Constantinople Part 15

"The fortune of Constantine our G.o.d-protected Emperor conquers."

The last line has been effaced.

After the fourth military gate comes the gate of S. Roma.n.u.s, now Top Kapoussi, near which the last Emperor fell, and through which Mohammed entered in triumph. Opposite this point the Sultan's tent was placed, as Phrantzes tells us.

The next military gate is that of the Pempton. To this the road descends into the valley of the Lycus, and we pa.s.s the great breach made by the Turkish cannon in 1453, through which the troops forced their entrance. In the Lycus valley it was that Theodosius II. fell from his horse in 450, an accident from the effects of which he died.

The next public gate is that called Edirne Kapoussi, the Adrianople gate, which was of old the gate of Charisius. Within, the road led to the Imperial cemetery by the Church of the Holy Apostles, where Theodora, the wife of the great Justinian, was buried. Here was the part of the walls which was called ?es?te????: and here was generally the chief point of attack against the city. "Here stood the gates opening upon the streets which commanded the hills of the city; here was the weakest part of the fortifications, the channel of the Lycus rendering a deep moat impossible, while the dip in the line of the walls as they descended and ascended the slopes of the valley put the defenders below the level occupied by the besiegers."

This was shown in the very first siege, 626, as well as in the last; and it was here that the first cannonade was directed against the walls, in 1422. In the last siege two towers of the inner wall and a large part of the outer wall were battered to pieces, and the moat was filled ready for an a.s.sault. Giustiniani erected a palisade covered with hides and supported with earthworks; and it was not till the gallant Genoese fell mortally wounded that the Turks succeeded in forcing their way in.

It is through the Edirne Kapoussi that one naturally enters to see both the Church of the Chora and the Tekfour Serai, the palace of the Porphyrogenitus. The large mosque within the gate is that built by Suleiman in memory of one of his daughters.

Continuing northwards, with the striking view of the ruined palace rising above the walls, we reach the sixth military gate, and beyond this the lines of the walls, which have turned eastwards, are much broken. The sixth military gate is the Kerko-Porta (see above p. 150).

Beyond this the wall of Theodosius comes to an end abruptly. From this point the fortifications have a different character. "Along the greater portion of their course these bulwarks consisted of a single wall, without a moat; but at a short distance from the water, where they stand on level ground, they formed a double wall, which was at one time protected by a moat and const.i.tuted a citadel at the north-west angle of the city." They belong, Professor van Millingen has also clearly proved, to at least three periods, to the days of Heraclius, of Leo, and of Manuel Comnenus. After the Kerko-Porta the Theodosian walls turned eastwards; when the palace of Blachernae was defended it was probably by the erection, after the fifth century, of a new wall. The wall of Manuel Comnenus, built to give additional protection, left the earlier wall on an inner line of defence.

The wall of Manuel is stronger than that of Theodosius, but it has no moat; it resisted all the efforts of the Turkish artillery in 1453.

The public gate in it was that of the Kaligaria (the district where military shoes were made), and from a tower beside it the last Emperor and Phrantzes reconnoitred early in the morning of the last day of the siege. North of this, from the tower which stands at the point where the wall turns eastwards, the fortifications seem to have been entirely rebuilt during the repairs of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. In this piece stands the gate of Gyrolimne, through which probably the leaders of the Crusaders in 1203, who were encamped on the hill just outside, entered to negotiate with Isaac Angelus.

Behind it stood the palace of Blachernae, the site of which may be expected to reveal much when it is excavated.

Beyond this, from the great tower, unbattlemented, which has on it an inscription in honour of Isaac Angelus, who reconstructed it in 1188, the greatest difficulties surround the identification of the different portions. The first part of the wall is of great height--sometimes sixty-eight feet--and of thickness varying from over thirty to over sixty feet. Three towers protect this part: two "twin towers" rising to a great height above the walls. The special character of the walls is determined by the fact that, within, the palace of Blachernae stood upon a terraced hill. The second tower, much higher than that with the inscription, may be identified with the tower of Isaac Angelus, described by Nicetas Choniates as built by the Emperor both for the defence of Blachernae, and for a residence for himself. Beyond it is a third tower, which has been generally considered to be the tower of Anemas, mentioned first by Anna Comnena, as the place in which Anemas, who had conspired against her father, was confined.

All these identifications are difficult; and it is also difficult to feel sure that a more satisfactory solution of the many problems which arise would not be to consider that the tower of Isaac Angelus is the comparatively small one that still bears his inscription, and that the two others, and northern tower, combine to form the "prison of Anemas."

Within these towers was certainly the Palace of Blachernae, and the chambers now so grim and foul, that may sometimes be inspected, are very likely the prisons built by Alexius Comnenus and connected with his palace.

Beyond these towers a new series of walls begins. These are "in two parallel lines, connected by transverse walls, so as to form a citadel beside the Golden Horn. The inner wall belongs to the reign of Heraclius; the outer is an erection of Leo V. the Armenian." A splendid view of these magnificent walls, and of the Golden Horn below, is obtained from the hill westwards, on which the Crusaders encamped in 1203. The wall of Heraclius, with its three hexagonal towers, was built to protect the suburb of Blachernae after the attack of the Avars in 627: that of Leo was built in 813 when the city was in danger from the Bulgarians. A citadel was formed between the two walls, within which was the chapel and sacred well of S. Nicholas. The gate is the gate of Blachernae, and beyond it is a tower with an inscription stating that it was reconstructed by "Roma.n.u.s, the Christ-loving sovereign." From this point a wall led to the water's-edge, and in it was the Wooden Gate (????p??ta, see above, p. 273).

We have thus completed the circuit of the most interesting mediaeval defences in Europe. At every point they have memories that go back to great historic days, memories of treachery as well as heroism, but above all of a long and gallant defence of all that made the civilization of Europe enduring and worthy to endure.

To-day as one goes along the great triumphal way, still retaining fragments at least of its solid pavement that was laid by Justinian, the way along which countless armies of emperors and of invaders have pa.s.sed on their march of triumph or retreat, we are reminded of the past not only by shattered walls, and by the goats that feed and scramble where once the soldiers of the empire kept watch, but by the immemorial cemetery, with its groups of cypress, which stands beside us as we walk.

It is a perpetual memorial of the vanity of human power. There, where thousands of Turks are now laid to rest, where the stones gape above the coffins placed a few feet below, and the strange lozenge-shapes with their gaudy inscriptions lean and totter on every side; there once crusading armies camped to sack a Christian city; and there the soldiers of Mohammed mustered for the last fight which was to give them the crown of their centuries of war. Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Goths, men of Italy and Russia and Greece, all have pa.s.sed; and the men who have conquered where they fought and failed lie buried where once they camped. On one side of the great imperial way stretches this vast gloomy silent graveyard; on the other stand is the shattered wall.

In that long, broken, deserted wall the history of the great city seems summed up. "Debris colossal du pa.s.se, elle nous diminue et nous ecrase, nous et nos existences courtes, et nos souffrances d'une heure, et tout le rien instable que nous sommes."

FOOTNOTES:

[62] Inscription formerly on the outer wall between the fourth and fifth towers south of the Golden Gate.

[63] These figures, and all the others, came from Professor Van Millingen's exhaustive book.

CHAPTER V

_The Mosques, Turbehs and Fountains_

The mosques of Constantinople, as has already been shown, are very largely buildings which had been churches in past days. The inspiration felt so overpoweringly in the Church of the Divine Wisdom still abides in the buildings erected by the Emperors of past days.

More open and evident still is the fact that the architects of the mosques, built for Mohammedan wors.h.i.+p since the Turks have ruled in the city of the Caesars, have done little more than copy the people whom they have conquered. In most of the great mosques of Stambl, S.

Sophia is simply and directly imitated. In others the leading idea is developed with a variation or two. Of genuine originality the Turkish architects have shown not a trace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MOHAMMED, THE APOSTLE OF G.o.d." EMBROIDERY FROM CURTAIN OVER THE DOOR OF S. SOPHIA.]

The innumerable mosques of Constantinople are of two kinds, those founded by members of the reigning dynasty, and those built by humbler persons. Most of the mosques have a court with a fountain in the midst. Many have houses, round kitchens, schools for children and for students of the Koran, hospitals, and the dwelling of the imam. Nearly all have turbehs, tombs of the royal family and of persons of great distinction. All have of course the minaret, which to the traveller is the most characteristic feature of the vast city. The ordinary mosques have but one minaret, from which five times a day the voice of the muezzin calls the faithful to pray. The royal mosques have more than one minaret, S. Sophia and the mosque of Suleiman have four, the mosque of Ahmed has six.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOSQUE OF MOHAMMED II. FROM ENGLISH EMBa.s.sY]

The first and most sacred of the mosques is that of Eyb, with the turbeh of that great warrior by its side. It is the one mosque which no Christian may enter or even approach. On the accession of each new sultan he "must be girded with the sabre of the great Osman by the hands of the general of the Mevlevi Dervishes, who comes across Asia Minor from distant Konieh for the proud purpose. Only two Sultans since Mohammed II. have omitted the ceremonial, or have performed it elsewhere, and the reign of each was brief and calamitous."

Both mosque and turbeh, the most sacred buildings in all Stambl to the Moslem, are kept, it is said, with ceaseless care, and redecorated again and again with increased splendour. Near them is a great street of tombs, where sleep the long line of sheikhs-ul-Islam.

In that crowded suburb, still fanatically Mohammedan, the stranger lingers but few moments. He seeks the characteristic expression of Moslem reverence in the great buildings that crown the hills. In the heat of the afternoon he climbs the hill to where once the great church of the Holy Apostles stood. Lingering on the terrace he looks over the Golden Horn and the vast city, a city of gardens and minarets, stretching as far as the eye can see. As the hour for prayer draws near, men pour from every street, across through the market, or by the open arid s.p.a.ce that extends westwards till the narrow streets close round, stretching down to the harbour. Hundreds and hundreds they seem, of all ages, in every kind of attire, of every race, some light-haired and fresh-coloured, as of more than half European blood; some, negroes from Africa, but all males and all Moslems. They enter the great mosque; the Christian must stand back, even from the court; a few minutes and the stream pours out again and leaves but a few pious lingerers still at their prayers or some children sitting before their teacher and reciting to him the Koran.

It is the great mosque of Mohammed II., built in 1463-69 for the Conqueror by a Greek Christian, Christodoulos. It covers a great extent of ground, with its schools, its turbehs, and its great court.

The court is cloistered, and it has eighteen splendid columns, which came, there can be little doubt, from the Church of the Apostles. Six are of red granite, twelve of verde antico; the simple carving of the capitals belongs to a period when Byzantine art was at its best. In the midst of the court is a fountain shaded by cypresses. It is almost always deserted, save for a few children here and there at play.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOSQUE OF SULEIMAN FROM THE GOLDEN HORN]

We enter the mosque itself by the great door at the south. Its size is its most impressive feature. The decoration is simple; great black arabesques on a white ground: dignified, but, in the full sunlight which pours through the great windows, too dazzling. At the right above the entrance is the blue tablet on which is inscribed that traditional prophecy of the prophet: "They shall conquer Constantinople; happy the prince, happy the army, which shall achieve the conquest."

Outside, to the East, is the plain octagon in which is laid, alone, the Conqueror Mohammed. The great turban hangs over the head, a heavy velvet pall over the chest which contains the coffin. Two big bra.s.s candlesticks, a Koran copied by the hand of the Conqueror himself, in a reliquary a tooth of the prophet: that is all the turbeh contains.

But the simplicity is, for this generation at least, spoilt by the "thorough restoration" the whole has received, and its brightness of new paint. Mohammed, of all the sultans, remains alone in his glory.

There are other turbehs round his, his mother, his wife, the wife of Abdul Hamid I., who is said to have been a Creole from Martinique, and the schoolfellow of the Empress Josephine--she was the mother of Mahmd II.--these and others throng the enclosure. But the memory of Mohammed is still unchallenged among all his successors, and still pilgrims, hour by hour, stand on the broad marble step and look reverently within on his last resting-place.

If Mohammed's mosque has the greatest historic interest, by far the most splendid of all in Stambl is the great Suleimaniyeh, the mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent. It crowns the third hill as Mohammed's crowns the fourth. It was built by Sinan; but it would seem that he was throughout ordered to copy S. Sophia. Justinian, when he entered his great church, had said, "Solomon, I have surpa.s.sed thee": Suleiman was determined that he would surpa.s.s the Christian Emperor.

His mosque owes not only its design but its details to Christian sources. Much of the marble, and most notably the great marble pillars, came from the Church of S. Euphemia at Chalcedon.

Westwards is the large fore-court, surrounded by cloisters, covered by twenty-four small domes. It is much larger than most of the mosque-courts. In the midst is a fountain, with a dome above. There are four minarets at the corners of the cloisters. The mosque itself, like S. Sophia, is nearly square--225 by 205 feet. The central dome rests on four piers, and four great shafts support the side arches of the dome. The great dome is not so large as that of S. Sophia; but the effect from the outside is far more beautiful owing to the skilful grouping of the ma.s.ses of smaller domes, with the four minarets rising from among the trees. Architects have praised the exquisite adjustment of all the parts of the building; and, indeed, its combination of grace with vastness is apparent to the dullest eye. But its general effect is spoilt, like that of all the greater mosques, by paint. The colour confuses; the four tints are a meaningless disturbance; the eye finds it hard to distinguish the real splendour of marble, in mihrab, minber, and the Sultan's chamber. The brightness of the windows, fine though the gla.s.s is, distracts. Most of all the endless wires and cords stretched across and from above prevent any clear view of the whole. But, none the less, it is a splendid building, very solemn and n.o.ble, expressive of the best that Islam can give, in its consecration of strength and riches to the highest ends.

Outside are the two splendid turbehs of the most dramatic figures in Turkish history since the Conquest. Suleiman himself lies in a beautiful domed octagon, the walls covered with intricate arabesques, the roof, especially, beautiful in brown. A blue inscription on the white tiles that run round the walls is in exquisite taste. At the head of his catafalque is Suleiman's white turban with double tufts of heron's feathers. Over it are splendid and elaborate shawls, which he once wore.

The same turbeh contains the tombs of Suleiman II. and Ahmed II. But a stone's throw from it is the beautiful tomb of Roxelana, in which a Western poet of our time has found inspiration.

Where rarely sunbeam of the morn, Or ev'ning moonbeam ever stray'd, Above the ground she trod in scorn, Here, draped in samite and brocade, Behold the great Sultana laid, Of all her fleeting greatness shorn!

The walls are covered with exquisite blue tiles, with beautiful designs of almond and tulip. Happily this turbeh has not been restored as have so many of them. It remains a gem of the best Moslem art. The group of buildings seen as one descends from the hill on which the Seraskierat stands, or from the tower, has a charming effect. The cypresses mingling with the domes and minarets make the most peaceful scene that Stambl can show. In the city of trees and gardens, of domes and minarets, this seems the picture typical of the whole as the Moslems have made it. Here is, one feels, the true poetic East, the home of the poets we have read. We might be in the Arabian Nights,

Whilst there o'er mosque and minaret That rise against the sunset glow,

broods the great calm of a nation of fatalists. It is not the "purple East" we see, but the soft, somnolent, sensuous splendour of a great repose, or may be a great decay.

Third of the great mosques I should place that of Ahmed, which, with its large enclosures, encroaches on the old Hippodrome. It may well be considered the most truly oriental of them all. "The masterpiece of Asiatic art" some call it, the highest achievement of Mussulman architecture. Something it owes to its position, fronted by the long, broad, open s.p.a.ce; something, certainly, to those who know, to its historic a.s.sociations. But undoubtedly in its general plan and in the detail of its decoration it is more clearly than the others a work of the genius of the East.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF AHMED I.]