Proconessus. Indeed, these tombs were not destroyed by the Osmanli. Latin Christians, during their short tenor of the Imperial City, from 1204-1260, desecrated the shrine and plundered the tombs of the Emperors, but they left at least the building standing, and all traces of that are buried under the massive pile of the Mosque of Sultan Mohammed the Conqueror.
[1]“Medresseh,” academy for students.
[1]“Medresseh,” academy for students.
[2]“Tetinune,” their dwelling-place.
[2]“Tetinune,” their dwelling-place.
[3]“Darul ziafet,” where the poor are fed.
[3]“Darul ziafet,” where the poor are fed.
[4]“Darul shifa,” hospital.
[4]“Darul shifa,” hospital.
I have already mentioned the Mosque of Achmet. It is the most pronounced feature of Stamboul, rising in wonderful symmetry above the clustering houses that seemto tumble down to the sea-walls and are only arrested in their fall by the Kütshük (little) Agia Sofia, formerly the Church of St. Sergius and Bacchus. This little building stands stoutly by the sea, resting on the walls that for many centuries kept the foes of Christianity at bay, its flat cupola framed on one side by sturdy minaret, on the other by a weather-beaten poplar. Neither of the saints to whom the Greeks dedicated this church are familiar to me; of St. Sergius I know nothing, and the name of St. Bacchus came as a surprise to me when first I heard it, for Bacchus I had known for many years as an obsolete Pagan deity who made no pretence at sanctity, and was only a god because mortals chose to worship him. It is therefore strange to find him associated with St. Sergius, whose name has a somewhat severe sound to it, on this particular post, for, mind you, the men of the Middle Ages allowed their saints very little leisure, but assigned to each his duty. So, I take it, St. Sergius was entrusted with the defence of this section of the sea-wall, and he requisitioned the other gentleman to take over the social duties of the post and to make things merry and bright. However, as I say, I know very little about saints, so cannot give the real reason why these two gentlemen clubbed together to have a church to themselves, and therefore give the above explanation under reservation.
High above this little church towers the massive Mosque of Ahmedyeh, Achmet, considered chief of all the mosques in Stamboul, its six minarets pointing like warning fingers to the sky where Allah reigns inscrutable. The founder, Achmet, was a pious soul, and at the same time a good sportsman; he gave evidence of the former quality by building this mosque, in the latter capacity he was great at falconry and in hunting with those strong hounds whose degenerate descendants until recently roamed the streets of Constantinople and acted as rather unsatisfactory scavengers.
Achmet was rather worried about the dogs, which, in those days of the early seventeenth century, were already rather a nuisance in the crowded City, and thought it wise to consult the Mufti about the matter, for the lives of dogs, unclean animals though they be, were deemed a matter of some importance. The mufti consulted with others learned in the law of the Prophet, and this enlightened committee came to the conclusion that it was unlawful to kill the dogs, seeing each one had a soul. Christians you may kill, they are the enemies of Allah, whereas dogs are not, or at least do not worry about the matter either way. Women you may kill too, they have no soul at all. It is all beautifully simple, and appeals to the meanest intellect. Anyway, the dogs continued to be a nuisance, so, as they might not be killed, they were banished first to Scutari, where they seemed quite happy, and then to an island some sixteen miles out in the Sea of Marmora, where they might die of starvation. However, if the story be true, the dogs knew a trick worth two of that, and simply swam back to their old haunts, and, incidentally, to their ladies, who had not been exiled. I can quite imagine the all-night howlings of welcome with which the ladies greeted the wanderers on their return, and the flight of slippers, smaller articles of furniture, etc., accompanied by clouds of curses, hurtling through the night, to check the exuberance of thisfrohes Wiedersehen.
A couple of years ago the authorities, inspired by the enlightened members of the new regime, decided to get rid of the dogs, and they were banished again. This time they were rounded up in all parts of the city, and even from the villages on either bank of the Bosphorus. I remember well a friendly little white lady who lived in a corner on the steps leading up from the sea towards the higher part of the Candilli; here on a heap of melon skins, which served both as food and as bedding, she was wont to bringup one litter of promising little pariah pups after another, and she loved variety, for her children were a most variegated assortment. They were as happy as those bright, sunny days were long, and would tumble in bunches down the uneven steps, or struggle up towards the high road which leads along the Asiatic bank and connects Candilli by land with the great world. Here the pups, after strenuous mountaineering, would get their outlook on life, with all its excitements and possible dangers; here Turkish cavalry from Scutari would come dashing past, galloping furiously when there were people to watch this feat and stones to lame their clever little horses, subsiding to a walk when beyond the sight of admirers and when the roads were soft with dust some inches deep, or grass by the wayside. Other sights presented themselves to the round, wondering eyes of these offspring of the little white lady: of a morning lithe young Englishmen would tear down those steps several at a time, to the great wonderment of the lodgers in the corner on the bed of melon skins. These Englishmen would be hurrying to the “Scala” to catch a boat—never punctual unless you were late—a boat that took them to their work in Pera and Galata. On their return they would ascend with startling rapidity those stony precipices which to the puppies seemed to take a lifetime to negotiate; and in the gardens between the high road and the sea you might hear the gentle voices of fair, fragrant Englishwomen, and the puppies would wag sympathetic tails. Yes, they were pleasant, very pleasant, those summer days at Candilli. The solemn cypresses, in their attitude of constant warning, stood unheeded, for the sun was shining on the waters, and made them gleam in gold and blue and many colours, and the sun drew fragrance from flowering shrubs, and ripened the swelling figs that nestled among the broad leaves which, in their turn, mirrored the life-giver in their bright, smooth surface.But one day the little white lady and her family vanished, for men had been busy during the night, and had carried them and all their friends into exile, had carried them away over the waters where the moon drew a sparkling silvery path, to a barren island. Here they were left to perish, for long ago the wise men, learned in the laws of the Prophet, had decided that every dog, even the smallest pup, has a soul, and that it is evil to kill them, but not to let them starve to death. And these same wise men would not have allowed the possession of a soul to those fair Englishwomen whose blue eyes smiled kindly on the little white lady and her offspring’s wondering interest in the doings of the great world.
Many of the dogs had a presentiment of danger, and evaded capture by fleeing to the “hinterland,” whence came alarming rumours of packs of wild dogs rendering insecure the country-side. Of these, one or the other found his way back to his old sociable haunts, and Constantinople and environments have not quite got rid of the dogs which, according to the accounts of all travellers in this country, form one of its most remarkable features.
There are other mosques, many of them, rising up from among squalor, or groups of picturesque wooden houses, and these mosques seem to be the only indication of any permanence of Turkish rule. The little wooden houses vanish from time to time, whole districts in one fell swoop, by fire, which has spread with alarming rapidity long before the watchman, tapping the irregular pavement with the iron-shod staff, has given the alarm. Then firemen, with much noise but little expedition, arrive on the scene, and find little left to do but to gather up the fragments, the property of the sufferers. But the mosques remain towering above charred ruins, and the call to prayer sounds from the graceful minaret over deserted homesteads.
A Disused Monastery Near the Golf-links on the heights overlooking the upper reaches of the Golden Horn. Here also refugees cluster around the dilapidated walls waiting patiently for transport to Asia Minor.A Disused MonasteryNear the Golf-links on the heights overlooking the upper reaches of the Golden Horn. Here also refugees cluster around the dilapidated walls waiting patiently for transport to Asia Minor.
Thus the life of this strange people, the Turks, goes onfrom day to day, leisurely business transacted with all dignity of inherent idleness, endless gossip under the vines and awnings of small cafés, talk which begins nowhere and arrives nowhere. Squalor, dirt, picturesque decay, and over all the sense that a migratory race has settled here for a while, is not disposed to move until turned out, and has just put up a leader or two with sufficient enterprise to make others build him a place of worship to glorify himself above his fellows.
But strong young nations have closed in upon Constantinople and threaten it from the West. They came strong in their faith, armed and equipped and prepared to carry all before them, to make vast sacrifices, and their strongest weapon is an ideal. They have not forgotten the history of past centuries; the memory of nameless indignities, of crushing shame, has fed the spirit that informs them, that bids them hurl their young strength against thevis inertiæof the Turks and march over heaps of slain, over a country peopled by their kinsmen, fellow Christians, now devastated by the foe they have driven back. Now they are hammering at the gates, at the defences of Constantinople, and all the remaining strength of the dying Ottoman Empire in Europe is massed on the narrow strip of ground between the Bosphorus and the lines of Chatalja.
Uncertainty still reigns there as I write these lines; vain hopes are raised by rumours, some so improbable that they suggest the incoherent rambling of one but half-awakened out of a long drugged sleep. But certain it is that efficiency, concentration, and high purpose have met sloth and corruption, and have conquered. Though the lines of Chatalja may prove equal to the task of defending this last strip of Turkish territory, yet the fact remains that those young nations have brought about an epoch-making catastrophe—the passing of Ottoman rule in Europe.
The defences of Constantinople—Adrianople and its history—The walls of Constantinople and their story—The Marble Tower—Yedi Koulé and the Golden Gate—Tales of Theodosius and Maximus, St. Ursula and the eleven thousand maidens—Emperor Heraclius—The story of Basil the Macedonian—King Crum’s appearance before the Golden Gate—Michael Palæologus and Mary the Conductress—The Walls of Theodosius—Refugees encamped outside the walls—The triumph of Christianity.
The defences of Constantinople—Adrianople and its history—The walls of Constantinople and their story—The Marble Tower—Yedi Koulé and the Golden Gate—Tales of Theodosius and Maximus, St. Ursula and the eleven thousand maidens—Emperor Heraclius—The story of Basil the Macedonian—King Crum’s appearance before the Golden Gate—Michael Palæologus and Mary the Conductress—The Walls of Theodosius—Refugees encamped outside the walls—The triumph of Christianity.
IN these days of effective long-range fire the defences of a capital city lie well away from and command the approaches to it. Whereas formerly hostile forces surged up against stout towers and strong walls, the enemy of to-day lets loud-voiced cannon speak from afar, hurling destruction at what look like mounds, green hills, from a distance, but when approached bristle with ordnance and small-arms. Far afield lie fortresses, each encircled with smaller forts, and these are meant to stay the tide of invasion. This was the mission of Adrianople and its enceinte of forts, Adrianople, the City of Hadrian, famous in history, for epoch-making events have taken place around it; the Goths here vanquished Valens, and their impetuous onslaught broke the ranks of Roman legions and filled the minds of those warriors with such dread of the Teuton invader that years passed before they could be induced to face the Goths again. It was Theodosius the Great who brought back their courage to them. His skilful system of block-houses kept him informed of the enemy’s vagrant movements, and by so contrivingthat the Roman legionaries met only numerically inferior bodies of barbarians, he helped to revive the great traditions of Roman arms at least for a short space of time.
Then again when Bulgarians came pouring down the Valley of the Maritza towards Constantinople, the defenders of the Imperial City met them at Adrianople; the armies of Byzant were beaten, the Emperor slain, and his skull, encased in gold, served as a drinking-vessel to his vanquisher. The hosts of Othman, having overrun the northern European provinces of the Byzantine Empire, made for Adrianople, and the city became the European capital of the Osmanli until Constantinople fell.
To-day the City of Hadrian, the “Sperr-fort” of Constantinople, is surrounded by the enemies of the Porte, Bulgarians and Servians, and thus one of the outlying defences of the capital no longer serves its purpose, and the defence has been drawn in nearer to the lines of Chatalja. Those lines now take the place as last defence of the walls built on the landward side by Theodosius II, and improved and repaired by his successors to the Imperial Purple. They stand to-day grey and deserted, lichen-grown, clad in dark green folds of ivy, that sympathetic friend of fallen fortresses, and listen to the sounds of danger to the capital, while recalling days when they themselves held out against all foes, though earthquakes shook their stout foundations, and discord in the city seemed like to nullify their usefulness. A strange and stirring history this of those landward walls of Constantinople, and worthy of a moment’s consideration in these days, when the fate of yet another Empire, with its seat of government within those walls, is trembling in the balance.
They stretch from the Sea of Marmora northward to the Golden Horn, do those walls of Theodosius, their southern angle marked by a strong tower, a marble tower,dipping its foundations deep into the pellucid waters. I saw it first on a glorious summer day, the gleaming blocks of marble of which it is built were reflected in the waters of the Sea of Marmora, beyond blue sea, or above blue sky, and between the two, floating like the Isles of the Blest on a magic sea, the Prince’s Islands, and behind them the blue hills of Asia Minor, their rugged outlines softened by the heat-haze of a summer’s day. Little white sails gleamed on the flashing waters, sails filled by some idle zephyr which carried small ships away, lazily, out into the southern seas. But, mind you, this tower has not always lived in idleness, bathing its feet in summer seas. Times were when the watchman up in this tower would see the south alive with movement and the silver path on the sea overshadowed by clouds of sail. Swiftly they came, those strange craft from out of the south, bearing bronzed sons of Arabia to storm the City of Cæsar. Twice they came, in 668 and again from 716-718, but their efforts were unavailing, and the groves of cypress trees mark their last resting-place.
The Marble Tower served its purpose well in those ancient days, over which distance has cast its glamour. To-day the Marble Tower stands silent, lifeless, by the side of a leaden sea; passing squalls hide the view to southward and over the Islands towards the mountains of Asia Minor, and a grey sky, heavy with rain, hangs like a pall over the City and this corner of its ancient defences. The Marble Tower’s part in history is long since played out, and now it listens silently, helpless, to the distant booming of cannon before which it would fall like those castles of dreamland at cock-crow; ruined it stands mourning the ruin which overtakes the kingdoms of this world.
A little further northward stands yet another memorable monument to former greatness, Yedi Koulé and the“Golden Gate.” Several ruined towers raise their heads above the broken walls from among groups of little wooden houses. They and the curtains which connect them once formed a stronghold built by Mohammed II on the ruins of a former castle. This was for a time the chief garrison of the Janissaries, and a state prison wherein the Sultans were wont to incarcerate the ambassadors of those foreign Powers with which they chanced to be at war, a playful habit which has been discontinued since Turkey asserted her claim to be considered a civilized nation. The Janissaries also kept their own prisoners here, generally dethroned Sultans, whom they killed here at their leisure and free from outside interference.
A strong fortress stood here, raised by a strong man, Theodosius, in the young days of ancient Byzantium. It was built on to by successive Emperors, and became one of the most important centres of the City on memorable occasions, for this stronghold became known as the “Golden Gate,” the Porta Aurea, and its towering walls looked down upon great historic happenings. Without on the plain dense hosts would form into ordered procession and follow their Emperor in his triumphal entry through the gates. Under a heavy sky, festooned with sombre ivy, crumbling in its last stage of decay, the Golden Gate with difficulty recalls the glories that have passed beneath it. The Golden Gate had three archways, of which the central one was wider and loftier than the others, like those to be seen in the Roman Forum. These were dedicated to Severus and Constantine, and were closed by gilded gates taken from Mompseueste and placed here by Nicephorus Phocas after his victories in Cilicia. The gate is said to owe its origin to Theodosius the Great, who built it to commemorate his victory over Maximus. Though I thoroughly appreciate Theodosius and subscribe to allhis claims to greatness, I have ever been sorry for Maximus. After all, it seems, he did not really wish to rebel against Gratian and assume the Imperial Purple. Rather was he urged to it by popular opinion, the politicians of Britain having decided that he should, and the youth of Britain flocked to his standards, so Maximus was bound to move. It was a big move, too, and successful at first, for his rapid progress alarmed Gratian, who fled from Paris, his army of Gaul having gone over to Maximus. The campaign was like the migration of a nation, 30,000 fighting men and 100,000 others, and of these numbers settled in Brittany, where their descendants live to this day. To make things pleasanter, a great number of ladies set out from Britain with the intention of joining the men when the fighting was over. St. Ursula took charge of this column, 11,000 noble, 60,000 plebeian maidens, destined as brides for the settlers, but they lost their way, and when at last they got to Cologne they met the Huns and were all slaughtered. For this St. Ursula was canonized, as is only right and proper, and a beautiful window in Cologne Cathedral sets forth the whole story, giving portraits of the ladies, so that in face of evidence as conclusive as that of our half-penny illustrated dailies there is no more room for doubt. Maximus came up against Theodosius in the end, and that was the end of him.
Nearly three centuries later Heraclius, the Emperor, entered the Golden Gate in triumph after his victory over the Persians, and again a century later Constantine Copronymus followed through these golden arches after defeating the Bulgarians. They came in one long stream of conquerors in those earlier centuries of the Byzantine Emperors, names now forgotten or but dimly remembered; then awoke the “Daughter of the Arches,” as Echo was poetically called, as one hero after another was acclaimedby a vainglorious mob: Theophilus, in the middle of the ninth century, he routed the Arabs. Basil I, the Macedonian—a strange story his. It was in the middle of the ninth century that a young, strong, and active, but weary and travel-stained man came over the heights beyond the Golden Gate. He entered by a side entrance close to, or part of, the Golden Gate at sunset, and being a stranger in the City with no friends to go to, he lay down to sleep on the steps of the Monastery of St. Diomed, which stood near the Golden Gate. A kindly monk extended the hospitality of the monastery to him, and the brothers helped him to find suitable employment. His good fortune led him to a cousin, in whose train Basil went to the Peloponese. Here he became acquainted with a wealthy widow, Danielis, who adopted him as her son, and helped by her wealth and by his own merits, Basil rose to high honour, and finally stepped from the body of the Emperor, killed by himself, to the steps of the throne. Years after his first entrance into Constantinople Basil I, founder of the Macedonian dynasty, moved in under the arches of the Golden Gate in triumph.
Another Basil, second of that name, rode in at the Golden Gate after his victory over the Bulgarians. The slaughter he inflicted on them gained him the appellation “Bulgaroktonos”; the memory of the cruelty he practised on his Bulgarian captives lives still in the minds of their descendants, those men whose big guns were battering at the outer defences of Constantinople, those men who would that their sovereign should enter the City as conqueror.
The Bulgarians found the road to Constantinople soon after their appearance in Eastern Europe. Clouds of dust heralded the coming of Crum, their King, with a large host amid flocks of sheep and goats. They pitched their leather tents on the slopes outside the Golden Gate andlaid siege to that stronghold, but all their efforts were unavailing, even the human sacrifices offered by their King to his strange gods failed of effect, and a receding cloud of dust told the watchman on the Golden Gate that his savage enemy had withdrawn.
Another figure in the glittering pageant that passed through the Golden Gate in triumph was John Zimisces, the Armenian, of whose rise to power over the corpse of his imperial master, aided by his mistress the Empress, the walls of the Palace of Hormisdas were silent witnesses.
The last of all the Emperors to enter triumphantly by the Golden Gate was Michael Palæologus, in August, 1261. The Latin Emperors had held Constantinople for some time when Michael came with an army to claim his rightful inheritance, and Baldwin, last of the Latins, fled at his approach. The Golden Gate was thrown open, the Emperor dismounted, and on foot meekly followed the miraculous image of Mary the Conductress into the City as far as the Cathedral of St. Sophia. Michael re-established the dynasty of the Palæologi on the throne of Constantine, and they held it for two short centuries. The next conqueror to enter the City of Constantine was Mohammed II, and he rode over the heaped corpses of Janissaries and of Byzantine princes and their mercenaries, in over the breech made by his engines of war, and with him came the spirit of another age and race which yet holds possession, while those distant guns thundered at the lines of Chatalja, threatening to close yet another epoch in the long, tense history of Constantinople, Stamboul, Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar.
The Walls of Theodosius Outside these walls refugees from Thrace and Macedonia settled on their way back to Asia Minor. They camped among the graves of fallen warriors of their faith, and cut down for firewood the centuries-old cypress trees.The Walls of TheodosiusOutside these walls refugees from Thrace and Macedonia settled on their way back to Asia Minor. They camped among the graves of fallen warriors of their faith, and cut down for firewood the centuries-old cypress trees.
The walls built by Theodosius begin after Yedi Koulé Kapousi, the Gate of the Seven Towers, and extend northwards until they reach the high ground overlooking the Valley of the Lycus, when they turn off slightly to thenorth-east. Constantine the Great had built walls around his City, but it outgrew them, and so to Theodosius II, who reigned from 408-450, fell the task of extending the limits of the Castle of Cæsar. Historians of the time draw a pleasant picture of the scene when these walls were erected. All citizens were called upon to assist, political factions dropped their differences, and so there arose the defences of the City. Misfortune visited them shortly after their completion, when an earthquake overthrew a great portion of the work, including fifty-seven towers. It came at an inopportune moment too, for Attila, the “Scourge of God,” as he was pleased to call himself, was at large, had already inflicted three defeats on the armies of the Eastern Empire, had ravaged Macedonia and Thrace with fire and sword, and was moving down upon Constantinople. Even to-day, after the passing of eleven centuries, these walls of Theodosius present an imposing front, in some places almost untouched by the hand of time; how much more formidable must they have appeared to those assailants whose bones are guarded by the tapering cypress trees a stone’s throw away from the fosse. There were in all one hundred and ninety-two towers. Visitors to Constantinople should view these walls of Theodosius from near Top Kapousi. A long line of walls extends away to the south, first the inner wall, standing on a broad terrace raised somewhat above the outer wall. This terrace is about fifty feet broad, and here was the main defence of the City—for in former days these walls were of enormous strength compared to any engines of offence that could be brought against them—a chain of towers linked together by stout walls known as curtains to the expert. These towers, most of which are square, stand about one hundred and seventy feet apart, and rose, when in their completed state, to a height of sixtyfeet, standing out some twenty feet from the curtain. Each tower contained, as a rule, two chambers, and was built of carefully cut stone and vaulted with brick inside. The outer wall contained a number of vaulted chambers which offered shelter to the troops engaged in the defence, and there are loopholes through which their fire was directed. This wall had numbers of little towers, alternately round and square, and was about ten feet high, sufficient to afford protection to bodies of troops moving from one place to another along the terrace. There was also a deep moat which could be flooded; it is now serving the peaceful purpose of market-garden.
The Sea-walls of Constantinople Above them rises the dome of Little St. Sophia, behind which again looms the mighty Mosque of Achmet.The Sea-walls of ConstantinopleAbove them rises the dome of Little St. Sophia, behind which again looms the mighty Mosque of Achmet.
On a fine day the view over the walls away to the Sea of Marmora is wonderfully beautiful—but this is winter, and grey clouds keep out the sunshine needed to draw out the many beauties of the scene. The road, at no time really entitled to be called so, is now a quagmire with rocks in it, yet traffic of a kind is passing—lumbering carts drawn by water-buffaloes pitch and roll in the sea of mud, and clinging to them are refugees from Thrace and Macedonia who have fled from their homes before the invader. They camp about in the neighbourhood outside the walls of Theodosius, not knowing what to do nor whither to guide their weary steps, these refugees from the storm that tore down the Valley of the Maritza, when Tsar Ferdinand led his armies over the border, and Serbs crossed the mountain-passes to meet their old enemy, ay, and to triumph over him. Flotsam and jetsam, thrown up by the tide of war on the strip of land still held by Turkey in Europe, these refugees would be without hope of any better fate were it not for the efforts of Christian men and women in Constantinople, to whom Christian men and women have sent from distant countries large sums to help the awful distress caused by this last crusade.Up to the present £28,000 has come from Great Britain alone. I do not know how much other countries have contributed. And this has been done for a people who have been ever ready to obey their rulers in carrying out the Oriental methods of solving racial problems by massacre, who are only prevented from applying the same principle to their benefactors by the inexpediency of doing so with the Golden Horn full of European warships. Islam justifies the murder of unbelievers—the followers of that creed are not so much to blame, least of all the ignorant peasant taken from his home to fight for he knows not what, driven from his possessions by a foreign invader. Christianity is again triumphant—where this Moslem country has proved itself unequal to any emergency, incapable of elementary organization, leaving its sick and the wounded of the battlefields to die and rot in the courtyards of mosques, yes, even in the open streets, Christian men and women have organized relief, and theirs is the only work which in any way can claim to have helped the sufferers in those awful last weeks of the “Passing of Ottoman Power in Europe.” One lady is now in hospital there in Constantinople—she was brought in sick from the strain of overwork and the horrors she had witnessed in a little town near by. Outside her door, on the pavements, in the road lay men, Turkey’s famous fighting men, starved, wounded, dying of neglect and disease. So for over a fortnight that Christian woman toiled among them; the nights she spent in making soup for them, the day was taken up in distributing it. It was no nice clean hospital work, dead and dying were piled upon each other in unmitigated misery, in incredible filth—those who have been there and seen say that they have been down, deep down, into Hell. Yet even there the light penetrated, brought by a Christian woman following the precepts of her Master.
Since then the Christian medical organizations, under the Red Crescent, forsooth, lest Islam should feel itself slighted in its character of a creed of mercy and loving-kindness, have taken matters in hand, and order and cleanliness are conquering over ignorance and bringing light to Gehenna. There is yet a vast amount to be done, but it is being done, not only by those professionally qualified to undertake such duties, but by every lady in Galata and Pera, at least I think I may safely say so, as I know not one among my many acquaintances here who is not in some way engaged in the work of mercy. Not only ladies, but men, busy men, are helping—officers from the warships in harbour, sent to prevent a general massacre of Christians, business men, hard-worked officials, all find time to spare in visiting the hospitals and helping wherever opportunity offers. They do not expect gratitude, nor do they find much, I fancy, for East is East and West is West, and to me the Oriental mind is inscrutable still, though I have lived in the East and travelled in it.
There are strange times these days in Constantinople, with the fate of an Empire in the balance. At first sight the traveller might notice little change or little difference from the sights and sounds of normal times. People went about their business much as usual—the Stock Exchange had much the same “allure” as ever, and the smells it harboured have not changed, only intensified perhaps, under the pressure of the lowering heavens. The narrow streets were thronged by the same crowds composed of many races; “hamals” carried astounding weights and packages of strange, outlandish shape, regardless of any other foot-passengers; men of leisure sat under the soaked awnings of the little cafés in Stamboul by the shore of the Golden Horn, or looked dull-eyed out of the plate-glass windows of Tokatlians’, according to their taste, their nationality, theirsocial standing; and a general air of indifference seemed to mark the people of the town, the Turks in particular. But there were military patrols in the street, and when you looked closer into matters you found many evidences of change. The Red Cross and Red Crescent flew over many buildings in Stamboul, Galata, and Pera, Christian civilization was working for the good of Christianity’s bitterest opponents, and in the mosques of Islam, where in the dim religious light you used to see a pious follower of the Prophet performing his solemn devotions, or a “hodja” studying reverently the Prophet’s Book of the Law, where no sound was heard, you now heard the groans of wounded soldiers; for these temples, raised by conquerors of a warrior caste and creed, now harboured all the misery caused by a war ill-planned, ill-managed, and inglorious.