Note 420 — Chapter XVI

I am not satisfied that the Kerkoporta was the one indicated by Professor van Millingen. On the map published by the Greek Syllogos, as well as in Canon Curtis’s Broken Bits of Byzantium, a small postern is shown in the wall immediately south of the tower adjoining Tekfour Serai, and my own recollection is that I saw this walled-up postern with Dr. Paspates in 1875. The wall itself was pulled down on the outbreak of the last Turko-Russian war and replaced by a slighter one. Whichever view be correct, the statement in the text is not affected.

Professor van Millingen contends that the Kerkoporta strictly so called was the small gate in the corner between Tekfour Serai and the adjoining tower on the south. But he maintains also that the postern to which Ducas refers was in the transverse wall, giving access from the city to the Inner Enclosure. He remarks that if the Turks entered by the Kerkoporta they could have mounted the great Inner Wall from the city. As to the latter objection, it must be remembered that the fighters were within the Enclosure defending the Outer Wall, and if the Turks entered through the postern in the transverse wall they would take the fighters in the rear. It would have been a better position for attack than on the Inner Wall.