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CHAPTER V.

THE GATES IN THE THEODOSIAN WALLS—continued.

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The entrance between the thirteenth and fourteenth towers to the north of the Golden Gate was the Second Military Gate, τοῦ Δευτέρου.[287] Its identity is established by its position in the order of the gates; for between it and the Fifth Military Gate, regarding the situation of which there can be no doubt,[288] two military gates intervene. It must therefore be itself the second of that series of entrances.

Hence, it follows that the quarter of the city known as the Deuteron (τὸ Δεύτερον) was the district to the rear of this gate. This fact can be proved also independently by the following indications. The district in question was without the Walls of Constantine;[289] it lay to the west of the Exokionion, the Palaia Porta, and the Cistern of Mokius;[290] it was, on the one hand, near the last street of the city,[291] the street leading to the Golden Gate, and, on the other, contained the Gate Melantiados,[292] now Selivri Kapoussi.[293] Consequently, it was the district behind the portion of the walls in which the gate before us is situated. This in turn supports the identification of the gate as that of the Deuteron. It is the finest and largest of the military gates, and may sometimes have served as a public gate in the period of the Empire, as it has since.

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