Byzantine Churches in Constantinople

the Thermae of Achilles. The former was a level tract of ground devoted to military exercises—the Champ de Mars of Byzantium—and occupied a portion of the plain at the foot of the Second Hill, between Yali Kiosk Kapoussi and Sirkedji Iskelessi.¹ The Thermae of Achilles stood near the Strategion; and there also was a gate of the city, known in later days as the Arch of Urbicius. The wall then ascended the slope of the hill to the Chalcoprateia, or Brass Market, which extended from the neighbourhood of the site now occupied by the Sublime Porte to the vicinity of Yeri Batan Serai, the ancient Cisterna Basilica.²

The ridge of the promontory was reached at the Milion, the milestone from which distances from Constantinople were measured. It stood to the south-west of St. Sophia, and marked the site of one of the gates of Byzantium. Thence the line of the fortifications proceeded to the twisted columns of the Tzycalarii, which, judging from the subsequent course of the wall, were on the plateau beside St. Irene. Then, the wall descended to the Sea of Marmora at Topi,³ somewhere near the present Seraglio Lighthouse, and, turning northwards, ran along the shore to the apex of the promontory, past the sites occupied, subsequently, by the Thermae of Arcadius and the Mangana.

If we are to believe the Anonymus and Codinus, this was the circuit of Byzantium from the foundation of the city by

¹ The site of the Strategion may be determined thus: It was in the Fifth Region of the city (Notitia, ad Reg. V.); therefore, either on the northern slope or at the foot of the Second Hill. Its character as the ground for military exercises required it to be on the plain at the foot of the hill. In the Strategion were found the granaries beside the harbour of the Prosphorion (Constant. Porphyr., De Cerim, p. 699), near Sirkidji Iskelessi. At the same time, these granaries were near the Neorion (Bagtchè Kapoussi), for they were destroyed by a fire which started in the Neorion (Paschal Chron., p. 582).

² The Chalcoprateia was near the Basilica, or Great Law Courts, the site of which is marked by the Cistern of Yeri Batan Serai (Cedrenus, vol. i. p. 616; cf. Gyllius, De Top. CP., lib. ii. c. 20, 21). Zonaras, xiv. p. 1212 (Migne Edition), ἐν τῇ καλουμένῃ βασιλικῇ ἔγγιστα τῶν Χαλκοπρατείων.

³ See below, p. 256.