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To the rear of the entrance was the district of the Pempton, containing the Church of St. Kyriakè and the meadow through which the Lycus flows to the Sea of Marmora. The meadow appears to have been a popular resort before the Theodosian Walls were built, if not also subsequently. Here, about the time of Easter, 404, the Emperor Arcadius came to take exercise on horseback, and here he found three thousand white-robed catechumens assembled. They proved to be persons who had recently been baptized by Chrysostom, in the Thermæ Constantianæ, near the Church of the Holy Apostles, notwithstanding his deposition on account of his quarrel with the Empress Eudoxia. Arcadius was extremely annoyed by the encounter, and ordered his guards to drive the crowd off the ground.^[350]

While riding down one of the slopes of the Lycus valley, in 450, Theodosius II. fell from his horse and sustained a spinal injury, which caused his death a few days later. The Gate of the Pempton was probably the entrance through which the dying emperor was carried on a litter from the scene of the accident into the city.^[351]