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THEODOSII JUSSIS GEMINO NEC MENSE PERACTO †

CONSTANTINUS OVANS HAEC MOENIA FIRMA LOCAVIT

TAM CITO TAM STABILEM PALLAS VIX CONDERET ARCEM †^[171]

The third inscription has disappeared from its place on the Porta Xylokerkou, but is preserved in the Greek Anthology.^[172] It declared that, “The Emperor Theodosius and Constantine the Eparch of the East built this wall in sixty days.”

ΘΕΟΔΟΣΙΟΣ ΤΟΔΕ ΤΕΙΧΟΣ ΑΝΑΞ ΚΑΙ ΥΠΑΡΧΟΣ ΕΩΑΣ

ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΣ ΕΤΕΥΞΑΝ ΕΝ ΗΜΑΣΙΝ ΕΞΗΚΟΝΤΑ

The shortness of the time assigned to the execution of the work is certainly astonishing. Perhaps the statement of the inscriptions will appear more credible if understood to refer exclusively to the second wall, and if we realize the terror which the Huns then inspired. The dread of Attila, “the Scourge of God,” might well prove an incentive to extraordinary performance, and strain every muscle to the utmost tension.

But the question of the time occupied in the reconstruction of the walls is not the only difficulty raised by these inscriptions. They present a question also as regards the official under whose direction that work was executed. For according to them, and Marcellinus Comes, the superintendent of the work was named Constantine.^[173] Theophanes and subsequent historians, on the other hand, ascribe the undertaking to the Prefect Cyrus.^[174] This is a serious discrepancy, and authorities are not agreed in their mode of dealing with it. Some have proposed to remove the difficulty by the simple expedient of identifying Constantine and Cyrus;^[175] while others maintain a distinction of persons, and reconcile the conflicting statements by understanding them to refer, respectively, to different occasions on which the walls were repaired.^[176]