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

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At several points along its course the Moat is crossed by low walls, dividing it into so many sections or compartments. They are generally opposite a tower of the Outer or Inner Wall, and taper from the base to a sharp edge along the summit, to prevent their being used as bridges by an enemy. On their southern side, where the ground falls away, they are supported by buttresses.

Dr. Paspates^[205] was the first to call attention to these structures, and to him, also, belongs the credit of having thrown some light upon their use. They were, in his opinion, aqueducts, and dams or batardeaux, by means of which water was conveyed to the Moat, and kept in position there. But this service, Dr. Paspates believed, was performed by them only in case of a siege, when they were broken open, and allowed to run into the Moat. At other times, when no hostile attack was apprehended, they carried water across the Moat into the city, for the supply of the ordinary needs of the population.

That many of these structures, if not all, were aqueducts admits of no doubt, for some have been found to contain earthenware water-pipes, while others of them still carry into the city water brought by underground conduits from the hills on the west of the fortifications; and that they were dams seems the only explanation of the buttresses built against their lower side, as though to resist the pressure of water descending from a higher level.