Читать книгу Byzantine Constantinople, the walls of the city and adjoining historical sites онлайн

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But they suffered soon at the hands of the power which was to inflict more injury upon the fortifications of Constantinople than any other foe. In 447, only thirty-four years after their construction, the greater portion of the new walls, with fifty-seven towers, was overthrown by a series of violent earthquakes.^[167] The disaster was particularly inopportune at the moment it occurred, for already in that year Attila had defeated the armies of Theodosius in three successive engagements, ravaged with fire and sword the provinces of Macedonia and Thrace, and come as near to Constantinople as Athyras (Buyuk Tchekmedjè). He had dictated an ignominious treaty of peace, exacting the cession of territory south of the Danube, the payment of an indemnity of 6000 pounds of gold, and the increase of the annual tribute paid to him by the Eastern Empire from 700 pounds of gold to 2100.

The crisis was, however, met with splendid energy by Constantine, then Prætorian Prefect of the East, and under his direction, as Marcellinus Comes affirms, the walls were restored in less than three months after their overthrow.^[168] But besides restoring the shattered bulwarks of his predecessor, Constantine seized the opportunity to render the city a much stronger fortress than even Anthemius had made it. Accordingly, another wall, with a broad and deep moat before it, was erected in front of the Wall of Anthemius, to place the city behind three lines of defence. The walls were flanked by 192 towers, while the ground between the two walls, and that between the Outer Wall and the Moat, provided room for the action of large bodies of troops. These five portions of the fortifications rose tier above tier, and combined to form a barricade 190-207 feet thick, and over 100 feet high.^[169]