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The wall survived during much of the Byzantine period, even though it was replaced by the Theodosian Walls as the city's primary defense. An ambiguous passage refers to extensive damage to the city's "inner wall" from an earthquake on 25 September 478, which likely refers to the Constantinian wall.
Even the walls of Constantinople which have been described as "the most famous and complicated system of defence in the civilized world," [14] could not match up to a major Chinese city wall. [15] Had both the outer and inner walls of Constantinople been combined they would have only reached roughly a bit more than a third the width of a major ...
The ancient city of Constantinople was divided into 14 administrative regions (Latin: regiones, Greek: συνοικιες, romanized: synoikies). The system of fourteen regiones was modelled on the fourteen regiones of Rome , a system introduced by the first Roman emperor Augustus in the 1st century AD.
Constantinople's location between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara reduced the land area that needed defensive walls. The city was built intentionally to rival Rome, and it was claimed that several elevations within its walls matched Rome's 'seven hills'. [13]
The Prosphorion Harbour (Greek: Προσφόριον) was a harbour in the city of Constantinople, active from the time when the city was still the Greek colony of Byzantium (657 BC – 324 AD), until the eve of the first millennium. [1] [2] Gradually enlarged, it was the first port to be built in the area of the future Constantinople. [1] [2]
The city had about 20 km of walls (land walls: 5.5 km; sea walls along the Golden Horn: 7 km; sea walls along the Sea of Marmara: 7.5 km), one of the strongest sets of fortified walls in existence. The walls had recently been repaired (under John VIII ) and were in fairly good shape, giving the defenders sufficient reason to believe that they ...
On the Asian shore, opposite to where he was, a colony, Chalcedon, had already been established. Byzas decided that Chalcedon was the prophesied 'city of the blind', as it had not taken advantage of the European shore. To build his new city, he selected the European shore of the south end of Bosporos and gave the new city his name, Byzantion.
On 9 April 1204, the Crusader and Venetian forces began an assault on the Golden Horn fortifications by crossing the waterway to the northwest wall of the city, but, because of bad weather, the assault forces were driven back when the troops that landed came under heavy archery fire in open ground between Constantinople's fortifications and the ...