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Accordingly, the wall of Severus, upon leaving the western gate of the city, did not descend to the shore of the Sea of Marmora, but after proceeding in that direction for some distance turned south-eastwards, keeping well up the south-western slopes of the First Hill, until the Seraglio plateau was reached.^[32] As these slopes were for the most part very steep, the city, when viewed from the Sea of Marmora, presented the appearance of a great Acropolis upon a hill.

Where precisely the wall reached the Sea of Marmora opposite Chrysopolis is not stated, but it could not have been far from the point now occupied by the Seraglio Lighthouse, for the break in the steep declivity of the First Hill above that point offered the easiest line of descent from the temple of Aphrodite to the shore. Thus it appears that the circuit of the walls erected by Severus followed, substantially, the course of the fortifications which he had overthrown. It is a corroboration of this conclusion to find that the ground outside the wall constructed by Severus—the valley of the Grand Bazaar—answers to the description of the ground outside the wall which he destroyed; a smooth tract, sloping gently to the water: “Primus post mœnia campus erat peninsulæ cervicis sensim descendentis ad litus, et ne urbs esset insula prohibentis.”^[33]