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This conclusion is again in harmony with the figures of Zosimus and the Notitia, which, it will be remembered, brought the line of the Constantinian Wall close to this point.

(f) The Cistern of Bonus, the next landmark to be considered, was built by the Patrician Bonus, celebrated in Byzantine history for his brave defence of the capital in 627 against the Avars and the Persians, while the Emperor Heraclius was in Persia carrying war into the enemy’s country.^[81]

Where this cistern was situated is a matter of dispute which cannot be definitely settled in our present state of knowledge. Gyllius identified it with a large cistern, three hundred paces in length, which he found robbed of its roof and columns, and turned into a vegetable garden, near the ruins of the Church of St. John in Petra, on the Sixth Hill.^[82] The cistern has disappeared since that traveller’s day, but as the Wall of Constantine never extended so far west, the identification cannot be correct.

In Dr. Mordtmann’s opinion, the Cistern of Bonus was the large open reservoir to the south-west of the Mosque of Sultan Selim, on the Fifth Hill,^[83] and there is much to be said in favour of this view.