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8/10/2019 A Skeletal History of Byzantine Fortification a. W. Lawrence
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A Skeletal History of Byzantine Fortification
Author(s): A. W. LawrenceSource: The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 78 (1983), pp. 171-227Published by: British School at Athens
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30102803 .
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8/10/2019 A Skeletal History of Byzantine Fortification a. W. Lawrence
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A SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
(PLATES 8-21)
T
HISseriesof
analytical
descriptions
was
written
in
the
hope
it
might
reveal
both how
defensive
principles changed
and to what
extent
tradition
prevailed,
all
through
the
Byzantine
centuries.
Ideally
the
investigation
should
have been
restricted
to
fortifications of which the exact or
approximate
date was known from
literature
or
by
inscription,
but their
number is far too
small to be
genuinely
representative
even of
major
works,
which
alone tended to be so
recorded.
I
have therefore
included,
in
addition,
fortifications that
I
thought
were built
in
response
to
specific
historical circumstances
and
could
thereby
be dated within the
limits of
roughly
one
generation. Obviously such ascriptionsare bound to be more or less questionable, but I have
assessed
their
plausibility
also on
stylistic
considerations; however,
no
monument
has been
included
solely
on
grounds
of
style.
Since
this
is no
balanced
account of
Byzantine
military
architecture but
a
necessary
preliminary,
the
space
allotted
to
the individual
buildings
bears little
relation to
their
merits,
or
rather to
my
knowledge
thereof.
I
write
briefly
of remains
already satisfactorily
published,
but otherwise at whatever
length
may
be
requisite
to the
argument, particularly
about ruins
I
have
myself
examined.
In the course
of
many years
I
saw and
made notes
on
Byzantine
fortifications
(some
repeatedly)
in
eight
countries,
beginning
as
long ago
as
1950
with
the aid
of a
Leverhulme
Fellowship.
The infirmities of
age
have
unfortunately
prevented
recent
checking
on the
spot.
CONTENTS
I.
Heritage
from the undivided
Roman
Empire
of
late third and fourth centuries
2.
Transition to the fifth
century:
Corycus
and
Sparta
3.
Constantinople
and
regional capitals,
412-c. 450
4.
Towns with massive
proteichisma,
mid
or late
fifth
century
5.
The
reign
of
Anastasius
I,
491-518
6. The
reign ofJustinian, 527-565
7.
Truncation of the
Empire,
late sixth
and
early
seventh
centuries
8. Small-scale works
against
the
Arabs,
mid
seventh-early eighth
centuries
9.
Ancyra/Ankara,
seventh-ninth
centuries
10.
Additions at
Constantinople prior
to c.
850
I1.
Early
and mid tenth
century:
Attaleia, Samothrace,
Philippi,
Kyrenia
12.
Qal'at Sim'an,
979,
and
smaller beacon-forts
13.
End
of the tenth
century:
Paicuiul
ui
Soare,
Sahyun,
Ohrid,
Didyma
14.
End of the eleventh
century:
Zvecan
and
St. Hilarion
15.
Mid and
late twelfth
century:
Constantinople, Pergamon,
Miletus
16.
The successor
states,
1204-c. 1250
17.
Last datable
works,
1261-1453
Appendix: Some featuresin vaguely dated monuments
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172
A. W. LAWRENCE
I.
HERITAGE FROM
THE
UNDIVIDED
ROMAN EMPIRE
OF
LATE THIRD
AND
FOURTH
CENTURIES
The various
types
of
Byzantine
fortifications
all
began
by
following precedents
set when
inability
to hold
the
frontiers had let
similar
dangers
prevail
within
the Roman
Empire.
The
first barbarian invasions, during the third quarter of the third century, evoked Aurelian's wall
of Rome and
a
proliferation
of
efficient,
though
less
imposing,
walls around towns
in
western
Europe,
but
generally
poor
and often small defences
in
provinces
that afterwards became
heartlands of the Eastern
Empire.
The town wall of
Nicaea/IznikI
is indeed
the
only
dated
one
that
can rank with
many
in
France
and
Spain,
and the
fact that it
was built for
an
Emperor
(Claudius
Gothicus
in
268/9)
probably
accounts
for
its
superiority
to
other
works
which
may
have
depended
on local resources of
money
and skill.
It
stood,
with occasional
minor
repairs,
for
nearly
a
thousand
years
before the
Lascarids chose Nicaea for
their
capital
and built an
outer
wall. The
curtains,
none
of which was less
than
3-6o
m
thick,
had
previously
been about
9
m
high;
externally they
were
interrupted
at
intervals
of
6o-7o
m
by
semicircular,
half-oval,
or
apsidal
towers
(scarcely distinguishable
at a
glance)
that
projected
to
roughly
the
same distance
as
their
maximum
width,
8-9
m,
and
had
originally
been little taller
than
the
curtains.
A
pair
of such towers
flanked each of the
main
gateways,
which
actually
were
ornamental
entrances of Roman
construction but
altered to receive
a
portcullis.
We
may
assume that
portable
catapults
were
expected
to be massed
on towers
along
any
threatened
sector of
the
5
km
perimeter.
Throughout
the
wall,
both the stone
facing
and the
core
of
cemented
pebbles
were
completely
intersected
by
several
levelling-bands
composed
of
four
brick
courses,
resulting
in
practically
the same effect
as the bands of
five
courses
used
at
Constantinople
more
than
I50
years
later.
In
contrast
to this
imperial enterprise
at
Nicaea,
a
reconstruction
of the Hellenistic
wall
across the
Miletus
isthmus2
made
it defensible with manual
weapons.
The
zigzag planning
had been accentuated by a tower projecting forward from the apex of every pair of curtains,
but these alone were
rebuilt;
the
ruined towers were
totally
demolished.
In
Greece the
destructive
Herulian
raid
of
267 gave
rise
to
extremely
diverse
precautions
against
a
recurrence.
Athens
naturally
fared
best.
A
massive new
wall,3
consisting
of reused
material and
incorporating
fragmentary
old
buildings,
enclosed
an area
of uneven
ground extending
far
northward
from the
acropolis
by
means
of curtains
of varied
length
and
rectangular
towers
at
irregular
intervals,
but not
all was
contemporaneous,
and most has been demolished
for
the
sake
of
revealing
classical remains.
At
Sparta
too
the town
had shrunk.
A
less
formidable,
though quite respectable,
wall
(FIG.
I)4
was
built
enclosing
a
stoa
on the southern
slope
of
the
acropolis,
with
a
pair
of small
square
towers
flanking
a
gateway,
and others
like them
amid the
straight
curtains;
pieces
of column-shaft
were
laid
horizontally
for
bonding-perhaps
the earliest instance of an afterwards common
practice.
Presumably
the Herulians also sacked
Aegina,
where
an
extensive
town
wall5
consists
of reused
material;
it seems to
have been
almost
devoid
of
flanking,
the one
salient
preserved
being
only
2'4
m
wide and
projecting
little
over
Unless the
length
of a source needs
to
be
specified,
I
cite
only
the first of
its
relevant
pages.
In
addition
to
editorially
authorized
abbreviations,
the title
stated in
n.
27
is shortened
in
subsequent
notes to
'Landmauer',
nd 'Courtauld'
refers
to
my
own
negatives,
now the
property
of
the Courtauld
Institute
of London
University;
they
include all the
photographs
illustrated
except
that
of
Pergamon,
for
which
I thank
the
donor.
I also thank
the owners of
copyrights
for
permission
to
reproduce figures.
1
W.
Karnapp
and A.
M.
Schneider,
Die Stadtmaueron
znik
(1938).
2
Milet
ii
3:
A.
von
Gerkan,
Die
Stadtmauern
(I935)
pl.
14.
3
Thompson, JRS 49
(1959)
6I
fig.
I;
Frantz,
Hesperia
8
(1979)
202
fig.
3.
The wall
used to be called Valerian's
because
of a
misleading
statement
by
Zosimus;
most has now been
demolished.
4
Traquair,
BSA
12
(1905-6) 417
pl.
viii.
5
Alt.
Agina
i
2:
W.
W.
Wurster,
Die
spdtromische
kropo-
lismauer
(1975) 9 Beilage
1-2
pls.
1-2.
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A SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
173
RO
0.,
OLIV
OLIVE
TREES
74.4
a
T7
-1
ml
N
qP
-In
7 5 ' e ,
r~cc,
4.-I
-1g
%
.
, ,
.
.. .
100 .
. . .
SCALEor
METRES
114000
FIG.
1.
Sparta.
Plan of defences
(BSA)
a metre.
At
Olympia part
of the
sanctuary
was
converted
into a fort6 of
trapezium shape,
with the
temple
of Zeus
transformed to
a
strong
point
on one
corner,
and the back of the
south
stoa
forming
the
other end of the
enclosure;
there were three
rectangular
towers.
It has
been demolished to rescue the ancient material of which it consisted.
After the almost total excavation
of
a
very
elaborate town
wall
in
north-east
Bulgaria,
T. Ivanov's
fully
illustrated
monograph,
Abritus
i
(1980),
described
it
exhaustively
and dated
it
to the end of the third
century
or
beginning
of the fourth
by
comparing
plans
of
fortifications
all over
Europe
and
some
in
other
continents;
an
English summary
is
appended
to
his
Bulgarian
text,
and the list of
captions
is translated on
p.
248.
The whole enceinte of Abritus
is
extremely
6
ADelt
16
(I960)
Chron.
129 plan
3
pl. o105a;
eue
deutsche
usgrabungen
1959)
276.
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174
A.
W.
LAWRENCE
diversified
(plan
on
his
p.
30), though
its basic scheme
could
have been
treated as a
pattern
for
exact
repetition
of
features. The curtains
range
in
length
from
19
to
45-6o
m.
They
carried
a
walk about
io
m
above
ground,
entered
from both sides of the
towers,
which were
of three
storeys
connected
internally
by
wooden
stairs;
the
height
probably
amounted to
15
or
16 m
up to the merlons, above which rose tiled roofs on wooden structures (restorations on pp.
227-9).
The
towers were
individually
designed
but
basically
of
three
types: apsidal,
rectangular
(oblong
or
square),
and,
if
placed
at
a
corner,
fan-shaped.
There
were
four
main
entrances;
three of
them
opened
between
towers,
while
the
fourth stands within a shallow
rebate,
made
for
the
purpose;
all are alike
in
containing
two
gateways,
4I15-4-50
m
wide,
the outer
grooved
for
a
portcullis,
the inner
with
fittings
for
a
two-leaved
gate.
The existence
of
at least
nine
posterns
has been
verified;
some
led
through
curtains,
others from towers.
The castrum
t
Luxor,7
containing
dedications
of the
year
300
to
Diocletian
and his
colleagues,
had a disused Pharaonic
temple
for its
centre,
behind
a
new
wall
from which
apsidal
towers
projected
singly
if
at
regular
intervals but
paired
to flank
gateways;
there was
a
larger square
tower
on the one
remaining
corner.
A
door
in
the
flank of each
tower
opened
to
the
surrounding
ditch;
in
every
other
respect
the
design
conforms with
precedents
known at forts near frontiers
or
in
unruly country,
although
this
legionary
castrum
was
unlikely
to be
attacked,
being
presumably
the
quarters
for
the
garrison
of
Upper
Egypt.
Differentiation of corner
towers
by
size,
and
usually by
shape
also,
had
long
been
customary
in
forts; however,
not all the
shapes
found
in
Europe
were
used
by
the
less
venturesome
military
engineers
in
Asia or
Africa.8
Of
the
many
forts
built
under
Diocletian,
some
on the
fringes
of
the
Syrian
and
African
deserts
must
have been
familiar to
the
Byzantine
army
down
to
the
Arab
conquest.
A
typical
example,
Qasr
Bisheir,9
was
approximately
square
(the
sides
varying
from
54'45
to
57-05 m),
with
curtains
6-50
m
high,
lined
with two
storeys
of
rooms
surrounding
a court.
The
gateway,
2-65
m
wide and over
3
m
high,
is covered
by
a lintel below
a
relieving
arch;
it
occupies
half
the space between a pair of rectangular towers 6 m wide. Three-storeyed corner towers, some
I I
or
12
m
square, project slightly
more
than
3
m
from the
curtains.
Vaulting
is the normal
method
of
ceiling--inevitably
on this
timberless
edge
of
Jordan.
Diocletian's
palace
at
Split,
with its
internal
divisions,
is
basically
like
a
magnified
and
sumptuous
version of
a
castrum.Each entrance to
the
oblong
enclosure
is flanked
by
a
pair
of
octagonal
towers,
and
a
rectangular
tower
intervenes
on either
side
between them
and
the
much
larger
corner
towers,
which
are
square
and
almost
separate
from the
curtains. Each of
the
remaining gateways
is
groovedI'
to receive
a
portcullis,
which could have
been
nearly 13
cm thick.
Perhaps
in
imitation of
Split,
the
'Porta Caesarea'
at
the
neighbouring
city
of Salona
was outflanked
by octagonal
towers."
The
triple
entrance,
as
rebuilt
about
350,
contained
a
narrow corridor
to
either
side of
a
central
passage,
3-95
m
wide,
which
must have been
gated
at a wooden door-frame fixed into recesses at least 20 cm deep and 38 cm wide-dimensions
inconceivable
for a
portcullis.
Two coins issued
between
355
and
36I
define
a terminus
post
quem
for the
construction
and
brief
occupation
of a frontier
fort
at
Pagnik
Oreni
on the
Euphrates.12
The enclosure
(FIG. 2)
7
Monneret de
Villard,
Archeologia 95
(i953)
96
pl.
34-
8 von
Petrokovits,
JRS
6i (1971)
I78-218
analyses
late
Roman fortifications
in
Europe,
relying
largely
on tower
shapes.
The
fan
shape
(184
n.
15 fig.
29.7)
is not found
in
Asia or
Africa
and seems almost
confined
to
the
4th
cent.;
Procopius
records
as anomalous its
use in
a
fort
built for
Justinian
in
Thrace
(Aed.
v
8),
and
probably
this was due
to
imitation
of a Roman
example,
such
as
could
be seen at
Abritus.
9
R.
E.
Briinnow
and
A.
Domaszewski,
Die
ProvinciaArabia
ii
(1905)
49
figs.
619-36.
10
The
grooves
were
cut before the blocks
were
laid,
but so
carelessly
that the width varies
between
13.5
and
15
cm.
11
W.
Gerber,
Forschungen
n
Salona
fig.
244.
12
Harper,
AS
21
(1971)
10o,
22
(1972)
27.
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A SKELETAL
HISTORY OF BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
175
1
2
3
4
5
6
F
E
A
Xr
I
JI
Im
I I M
\3
VIY
/
1\
N
PAGNiK
RENi
971
0 10
25
M
V
2
I
x
FIG.
2.
Pagnik
Oreni.
Plan
of
excavation
(AS)
is
roughly
semicircular,
140
m
long
with
a
maximum width of
80
m,
following
contours
that
would aid defence.
The
curtains,
some
2
m
thick,
may
have been
quite
tall.
Few of them
are
appreciably
longer
than
25
m.
This shortness
(and
a
monstrous
elongation
of the
whole
perimeter)
was due to
cramming
on to the
frontage
as
many
towers
as
possible,
so
that it
allowed
of-in
fact,
called for-a much
larger
number of defenders
than
could be stationed
within as
a
garrison.
We
may confidently
assume
that
the
population
of
the whole
neighbourhood was expected to come, not merely for refuge, but to help keep every embrasure
manned
(in
spite
of
casualties)
throughout
an
assault,
using
manual
weapons
such as stones.
The
river,
just
below the
fort,
formed the
boundary
of the
aggressive
Sassanian
empire,
and
any army
it
put
across was sure to be
enormous,
with a
highly
trained
nucleus,
and well
equipped.
So the
designs
of the towers
were chosen to minimize
the effects of
siegecraft,
however
competent.
All
eleven of them are
curved,
but
they
differ
in
size and
shape;
one
is
very
shallow,
several are
semicircular,
others
apsidal
or bent like horseshoes.
Only
one was
walled at the
back,
though
all
were
roofed
upon
timbers
so
heavy
as
to make it
necessary
to
halve the
span
in
each of the wider
towers
by
means of
a
partition.
For
protection against
less
dangerous
enemies,
the
desert
fringe
of southern
Palestine received
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176
A. W. LAWRENCE
a chain of
much smaller
forts,
examples
of the
type archaeologically
called
a
tetrapyrgos,13
which the
Greeks
had
used
since
the fourth
century
B.c.
Four
towers
always
project
at
right
angles
from
the
corners
of a
square
or
oblong
enclosure
(cf.
FIG.
20).
One of the
Palestinian
set
that has
been
excavated,
at
En
Boqeq,
contained
objects
datable
about
370-400.
It
measures
some 23 X28 m externally, the wall is 1-75-2 m thick, and the gateway 1-70m wide. Most of
the
interior
was left
open
as a court
but
a
few
rooms
encroached
upon
it.
The
towers,
of
roughly
6
x
4
m,
project only
about
a
metre
in
one direction but
4
m
in
the other.
The
Isaurians remained unsubdued
in
their mountains for
some
230 years
after
they
rebelled
against
Gallienus,
whose
successors,
late
in
the
third
century,
tried to
keep
them
innocuous
by building
a
ring
of
forts,
of which no
details
are
known.
The
Isaurians
became more
formidable
after three
generations
of
independence,
as is
shown
by
their
attempt
to
capture
Seleucia/Silifke
about
355.
Fear
of
a
recurrence
must
have induced
an
imperial
official,
'the
splendid
ruler of the
Eparchy
of the
Isaurians',
to secure the nearest
piece
of coast towards
the
south-east,
some
15
km
distant,
by
building
a
fortified town
at an
inlet
suitable to
be the
harbour
for a
relieving
force.14
His
inscription,
which
is
datable between
367
and
375
by
the
reigns cited, names the place Korasionnd says it had previouslybeen uninhabited. The plan
is reminiscent
of
ancient
Greek rather
than
Roman
practice;
towers,
6
or
7
m
square,
are
interposed
between short
aligned
curtains
or
attached
solely
by
a corner
to
right-angle
bends.
Supposedly
about
the
middle of
the
fourth
century
a
force of Isaurians
came
into
Pamphylia
and
began
marauding,
but
was annihilated
in
an attack
by
the
garrison
of Side.
Any
respite
gained
by
this
success
must
have
been
of
relatively
short
duration,
for
the Isaurians
soon
grew
stronger
and
acquired
military
expertise.
Letters written
in
40
I
and
the
following
years
vividly
describe
the
terror
in which
they
kept
the
population
in
their
vicinity,
while
they
constantly
raided
far
and
wide
through
Asia
Minor,
and once
even
penetrated
to
Galilee
and
Phoenicia.
Pamphylia obviously
remained
in
danger
until
Leo
I,
who
reigned
from
457
to
474,
imposed
military governorsupon it as well as upon two inland provinces throughwhich the route from
Isauria
passed.
But defensive works
had
surely
been undertaken
already,
when
it first
became
apparent
that
large
towns
might
be
attacked,
however distant
from
the raiders'
homeland;
Side would
not have
been
excepted,
since
the
garrison
was liable
at
any
time to vacate the
city
in
order
to
stop
the
plundering
of
some other
district,
and
its
Hellenistic
wall
was no
longer
defensible.
The
dilapidations
were,
in
fact,
made
good'5--thoroughly
on
the
landward
sectors,.where
new construction sometimes
begins
at
ground
level
and is
apparent
all
the
way
up
the
facing
of
a
tower;
a
back wall
also
was added
to
the towers
that
originally
had
none,
so
reinforcing
their whole structure. Entrances were either
partially
or
completely
blocked.
Alterations
of
this sort
are
found,
here
and
there,
throughout
the landward
defences,
which
extend
for
approximately
I
km. But more than
half the
enceinte
faced
seaward,
and received
only a minimum of repair although it had originally been less strongly built and must have
deteriorated
quite
as
badly; obviously
the
guards posted
along
it could obtain
help
promptly
in
case the
enemy
should mass on
a
beach outside.
The
population
of
Side at this
time-probably
late
in
the
fourth
century--apparently
was
large
enough
to
man
any
threatened
parts
of
the
wall,
even
in the
temporary
absence of
the
garrison.
Fortifications
against
Isaurian raiders are identifiable at two other cities of
Pamphylia.
The
13
The
word is
a
grammatically
undesirable
variant
of
the
Hellenistic
tetrapyrgia,
hich
may
have had a
less
restricted
meaning.
14
According
to
Strabo,
the
river
was
navigable
up
to
Seleucia
(now
nine
miles
inland)
but
this
may
have ceased to
be the
case
by
the
4th
cent.
owing
to
alluvium,
which has
formed
an
extensive
plain
around the
mouth,
accompanied
by
shoals
on
its west side.
The
steep
east
shore
may
already
have
been
preferable
as
a
landing-place
when
the
new
town
was
built
at
it.
15
A. M.
Mansel,
Die
Ruinen
onSide
(1963) plan
in
pocket;
Francis
Beaufort,
Karamania
1818)
147.
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A
SKELETAL HISTORY
OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
177
administrative
capital,
Perga,
relied
on its excellent Hellenistic
wall,
but the Roman
propylaea
in
front of
the
main
entrance could have sheltered attackers.
It
was
therefore
blocked,
and
an
extension built
on either
end,
joining
the
old
wall
behind.16
Two
rectangular
towers
(PLATE
8a)
are
conspicuous
in this
connecting
masonry,
which
is
composed
of reused
blocks;
they
remain standing to a slightly higher level than their junctions with the curtains, and are
devoid of
apertures except
at the back.
Another
predominantly
Hellenistic wall
(in
one
part
Hadrianic)
surrounded
Attaleia/Antalya,
the
seaport
for
Perga;
it was now
supplemented
by
a
proteichisma,
much of
which
(FIG.
14)
still existed less than a
hundred
years ago.17
The
manpower
required
to
defend the two lines must have
exceeded
that
previously
needed,
and
would not have
been
available
for a later
menace
than the Isaurians
presented.
The
style
too
associates the outwork
with
that
period,
for
the front
was
studded
with
little
triangular
salients
as
in a
proteichisma
at
Salonica,
which
presumably
was built either
in
the last
quarter
of the
fourth
century
or near the
middle of the fifth.
2.
TRANSITION TO THE
FIFTH
CENTURY: CORYCUS AND
SPARTA
The
Eastern
Empire
was
formally separated
from
the Western
in
395,
when
the
term
'Byzantine'
ceases to be of
questionable
validity.
The
short coast of
Rough
Cilicia,
which
has been almost
uninhabited
during
recent
centuries,
bears
an
astonishing profusion
of
both
Roman
and
Early
Christianmonuments.
But at
Corycus,
the most
westerly
of the
ancient
cities,
the ruins are
almost
exclusively
Christian;
the
pagan
buildings
there were
demolished
to obtain
material
for a
fortress,18
eaving nothing
standing
except
an
arch
that
became its
main
gateway. Lengths
of
column shafts were cut to
fit
a
wall-thickness and laid
as
stretchers to tie the
masonry;
they
occur at
fairly
regular
intervals
in
the
curtains
and abound in
towers,
some
of
which are
decoratively
studded
at half a
dozen
levels with
rows
composed
alternately
of
two
or
three
pieces
of shaft
(PLATES
b,
9a).
The
ashlar facing of the cemented rubble consists very largely of classical blocks, many of them
uniform
in
size and reused
unaltered.
Since a
large
proportion
of the
material
unquestionably
came from
temples,
the
destruction of which
was
not
permissible
till
391,
that
date
would be
a
firm
terminus
ost
quem
or
the
construction,
but for
the
possibility
that
the
emperor may
have
given
special
authorization.
A
vague
substitute for
a
terminus
nte
quem
s
supplied by
the
recorded
fact that a
period
of
abandonment
began
so
long
before
I
ioo
as
to have
made the
fortress then
unserviceable
until
repaired;
considering
the
general
excellence of the
structure,
this
delapidation
is
quite
likely
to
imply
neglect during
not less than
a
couple
of
centuries.
The
original
purpose
of
the
fortress,
and
consequently
its
age,
can
be
deduced
from its
situation
and
design.
Over
more
than a
two-hour walk
to the
north-east
a
practically
continuous
urban
population
occupied
a
narrow
strip
between the sea and
the
mountains,
but the
density
was
greater
in the half nearer
Corycus;
north-west towards Seleucia the absence
of ruins
in
the
neighbourhood
shows
that,
at
most,
only
peasantry
can
have lived
on
the
way
to
Korasion,
nearly
two
hours
away.
Obviously
Corycus
was too
peripheral
to have
been
a
refuge
for
any
but the
closest
non-combatants. But its
placing,
adjoining
an
artificially
sheltered
harbour,
was
ideal
for
a
military
outpost
at
a
time
when the
Byzantines
held command
of the
seas;
it
could be
maintained in a
hostile environment
because maximum
defensibility
had
16
K.
Lanckoronski,
Niemann,
and
Petersen,
Stddte
Pam-
phyliens
und
Pisidiens
(1890) 33 fig.
49.
17
Ibid.
9 fig- 4;
the Turkish
plan
is discussed below
with
reference
to the
early
Ioth
cent.
18
MAMA ii:
E.
Herzfeld and
S.
Guyer,
Meriamlikund
Korykos
1930)
fig.
177
etc.;
MAMA
iii:
J.
Keil
and
A.
Wilhelm,
Denkmdler
us
demRauhen
Kilikien
(1931)
102
fig. 133
pl.
42;
W.
Miiller-Wiener,
Castles
of
the Crusaders
1966) 79
pls.
11I-14;
Courtauld.
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178
A. W. LAWRENCE
been conferred on some
I1
hectares
of low
plateau,
clearly anticipating
that
invaders
might
come
by
land
in
much
superior
numbers and
prepared
for a
determined
siege.
The
design
presumes
that not
less
than
about
a
hundred men
would
always
be
available
to
repel
assault,
but there was
space
inside for several
times as
many,
so the
commander could
spare
a considerable force for expeditions along the coastline or into the foothills. The prospective
enemies
are identifiable
as
Isaurians;
no others
can have been
envisaged
till the seventh
century,
when the
Arabs won and
exploited
control
of the seas with
the result that the
harbour
(an
integral
part
of
the
design)
must
have
become worse
than
useless,
and
Corycus
was
irrelevant to later
campaigns
by
land. Since the Isaurian menace
reached its
peak
by
about
400,
we
may
assume
that
the construction
of the fortress was not
postponed
(though
it
might
have
been
feasible,
under
a
strong
guard,
even
after the Isaurian
subjugation
of
the coast
towards
the
east).19
The
fortress stands beside
a
small
valley
flattened
by
alluvium,
which
shelves
into the water
of
a
bay (PLATE9b).
The builders
took full
advantage
of a terrace
of hard
rock,
the
edge
of
which
met the
valley
inland as
an
eroded
cliff,
several metres
high;
in
continuation,
they
cut
a ditcho2 with vertical sides across the terrace itself
(PLATE9a),
which extends far eastward
between
the wave-riven
shore of
the
open
sea and
the foothills of
the mountains.
Two
lines
of
defence,
a few metres
apart,
so
complemented
each
other that
they
functioned
as a unit.
The
main
wall,
with
towers,
on the surface
of the terrace
was
infinitely stronger
than
the
simple
outer
line,
which revets
the foot
of
the
cliff
till that
merges
northward
into
rising
ground,
then returns
to the sea on
the east as the
lining
of the
ditch,
and
completes
a
roughly
square
course
by
two
free-standing
sides,
the south-eastern
along
the
sea,
the south-western
along
a
beach
at
the
mouth
of the
valley
where
a harbour has silted
up.
This was
sheltered
by
a
jetty
which
projects
from
the south corner
of the
fortress;
though
it is now truncated
and
a
mere
jumble
of
stone,
in
1811 Beaufort
saw
it
whole,
'about
ioo
yards
long',
consisting
of
'great unhewn rocks', and terminated by a mass of cemented rubble behind a stone facing,
'2o
feet
square
with
pilasters
at the
corners'.
This,
he
realized,
had almost
certainly
been
the
base
of
a
lighthouse21
to
guide
ships
into
port.
They
could
safely
lie
and unload
at
the
jetty,
even
under
siege;
there
was
a
wide
gateway
through
the
outer defences at its
outset,
while
the classical
arch that forms
the
corresponding passage
through
the inner wall is
staggered
to
nearly opposite
the
middle of the
harbour
frontage.
The
plan
took
for
granted
that
the
Empire
would
always
command
the
sea.
A
first indirect reference
to
the fortress
may
possibly
be
recognized
in
Nicephorus
Patriarcha's
casual
mention22 of
an officer as
being
'the
commander
of the
army
of the Kourikiots'
n
697;
this,
however,
might
have been
a
corps
recruited
from
the
Corycus
district and
stationed
elsewhere,
especially
since
he was then
in
the
Cibyrrhaeot
theme.
The date comes
within
a period, 650-718, when the Arab fleet dominated the seas, looting and destroying towns
around
Asia Minor
and
attacking
Constantinople,
but coincides
with a lull in its
activities.
Militia
at
Corycus
should
have been
able to
prevent
raids on
the
populous
coast
between
there
and
the Lamas
river,
there
being
no other
place
suitable for
a
large
force to
disembark,
and
the
very
fact that the
inhabitants
remained numerous
enough
to
provide
an
'army'
implies
that
they
had
been
relatively
untroubled.
19
Theoretically,
the
fortress
might
have
been
built at
any
time between
39
I
(or
earlier
f the
emperor
had
granted special
leave for
demolitions)
and the rise to
power
of
an Isaurian
self-named
Zeno,
who
succeeded
his
imperial
father-in-law
in
474
and
reigned
to
491.
Anastasius
I
then launched the first
of the
campaigns
that crushed
the Isaurians.
20
The floor of the
ditch is all
above sea-level
but too
shelving
to have held water
unless
dammed.
21
Beaufort,
op.
cit.
242.
22
Migne,
Patrologia
Graeca
100
col.
940.
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A
SKELETAL
HISTORY OF
BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
179
In
831
the
fall
of
Tarsus
gave
the Arabs control of the entire Cilician
plain,
which
ends
at
the
Lamas,
and
the
resultant
insecurity
in
the coastal
strip
to westward is
likely
to have
caused
mass
emigration,
because
aggression
could not be
prevented.
If
the hundreds of
men
necessary
to defend the
Corycus
fortress
ceased
to be
locally
available,
the
Byzantines
would have
been
obliged to relinquish it; in any case its utility had gone.
The
Byzantines
regained
Cilicia
in
965
and held
it
for over
a
century,
till the
Seljuks
took
it,
but the transit of the First Crusade
in
I
0oo
enabled the
Byzantines
to recover
it
again.
They
found,
so
Anna
Comnena
reports,23
that
'Kourikon,
a
city
which had
formerly
been
very
strong,
had come
in
later
times
to be
falling
into ruin'. The
statement must
apply
to
the
fortress,
not
to
the more ancient and
comparatively
negligible
city
wall. She
next
records24
that the
emperor
sent
his
officer 'Eustathius to
occupy
Kourikon
nd
rebuild
it
quickly'.
Probably
the
first
unseemly
repairs
to
the
outer
line
are
due to him.
Early
remains are
distinguishable
in
the ruins
by
their
design quite
as much
as
by
the
presence
of
classical
ingredients,
some of which
were
transferred to later alterations. The
original
main
wall
not
only
rose from a
higher
level
than
the
outer line but was also
much
taller,
even in the curtains. Towers were
dispersed unevenly,
close
together
where attack would
be
easiest,
furthest
apart
beside
the
harbour;
none
directly
faced the
open
sea.
They
were
diverse
in
width,
projection,
and
height.
The
tallest,
just
behind
the northern
extremity,
has
partially collapsed,
leaving
a
slice
intact
with a
few merlons
(perhaps
not
original).
Its summit
was
valued,
no
doubt,
for a look-out
towards
the
eastern
approaches;
in
addition,
catapults
might
have
been
mounted,
as
upon
Hellenistic
prototypes,
for
the
sake
of
the
increased
range
obtainable from
such
an
elevation.
This
supposition
could
explain
the
abnormally
and
unnecessarily long
inward
projection
of the
tower,
the front of
which faces east and
is
aligned
with the
adjoining
curtain
to the south but stands
forward
from that
to the
north;
the entire
northern
flank
was
roughly
twice
as
long
as the
part exposed,
so that
there would have been
space upon it for several catapults. None of the better-preserved towers is very far from square,
except
one at
the south-east corner
(PLATE b)
that is
pentagonal,
with
a
beak
pointing
towards
the shoreline
beyond
the
ditch.
Although
most of them rise
only
slightly
above
the
curtains,
there
are no windows on
the
fronts,
contrary
to Hellenistic
practice,
nor
many
slits;
the
roof
was
the
main
or even
sole
defensive
position.
One
almost
square
tower
(on
the
north-west)
is now
reduced to two
storeys,
though
it
must
have
had at least
one
more because
a
column-shaft
lies
as
a
stretcher
in
the
present
top
course
of
masonry.
At the
centre of the
back
(PLATE
Ioa,
b)
is
a
doorway
into
the
upper
storey,
accessible from
the
wall-walks on
both
the
adjacent
curtains,
which
differ
considerably
in
their
levels;
a
row of
huge
cantilevered blocks
(salvaged
from a
classical
cornice)
provides
a
horizontal
approach
from
the
lower curtain
to
the
threshold,
beyond
which
are smaller
cantilevered blocks
forming
separate
steps
to
the
higher
curtain.
Precedents for these two devices are known only in Hellenistic towers.
The
outer line
is the
earliest
post-classical
example
of
the
two
kinds
of
Hellenistic
proteichisma.
On
most
of
its course it
is a
free-standing,
featureless
wall
that
probably
was
not
much
higher
than a
man
(for
the
top
is
late,
of several
periods);
on the eastern side it
revetted the
scarp
of
the.
ditch
and was
continued
upward
free-standing.
Except
for the
original
tower on
the
south-east corner
where the
floor of the ditch shelves into
the
sea
(PLATE8b),
the
whole
length
of the ditch
was
probably
featureless until
long
after a final
Byzantine
withdrawal.
That occurred in
unknown
circumstances at some
date
before
1167,
by
which
time
Corycus already
belonged
to the
newly
founded Armenian
state of Cilicia.
23
Alexiad i
IoC.
24
Ibid.
ioD.
Eustathius was
ordered also
to
restore
defences
at
Seleucia/Silifke
that
are
likely
to
have
originated
before the
wars with
the
Isaurians
but been
strengthened during
them.
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18o
A. W. LAWRENCE
The
subsequent
history
of
Corycus,
both
political
and
architectural,
is reserved for
a
forthcoming
issue
of
Yayla.
Here
all
that need be said is
that
both lines
of
fortification
along
the ditch became more
elaborate,
and the outer
acquired
salients that
encroached
upon
the
floor;
the
Armenians
put
a
drawbridge
across,
and
built
gateways
to serve it
through
both
the outer and the inner line. Most of the salients are in the style of western Europe and must
be works of
even later
owners,
the
Lusignan kings
of
Cyprus
or their Genoese
associates,
who
made the
final
additions
to the inner
line.
(The original
defences
of
the sector had
evidently
been
designed
to
repel unsophisticated
enemies,
and were
inadequate
against
Turks trained
to
siegecraft.)
After the
Muslim
conquest
of the
Armenians,
Corycus
was
held
as an
isolated
Christian
possession;
the
King
of France twice considered whether to use it
for
the base of
a
Crusade
to liberate them.
Eventually,
in
1448,
the
Seljuks
of Karamania
contrived
to
seize
the
fortress,
which
in
1482,
on the extinction
of
their
dynasty,
passed
to the Ottomans and
was allowed to
lapse
into
ruin.
In
many respects
Corycus
is
a
precursor
of
Justinianic
fortifications,
which likewise were
planned
for
defence
by
local,
partially
trained,
militia. For
that
reason,
the
height
of
curtains
and the size of towers at
Corycus
exceed the dimensions normal in forts
garrisoned by
the
Roman
army;25
instead,
they
followed
precedents
in
city
walls,
which must have been manned
principally
by
civilians.
The
designer
had also studied Hellenistic
remains and
may
have been
the
first
to revive their
practices,
which had
again
become
apposite
in
the
changed
conditions
of
warfare,
after five centuries of
Roman disuse.
Someone
of much less
intelligence
was
responsible
for the refortification of
Sparta26
shortly
after the devastation
by
Alaric
in
396;
the
material was collected from
destroyed
buildings
too soon for
it
to become
weathered,
and
put
together
badly,
as
though
hurriedly.
The
entire
acropolis
was
now
(FIG.
I)
enclosed with
a
new
wall
except
where
it
incorporated
the corner
built after
267
(though
with
the
gateway
transferred to
a
slightly
different
position).
There
are, however, only discontinuous, scanty vestiges, here and there. The layout included sectors
that
were,
in
turn,
convex,
concave,
and
straight.
The
towers,
of two or more
periods,
varied
in
size but all
were
larger
than
their
predecessors
beside
the older
corner;
most
were
rectangular
and
spaced
far
apart,
but
some,
obviously
added
at
a
later date
to a
rounded
salient,
were
semicircular and crowded
together.
3.
CONSTANTINOPLE
AND REGIONAL
CAPITALS,
412-C.
450
The walls
of
Constantinople
have
been
published
so
elaborately27
that there
is no occasion
to do more
than summarize the
general
design
of each successive
scheme-in
the
past
tense
to allow for their
more or less ruined
condition. Most
of the circuit
(FIGS.
3, 4, 5)
originated
during
the
(largely
nominal) reign
of Theodosius
II,
408-50.
First,
in
412,
the
construction
began
of a
single
wall
over
7
km
long,
on the landward
boundary
of the
city
from the Sea
of
Marmara
to
the Blachernae suburb
(beyond
which
an older
wall was retained
to the
Golden
Horn).
The
curtains,
some
5
m
thick,
were
not less
than
Io
m
high
at
the
wall-walk,
upon
which stood
a
crenellated
parapet
2
m
high;
the
merlons were
extended
backward
by
short
traverses,
a
means
of reinforcement
and
shelter
for
defenders
that
may
have been
common ever
since the Greeks invented it
(probably
in
the fourth
century B.c.), though
25
Exceptional
dimensions
in the citadel
at
Old
Cairo
(S.
Toy, History
of
Fortification
1955)
54)
could have
provided
for
the
occasional
depletion
of
the
garrison
to subdue trouble
in
the
provinces;
it was the
headquarters
of the
army
in
Egypt.
26
Cf.
n.
4.
27
Die
Landmauer
on
Konstantinopel(1938)
by
F. Krischen-
generalities
and
drawings
restoring original
condition
of
Theodosian
walls;
ii
(i943)
by
B.
Mayer-Plath
and
A. M.
Schneider-piecemeal
survey.
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A
SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
181
inevitably very
few
examples
are
preserved.
Double staircases
(of
the
type
now called
Palladian)
were bonded to the inward face of the
wall;
their
converging flights,
a
couple
of
metres
wide,
climbed
upon
arches of
graduated heights
to
a
landing
level with
the
walk,
precisely
as is
shown
in a
Roman
painting
of
an
amphitheatre. Gateways
were
approached
through
the
tallest
arch,
at the centre of
the
thirty-metre support. Towers, spaced usually
60o
to
70
m
apart,
projected
some
io
m
forward from the curtains
and rose
5-6
m
higher,
with
an
external
o9--
50
M
FIG.
3.
Constantinople.
Plan of
Theodosian
system
and final
ditch
(Landmauer)
stair
up
to the
roof,
which was lined with a
crenellated
parapet.
The
towers were
alternately
rectangular,
of
I
o-
I
m
a
side,
and
octagonal
of similar
dimensions,
but no
military advantage
seems to have resulted from this
differentiation;
it
made
the
appearance
more
interesting.
The
lower
part
of each
tower,
opposite
the
curtains,
contained
a
vaulted
room
lit
by
windows too
far out of reach from the floor to have
been intended for
defence;
it was usable for
storage
or
barracks,
and
a
postern
opened
through
the
right
flank,
but the
overriding
purpose
must have
been to save material
in
the structure.
An
upper
room,
entered
from the walk
along
the
curtains,
was
provided
with a
variable number of windows for
catapults;
it was
5
m
high,
normally barrel-vaulted or, if octagonal, domed. The main gateways pierced a curtain between
rectangular
towers
except
in
the case of the
Adrianople
Gate,
where the towers were
hexagonal-probably
not for
military
reasons but to add interest
to
their
appearance.
Aesthetic
as well
as
practical
considerations
may
also have influenced the decision
to face the mortared
rubble of the
wall
with limestone blocks
or
with
dark-red
brickwork,
interrupted
at
several
levels
by
bands
comprising
five courses of
pale
yellow
bricks,
which
go
all the
way
through
for
bonding.
An
earthquake
in
447
wrecked
fifty-seven
towers,
as is not
surprising
in
view of the size
and
height
of the
upper
rooms,
so
great
was the thrust that their
massive
vaulting
could
exert
when
shaken. Their restoration was
undertaken
immediately,
and
accompanied
by
the
building
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182
A.
W. LAWRENCE
,
.1o
2
M.
FIG.
4.
Constantinople.
Section of
Theodosian
system
with
rectangular
towers
(Landmauer)
of
a
low outer wall with
small
towers,
more resistant to
shock;
presumably
it
was intended
to
minimize the risk that breaches caused by some future earthquake might again invalidate the
entire
defensive
system.
The
two walls were
separated
by
a
space
of
13-50
m,
reduced to less
than
4
m
where towers
protruded.
No
classical
precedent
for
an
outer wall is known
(unless
a
free-standing
proteichisma
at
Selinus should so rank because of salients that resembled towers
in
plan).
The Asiatic
peoples
had built
strong
outer walls from the Bronze
Age
to the sixth
century
B.C.28
when
one
of
exceptional magnitude
was included
in
the defences of
Babylon,
of which
educated
Byzantines
must
have
read,
for
they
were described
by
Herodotus and
28
There
is no
evidence for
recrudescence
in
Parthian
times;
the
outer
line
at Hatra
seems
a
mere
proteichisma,
I130
m
thick,
with
only
one
visible
salient.
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A
SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
183
5
.
9
.
. . .
FIG.
5.
Constantinople.
Section of
Theodosian
system
with
octagonal
and
apsidal
towers,
and
plans
at two
levels
(Landmauer)
later
authors,
down
to
Strabo.
Only
if
there
were
oriental features at
Constantinople
that
could not have been derived from these ancient sources would it be
reasonable
to
postulate
an unverified addiction to outer walls
in
the Sassanian
empire,
then the
dominant
power
in
Western Asia outside the Byzantine territory. In fact, though, the structure at Constantinople
followed
classical,
not
Asiatic,
precedents
in
its most notable features. The wall was solid to
the
exiguous
thickness
of
1.30
m,
and
backed
with a
series of blind
arches,
spanning
the
intervals
of
2
m
between
piers
that
projected
3
m,
in
a
manner
found
in
both
Hellenistic
and
Roman
examples
and,
perhaps contemporaneously,
around the
monastery
of
Daphni
(see
Appendix).
Slits
through
the
frontage-one
at
the centre of each
arch-gave
overlapping
fields of fire. The
walk,
4
m
wide behind the
parapet,
stood at
a
mean
height
of
only
4
m
above the interval between the two
walls,
but a
drop
in
the
ground
almost doubled it
externally,
with the
masonry
of the lower
part
forming
a
revetment to the
curtains,
though
it was
free-standing
at
the
very
base of the
towers,
which
projected
in
their
entirety.
The same effect
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184
A. W. LAWRENCE
would
have resulted
if
a
proteichisma
that lined the
scarp
of
a
ditch had
been
studded with
towers;
we do not know whether there
had
been
any
actual
instance
of that
scheme,
but the
designer clearly
was
thinking
of
a
proteichisma
such as often rose
from
the
floor
of
a
ditch,
revetting
the
scarp,
and
continued
free-standing.
He
may
conceivably
have
complied
with that
practice and set his foundations in a ditch, which would have been obliterated when
(supposedly
c.
iooo)
that now visible was
given
its
final
dimensions,
for the enormous amount
of
spoil
extracted
on
each
occasion seems to have been
spread evenly
on the
intervening
space,
the berm. This
conjecture
could
explain
why
the outer towers were
equipped
to shoot
only
to
a
fairly long
distance-no
slits were
provided
below
a
vaulted room entered
from
the
wall-walk,
and
its
roof
platform
was the
major
defensive
position.
The inner towers
all
overlooked
curtains of the outer
wall and
bore
most
of
the
responsibility
for
its
defence;
the
towers
of the outer wall stood
opposite
the middle of
curtains
in
the inner
wall,
and
were
alternately
rectangular
and
apsidal
in
accordance
with the taste for
repetitive
variation
manifested
in
the
original
Theodosian
system.
At entrances
a
simple gateway through
the
outer
wall was
aligned
with that
in
the
inner,
and a court was
formed,
bounded
on each side
by
a
little
two-storeyed
building
and a door between it and the front of the
original
flanking
tower.
At
Carthage,
which
the
Romans had
deliberately
left
unfortified,
a
city
wall was
built
in
425;
it was
neglected
during
the
Vandal
occupation
but
repaired
in
533 by
Belisarius,
who
is stated to have
accompanied
it with
a ditch. Two ditches
have
been found
by
excavation;29
the older was of
an
undetermined
width not less
than 18
m,
the
later
of
not
less than
Io
m.
Silt
evidently
had so choked
the older before
533
that clearance was not
worthwhile,
and
Belisarius
dug
a
replacement.
His
wall,
of
rubble,
was faced with
large
squared
blocks,
which
brought
the
thickness
to
3-5
m.
There was
at
least
one
tower,
of
which the base alone
remains,
as
is
the
case with
any
scrap
of
ruin at the
pillaged
site
of
Carthage.
The
rectangular
towers
that
project
from the north wall of
Salona30
were built
after
434,
probably before 450; an extraordinarily close spacing compensated for their modest dimensions,
particularly
height. They
are outside the field
of this
study,
since
Dalmatia then
belonged
to
the
Western
Empire,
but the
revolutionary
character of
Theodosian
principles
could
scarcely
be better
illustrated than
by
this wholesale
contravention of them.
The
perimeter
at
Thessalonica/Salonica
may
have been as
long
as
the Theodosian wall of
Constantinople,
but there
are
scarcely
any
remains
except
on the
north and
east,
where
roughly
half consists of medieval
and Turkish
repairs, replacements,
or additions. The
original
work
includes
many
bricks with the same
stamps
as
in
local
churches ascribed to
the late
fourth or
early
fifth centuries.
The
circuit
has
commonly
been
associated with the
residence
of Theodosius
I
at the
city
in
379
and some later
years,
to direct
campaigns
against
the
Goths,
who were
ravaging
the
Balkans from sea
to
sea.
An
inscription
attributes the
construction to
Hormisdas, who was identified without question as an official of that time until Vickers, in
1969,
proposed
a
namesake
of the mid
fifth
century;
in
the
controversy
that
ensued,
Vickers
cited
the
prevalence
of
brick-stamps
dated to
an
indiction which
could be
that
of
447-8.31
Meanwhile one
piece
of
the circuit was found to
be
merely
a thick
facing
applied
to a Roman
city
wall,32
and
in
other
parts
the
masonry
of a Hellenistic
predecessor
is
exposed; opportunities
for such economical
medleys
of old and new
may
have affected
planning
to
a
greater
extent
than
now
appears.
But the actual course
along
the north and east of the
city33
was
29 AJ 55 (1975)
36;
57 (1977)
255;
Excavations
t
Carthage.
The
BritishMission
i
(forthcoming)
30
J.
J.
Wilkes,
Dalmatia
(1969)
360, 418.
31
Vickers,
Makedhonika2
(1972)
228;
BSA68
(1973)
292.
32 Tsigaridas,
ADelt
28
(1973)
Chron.
479
fig.
I
pls.
434-42.
33
Ch.
Diehl, Tourneau,
and
Saladin,
Les
Monuments
hritiens
de
Salonique
0-1
14
summarize Tafrali's
survey, Topographie
e
Thessalonique;
is scale has
been
falsified
in
reproduction
of the
plans.
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A
SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
185
predetermined,
within a
few
metres,
by
the
topography.
The wall on the north
overlooks
a
deep
inland
valley;
where the descent is
very steep,
the defences
along
the
verge
can
fairly
be termed
perfunctory,
but
they
become
progressively stronger
above
gentler slopes
as
they
approach
the
north-east
corner,
from which the citadel
juts
out;
they
are
even
stronger
on the east, beside a shallow valley draining to the sea. So the design, though basically
uniform,
could not be
exactly
repeated throughout,
as on the
comparatively
even terrain
at
Constantinople.
The towers varied
in
size and
height,
and were
spaced
diversely. Nearly
all
of
them
were
rectangular, two-storeyed,
and
open
to the
rear;
they
must have been
spanned
by
removable wooden
flooring,
a
precautionary
device of
Hellenistic
origin.
Occasional
V-shaped
salients were
cheap
substitutes for
towers;
the
apex,
at least
in
one
instance,34
was
incompletely
partitioned
from the
open
remainder of the
back,
leaving
a
gap
of
3
m
to
be
bridged.
The
predominant
building
material was
rubble,
but towers were
coigned
with
brick,
and brick is
interposed
in
curtains,
either
to
form bands
(composed
of
three,
four,
or five
courses)
at
vertical intervals
of
I'30-I'50
m,
or
in
superimposed
rows of
relieving
arches.
A
proteichisma, quite likely
to be
contemporary,
may
have existed wherever the nature of
the
ground
outside would
encourage
attack,
but
very
little of it has
survived,
running
parallel
with the curtains at a distance
of
13
m,
and
about
2
m
thick;34
there must have been
a
walk
along
the
top,
behind
a
crenellated
parapet.
4.
TOWNS WITH
MASSIVE
PROTEICHISMA,
MID OR LATE FIFTH
CENTURY
The
fragmentary
proteichisma
to which the
preceding
sentence
refers
might conceivably
have
been later
than the
wall of Salonica but the
likelihood
that it
was
contemporaneous
is
enhanced
by
the
existence
of
better-preserved analogies
that date from the fifth
and sixth
centuries.
There was
clearly
a
vogue
then for this
type
of
outwork,35
which
may
have
been
regarded
as a
relatively
cheap
substitute
for an
outer
wall
like that built
at
Constantinople
in or soon after 447. The Hun invasions of the Balkans gave cause for other precautions, such
as the
narrowing
of
old
gateways,36
but the
predominant
need must have
been
for
outworks
to
impede
attack on
the
wall,
because the
enemy
came
in
numbers liable
to
overpower
its
defenders.
Significance
should
possibly
be
attached
to
the
fact that
most
examples
of a
thick
proteichisma
have
been found
in
Bulgaria,
where the
prevalence
of
woodland must
have
encouraged
invaders
hurriedly
to
improvise enough
crude
ladders for simultaneous
escalade
all
around the
frontage.
(But
Salonica is
in a
treeless
neighbourhood.)
The
thickness
in
Bulgaria
was
commonly
about
1.50
m,
while at
Salonica it was
2
m;
men
could
pass
one
another
on
the
walk,
for a
parapet
seldom
occupied
more than
50
cm.
Stairs
rose
parallel,
like
those beside
curtains,
their
landings
expanding
the walk
inwards. The
height
must
have varied at
every
town
in
accordance
with that
of
the
wall
behind,
from which it
would be overshot, also with the width of the intervening ground and its slope (if any). At
an
unflanked
entrance to
Augusta
Traiana/Stara
Zagora,37
the
exceptionally
thick
(2
m)
proteichisma
keeps
barely 4
m
distant from the
much older
wall,
and the
junctions
of this
interval with
the
passage
were
gated;
so, too,
was the
mouth,
between
out-turned
endings
of
the
proteichisma.
Less
untypically,
at
Diocletianopolis/Hisar38
the
interval is
slightly
over
Io
m
wide
except
where older
rectangular
towers
project
more than
half-way
across it
(FIG.
6).
At
Vojvoda39
there
is a
similar interval in front
of
older
curtains,
but a
shallow curvature
34
ADelt 26
(I97i)
Chron.
374
fig.
4;
BCH
98
(i974)
507
fig.
2.
35
Oviarov,
Arheologia
5
4
(1973)
II,
(in
French) 23.
36
Ivanov,
Arheologia
5 4
24,
(in
French) 34,
figs. 5-6.
37
Ibid.
15
fig.
4.
38
Ibid.
178
figs.
6-8.
39
Ibid.
14
fig.
3;
Milkev
and
Damjanov, BIABulg23
(1972)
263,
(in
French)
276,
figs.
1-8.
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186
A.
W.
LAWRENCE
o'43
oo3
0
o.
FIG.
6.
Diocletianopolis.
(a)
Section
of N.
defences
near corner
(Arheologia); (b)
Plan of N.
defences
at
entrance
(Arheologia)
takes
the
proteichisma
outwards and back
again
around towers of
a
horseshoe
shape, passing
them
at a distance of little over
2
m
(FIG. 7).
The outward
curve is
prolonged past
the whole
front of one such tower, and then the proteichisma continues in a straight line to and beyond
its own
gateway;
here it was backed
by
a
pair
of
guardrooms,
and
the rear of one was attached
to the horseshoe tower
while the other's rear met
an
almost
circular tower that
projected
off
a corner of the
enceinte,
so
that
together they
bounded
a court outside the
main
gateway
through
the wall.
At all
these
three sites outer and inner
gateways
were
aligned
and
given
a uniform
width
of
about
3
m;
at
Vojvoda
the
width had
originally
been
3'45
m. Otherwise
the scheme of each
proteichisma
differs,
though
merely
to
fit with the diverse
patterns
of the
older
remains;
the same basic
principles
governed
the new
design
in
every
instance. None
is
precisely
datable. But the
discovery
of
ninety-two
coins
at
Vojvoda
proves
that
the work there
was done not earlier
than
457
nor
appreciably
later than
477.
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A
SKELETAL
HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
187
0
40
FIG.
7.
Vojvoda.
Plan
of defences at entrance and
postern
(Arheologia)
0
5m
FIG.
8.
Dyrrhachium.
Plan at
upper
level and section
of
Tower
'D'
(Monumentet)
5.
THE
REIGN
OF
ANASTASIUS
I, 491-518
This
emperor, according
to
Suidas,
built new
fortifications
at
his
birthplace,
Dyrrhachium/
Durres,
and
surely
no one else would have
afforded
the row of four monstrous
pentagonal
towers,40
of
which
two are still
in fair
condition
(FIG.8)
and
only
one
hopelessly
ruined. The
proportions
are as
extraordinary
as
the size. The
beak,
which
normally
contributes
little to
a tower's
projection,
here
constitutes
(on
average)
two-thirds of
it,
the
slanting
faces
being
nearly
II
m
long,
so that the
shape
would have been
attenuated
if
the
rectangular
portion
towards the rear were not exceptionally wide-about 16 m, which is 4 m more than the
distance to
which
the beaks
project
from the curtains. One
tower, 'B',
is still
14
m
high,
and
the
other, 'D',
13
m.
Externally
each has a
pronounced
(but dissimilar)
batter
below
the
upper
storey,
where the wall-thickness is
3
m.
The lower
storey
is
blind;
its
height
was
7-50
m in
'B',
9-80
m
in
'D',
under the wooden floor
of the
upper
room. This was
practically
triangular
and measures
in
each tower almost
I
o
x
7
m. Vaulted embrasures
diverge
from
it;
each is
I.55
m
wide and
2-15
m
high
till it meets an
arched
encroachment of
masonry,
48
cm
thick,
which frames a tall
window,
64
cm
wide
(enough
to
expand
the
range
of a
catapult
and its
40
Bace,
Monumentet
9 (1975) 5,
(in
French) 29;
Rey,
Albania
I
(1925) 33-
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188 A. W. LAWRENCE
arc
of
fire).
One such
opens
through
either flank at
right
angles
to
a
curtain,
a
pair through
either
slanting
face of the
beak,
and
one
through
the
pointed extremity.
So the
disposition
provided
a
minimum of
fire-power
along
the
curtains but a
concentration,
more
oblique
than
straight
forward,
against
enemy beginning
their advance. The beak was
designed
for
that
purpose.
Allegedly
in
512,
Anastasius reconstructed
a
barrier-wall
(probably
less than
a
century old)
all the
way
between
the
coasts
of the
Marmara and Black
Seas;41
t
must have
been
over
50
km
long, allowing
for
the
windings
that took
it
to
militarily advantageous
terrain. The
Byzantines
long kept
it
in
repair,
and the remains have not been
studied to
distinguish
Anastasius' from later
work.
Procopius42
describes alterations
by
Justinian,
prior
to
which
there was
a
continuous
walk
upon
the
curtains,
passing through
the
towers and
accessible
only by
stairs within them.
In
the
brief duration
of
a
truce with
the
Sassanians,
made
in
5o6,
the
emperor
contravened
its terms
by
the
hasty
transformation
of
a
place
near the frontier
in
Mesopotamia
into a
city,
which
he
called
Anastasiopolis;
it
soon
reverted to
its old
name,
Dara.
He
gave
it43
a double
circuit of
walls,
both
quite
low but
especially
the
outer,
presumably
after the model of
Constantinople.
The
towers of
the
inner
wall
were of
faulty
construction
which could not
withstand the
weather,
and
Justinian
was
obliged
to rebuild
or
envelop
many
of
them. He
also increased
the
heights throughout
both walls.
6.
THE
REIGN
OF
JUSTINIAN,
527-565
The
number of fortifications built
or renovated
for
Justinian surpassed
the total
in all
other
Byzantine
periods
combined.
They
have
left
a
corresponding
abundance
of
ruins
in
no
fewer
than
nine
modern
countries,
but
relatively
few
have been
studied,
and those
rarely
in
such
detail
that
Justinianic
work
can
be
distinguished
from
previous
or
subsequent
elements;
that
is partly because its character differed in each theatre of war in order to match the ability
and resources of
the
specific enemy
encountered
there.
Comparatively
weak
defences
could avert
attack
by
the
unsophisticated
natives
of
North
Africa,
whose
initial
rising
came
immediately
after
Belisarius'
conquest
of
the
Vandal
kingdom
and was
followed
by
an
interminable
series of
others;
the extreme
mobility
of
these tribesmen
frustrated
attempts
to
crush
them
and
their
opportunities
for
raiding
settled communities
were
unlimited
because
demolition
by
the
Vandals,
to
prevent
rebellion,
had made Roman
city
walls
untenable;
the
Byzantines
did
not restore
them,
because
the area enclosed would
have
been
over-large
for
a
diminished
population.
Some
towns
actually
lay
empty,
but were
likely
to
revive
if
safe
from molestation.
Two means
of
protection
were
adopted:
the
Byzantines
built
either
a
town
wall
or
a fort
capacious enough
to
be
a
refuge,44
and seem
generally
to
have
installed
a
garrison
at
every
inhabited
place
as well
as
at some
of
purely
military
importance.
Contemporary
iterature
and
inscriptions
assign
many
of these
works
to
Justinian's
reign,
others
are
stylistically
related,
and
all these
must have been
due
to
a
few
engineers
who
expressed
the
wishes
of
the
successive
military governors
he
appointed.
Each enceinte45
was
built,
wherever
feasible,
of reused material
and
incorporated
any
older
41
Harrison,
Archaeologia
eliana4
7
(1969)
33.
42
Aed. iv
9.
43
Aed.
ii
I
4;
Bell.
i
1o
13-14,
ii
13
17-18.
44
An
unwalled
town,
Sufetula/Sbeitla,
contained five
residential
towers
dispersed
on the
approaches
to the
fort.
They
vary
in size
up
to some
20
m
square
and were
two or
three
storeys high;
each
floor
was
divided
into a
large
number
of
rooms,
entered
through open-fronted
porches
from
a
colonnaded
court. D.
Pringle,
The
Defence
of ByzantineAfrica
(1981)
142
figs.
48a,
b;
Ch.
Diehl,
L'Afrique
byzantine 1896)
fig.
66.
45
Data,
plans,
and
illustrations were
assembled
in
Diehl,
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A
SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF
BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
189
structure that
could
profitably
be
adapted;
for
instance,
the
city
wall
of
Theveste/Tebessa,
built
in
535
around an area a
quarter
of that enclosed
by
its
predecessor,
kinked outward
to
a
triple
arch of
Caracalla,
which was converted into a tower
covering
a
minor
gateway.
The
side of a basilica was
loopholed
and battlemented to
fit
into
the
wall
of
Ammaedara
(or
Ammoudara) Haidra.46Where a fort occupied part of an ancient city, the new wall often did
no more than connect several Roman
buildings, preferably
those around the
forum. Most
other
forts
resemble
a
fortified town
except
in
area,
though
actually
it
is
impossible
to
distinguish
between a small town and a
large
fort. No enclosure was
given
the same
dimensions
as
any
other;
sometimes these were
governed by
the
topography,
more often
by
anticipation
of the number
of
occupants,
whether habitual residents or
temporary refugees. Comparatively
tiny
forts,
of the conventional
tetrapyrgos pattern,
were
perhaps
reserved
for a
garrison. Very
rarely
was
part
of a
town divided from the
rest,
conceivably
for that
purpose.
Uniquely
complex
divisions at
Bagai
are not
explicable
with
certainty.47
Unless
a
deviation to include ancient
or recent
buildings
was
worthwhile,
a
fortification
normally
(terrain
permitting)
comprised
a
rectangle
of curtain-walls
with
a
much taller tower
on each corner and others at
fairly regular
intervals. Towers were
occasionally
rounded or
polygonal,
usually rectangular,
and
two-storeyed,
the
lower room
being
often
vaulted
but
the
upper
floored
with
boards. Some
principles
for
details
are
stated
in
an
anonymous
manual
known
as De
Strategica
r
Tactica,
written for commanders
in
any
theatre
of
war,
apparently
by
an officer
who had
served under
Belisarius. The dimensions he
approves
for a
wall
give
it
a thickness
of not less
than
5
cubits
(strictly
2.3I
m)
and
a
height
of
20
cubits
(9'24 m);
actual
examples
in
Africa
vary
from
8-o5
to
Io
m.
The
walls
there were
either solid
(of
rubble
faced
with cut
stone)
or else lined with a
series of
arches;
the walk
(often
extended
by
corbelling)
might
be
edged by
a
curb
within,
while
the
parapet
rose about
twice as
high (to
some
1.50
m)
at the
merlons as
in
the embrasures.At
Tebessa,
both towers
flanking
the main
gate
had
lost their tops before photographs were taken,48showing the lower ends of slits that seem to
have
pierced
a
set
of
lost
merlons,
as
in
the
cross-wall
at
Side.
(The
French,
however,
arbitrarily
restored
a
continuous
parapet
with
a
level
coping throughout.)
The
gateway
itself,
a
simple
op.
cit. and
S.
Gsell,
Monuments
ntiques
de
l'Algirie
(1901);
L.
Leschi,
L'Alglrie
antique
1952)
has the best
photographs.
K. A. C.
Creswell,
A ShortAccount
f
Early
Muslim
Architecture
(1958)
178
disputes
Diehl's
accounts of
Thignica/Ain Tounga
and
Ksar-Bellezma.
Data
on
Libya
were collected
by
Good-
child,
Corsi di
Cultura ull'ArteRavennate
izantina
13
(1966)
232-43;
his
fig.
2
restores a
gateway
at
Leptis Magna
(with
lintel)
between
rectangular
towers.
Pringle
op.
cit.,
is
an
authoritative historical and
archaeological summing-up,
which
I
did
not
see
till
my
text was
unalterable,
but it
would
have entailed no
changes, only
additions.
46
It is
drawn on the extreme
right
of Saladin's
generally
trustworthy
restoration
(Ch.
A.
Julien,
Histoire
de
l'Afrique
du
Nord
(I931)
fig. 155;
Diehl,
Manuel d'art
byz.
fig.
90).
This
north end of
Haidra,
facing
the road that
ascends
to
the
Algerian
frontier,
was
remodelled
by
the Tunisians
in
the i6th
cent.
as a
strong
fortification
in
the
style
then
prevalent.
The
Byzantine
enceinte,
which is
otherwise well
preserved,
must
have been
intended
only
for
the same
purpose,
of
repelling
invaders,
because the
surrounding country
is
practically
uninhabitable,
growing
nothing
but scrub. That no
intensive
siege
was
anticipated
is
obvious
from
the
inadequate
wall-
thickness;
on
three sectors
it is
reduced also between a
series
of
buttresses,
which are linked to
support
the
walk,
some
by
arches,
some
by
lintels.
Diehl,
L'Afriquebyz. 196
figs. 34-5
pls.
v-vi;
von
Petrokovits,
JRS
6i (1971)
202
n.
45; Pringle,
op.
cit.
180
fig.,
18 pls.
i-iv.
47
The
deserted
town of
Bagai regained
inhabitants when
a
somewhat
irregular
area
of
over
300
m
each side was
surrounded
by
a
Justinianic
wall,
which
remained,
when
surveyed,
distinct in
outline but so ruined
that no
gateways
were
recognizable.
One
rectangular
and three round towers
stood at the
corners;
the
twenty-one
intermediate
towers,
all
rectangular,
varied
in
size for no
perceptible
reason.
The site
occupies
a
slight
eminence amid a
plain.
On the
summit,
an
apparent
citadel
of
74
x
63
m
might possibly
have been
an
initial
defence
for the
builders. It
lay
behind both
the
wall
and a shallow
parallel
outwork,
suggestive
of a
proteichisma,
which
might
have been entered at a little
salient
in
front or
else
laterally
through
a
tower-like excrescence from the wall.
Probably
there was
a
gateway
in
the wall
midway
in
the
interval
(15
m)
between
a
pair
of
towers
(about
7
m
square)
that
projected
into
the
outwork,
off
the corners
of
a court
(26
m
square)
that
was contained
within
the citadel and
may
have formed an inner
entrance.
Diehl,
op.
cit.
152, 292, figs.
5,
31-2; Pringle,
op.
cit.
183-5
fig.
21.
48
Diehl,
op.
cit.
pl.
iv,
before
restoration; Leschi,
op.
cit.
6o; Gsell,
op.
cit. ii
fig. 154
pl.
xcvi.
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I90
A. W. LAWRENCE
arch
abutting
on the
towers,
was
overhung by
a
triple
box-machicouli,49
of
which likewise
the base alone remained
prior
to
another
misguided
restoration.
The De
Strategicaxii.
5-9)
recommends
anyone
who fortifies
a town to enhance its
security
by
means of outworks.
A
proteichisma
will block the
approach
of mantlets or
rams-unlikely
to have been used in Africa-and enable them to be attacked there instead of at the wall; it
will also
provide
a
refuge
for
people
who flee from the
countryside
and would otherwise
congest
the
town,
and
they
themselves
will defend it.
If
the
ground
outside the
proteichisma
is
flat,
a ditch should be
dug
to
a
width
of not less
than
40
cubits,
and to
a
greater depth
than the
base of the wall so
that
tunnels
dug by enemy miners-probably
none
existed
in
Africa-will
emerge
there
in
the
open.
The earth extracted
from the ditch
should be carried
back and
spread
between the
proteichisma
and the
wall,
making
a
platform
that will be
higher
all
along
than the
enemy
position.
If
the town stands
on a
hill,
a
cutting
should be made
at a
distance
of
30
or
40
cubits out from
the
wall,
not less
than
3
cubits
wide,
and the earth
from
it
must
be
piled
in
two banks which
will hinder
enemy
approach;
the
author seems to
mean that the
cutting
forms
a
trench
that
separates
the
banks,
with
a
steep
side
close to each
of them.
An
outwork of this kind would have been
particularly
valuable as an obstruction to mantlets or
rams,
and
might
be
thought
superfluous
in
Africa;
actually
none
is known
in
any country,
probably
because
natural
processes
tend
to blur the distinctive
shape.
Ditches soon become
choked and
may
therefore
not have been
as rare
in
Tunisia and
Algeria
as now
appears;
there
are
many
in
Libya.
No
proteichisma
can
be seen
at a vast
majority
of
African
sites,
but
in
some cases the
thin
masonry,
composed
of
large
reused
blocks,
may
have
disintegrated
above
the
present
ground
level;
in
fact,
an
example
at
Taucheira/Tocra
has been reduced to
a
succession of isolated
fragments
and is
recognizable
only
because
they
are
aligned, keeping
a
straight
course
regardless
of whether it is
parallel
with
an
originally
Hellenistic but renovated
curtain
or
passes
the beak
of a
wholly Justinianic pentagonal
tower.
In Bulgaria a proteichisma is a common adjunct to fortresses built in the sixth century,
mainly
under
Justinian
(whose
successorsare credited
only
with
repairs).
The
lasting
cohesion
of cemented
rubble,
the
habitual
material,
has
probably
accentuated
an
original
contrast
with
practice
in
Africa,
which
responded
to
a
very
different
type
of warfare.
The
Bulgars (who
individually
were more
formidable
than
Berbers)
made seasonal
raids
in
great
force southward
from the
Danube,
looting
the
territory (then Byzantine)
which
has come to bear
their name
owing
to settlement
by
their
descendants.
Attacks with immense
numerical
superiority
should
have almost
guaranteed
the
capture
of fortressesheld
by
local
militia
if
the wall was
easily
approached;
a
proteichisma
would,
at
least,
delay
access
to it. There is
an
extreme
instance
at Sadovsko
Kale,50
a
village
(FIG. )
built for
Goths,
farmers who
also served the
Byzantines
as
militia;
they
could
scarcely
have
hoped
to defend
it but for
a
proteichisma
(or
rather,
outer
wall, for it is
I-80
m thick)
along
the west side and south end, which alone were not
adequately
protected
by
a
steep drop.
The inner
wall,
over 8o
m
long,
was no
more than
1'70
m
thick
but
backed
by
a
continuous
row of seventeen
cottages, apparently
two-storeyed;
the south end is
attached to
a
pentagonal
tower,
which was slewed so
that one corner reached
within
4
m
of
the
entrance,
a
simple
gateway through
the
proteichisma.
The street
in
front of the
cottages
(and
ultimately
between
them and four
more)
was entered
by
a
gate
between
the east facet
of the tower and the end of
the
proteichisma;
close behind
it is the
doorway
of the
tower
(the
ground
floor of which
was used as a
workshop).
Coins
prove
that
occupation began
in
49
Grand
houses near the
Syrian
Desert
were
already
safeguarded
by
single
machicoulis,
either
rectangular
or
half-
cylindrical (J.
Mattern,
Villes
mortes
e haute
Syrie34 fig.
9
pl.
xxxi
2;
AASOR
25-8
(1925)
8
fig. 6).
50
Welkov,
Germania
19
(I935)
149 figs.
2-3,
13-15-
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192
A.
W.
LAWRENCE
almost
every
hilltop
bore
a
tower,
surrounded
only by
a
ditch54
(nor
is
a
wall visible
beside
the
ditch
that encircles
Biiyiik
Kale,
the
admittedly
later
tetrapyrgos
and beacon
in
Bulgaria).
These look-out
posts
were
intervisible,
so that
intelligence
of
enemy
movements
could be
transmitted
by
a code of
signals.
Most define the
regular
frontier
of
military activity
in
wasteland behind the habitable coastline, but some are clusteredon the approachesto specific
places.
Around the town of
Boreum,55
walled
by Justinian,
lie the ruins of at least twelve
towers within
a
radius
of
5
km,
and one
larger (of
31
x
27
m)
stood at
a
distance of
io km.
Procopius'
statement
that
Justinian
made Boreum
'as safe as
possible,
together
with the
whole
country
round about
it',
dates
most,
if
not
all,
of
them,
and
hints
that
they
were manned
from the
garrison
at the town.
These
systems
followed
the Roman
pattern
of surveillance but
with
an
increased number
of
outposts;
the
openness
of the
arid
landscape,
of
course,
invited
such treatment.
Alterations of
Byzantine
character
were made
at Salona
shortly
before
Justinian
took
possession
of
Dalmatia.
The
city
wall had been well maintained but was vulnerable to
mass
attack,
especially
by
escalade,
the
ground
being
practically
flat.
In
535
additional
towers56
were crowded
against
the
curtains,
so that untrained inhabitants could share in defence
by
discharging
missiles from
three directions
towards
the foot of the wall
(yet,
some
eighty
years
later,
the
Slavs
and Avars
captured
Salona and
destroyed it).
The new towers were
rectangular,
like the
earlier
ones,
but
prolonged
outwards
by
solid
triangular
beaks,
which are
structurally
distinct
entities so that
their
weight
did not affect
the
stability
of the towers. These
beaks seem
to have
been
only high
enough
to
intercept
blows
from a
ram.
A
single
beak starts forward
off
the
whole
frontage
of
narrow
towers,
while
a
pair
covers the whole
frontage
of broader
towers. No
excrescences
of
this
kind
are
visible
at
any
other site.
The
old citadel at
Pantalia/Kustendil,
in
south-west
Bulgaria,
seems
to
have been almost
entirely
rebuilt for
Justinian,57
with
layers
of brick
interposed among
the stone. It
endured
to the fifteenth century, without demonstrable alterations. Round towers (of 64o0-7-6o m
diameter) protruded
from the
four corners of
an
irregular
enclosure,
above
slopes
of
gradients
that
made intermediate towers
generally unnecessary;
however,
a
pair
of
sharp-pointed
triangular
salients,
on either
side
10-50
m
long,
sprang
westward
from the wall
(at
which
they
are
9
m
apart)
and
supplemented
inadequate
outflanking
by
the
adjacent
south corner tower.
A little
rectangular
tower
projected
beside
each
of the two
gateways,
which narrow
respectively
from
2-20
to
I14o
m
and
from
I-80
to
i-
io m.
There
were
also
two
posterns,
one of which
opened
through
the
flank
of
another
little
tower
on the
opposite
side of the
fortress.58
While
Justinian's
main
endeavour
in
the northern
Balkans was to
provide
refuges
for small
communities,
in
the south he
hoped
to
prevent
further advance of the
barbarian invaders.
He
expended
most effort on
cross-country
barriers.The
longest
of
them,
the 'Wall
ofAnastasius'
from the Marmara to the Black Sea, was
drastically
altered; doorways from towers to the
walk on
top
were
blocked,
making
it
accessible
only
upon
each curtain
separately by
new
stairs
behind.59
We know
nothing
of the wall across the
neck of the
Gallipoli peninsula;
the
54
Goodchild,
JRS 43
(I953) 75-
55
Goodchild,
JRS
41
(195I)
II fig.
3
pl.
I,
also
Corsi
di
Cultura
n.
45
above).
It is
questionable
whether
the fortified
headland
that
projects
from
the
town-site was
really
a
citadel;
it
might
antedate
both
Justinian's
town-wall and the
synagogue
which
he
converted
into
a church.
56
E.
Dyggve,
Recherches
Salona
(1928)
18
lan
B;
W.
Gerber,
Forschungen
n Salona
fig.
I--plan
of
1907.
57
Ivanov, BSoclABulg
7
(Ig19-2o0)
88
fig.
66; Bobcev,
BIABulg 24 (1961) 115
(an
article
profusely
illustrated
with
small
plans
of
fortifications
in
the
Balkans).
58
The tower
at the broader
entrance
was
5-6o
m wide
and
projected
4'50
m;
the
other,
5
m
wide,
projected
3
m. Both
could
as
easily
have been
placed
on the
opposite
side
of
the
gateways
instead
of on the
enemy's
left,
but the
actual
design
may
have been
preferred
because it would
protect
the
unshielded
right
of sortie
parties.
59 Procopius,
Aed.
v
9
6-II.
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A
SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
I93
latest
of its
three recorded
predecessors
had been
built as
early
as
399
B.C.
and cannot
have
left
many
usable
remnants.
IfJustinian's
barrier at
Thermopylae
has been
rightly
identified,60
it
was achieved
by
rebuilding
a
Hellenistic wall and
towers,
behind
a
proteichisma.
Procopius
says
it had
'double
battlements',
meaning
that
a
second row
of embrasures was added
above
those at the former top, which would have then been completely framed with masonry. The
latest
of
the former
projected
or
completed
barriers across
the Isthmus of
Corinth,
ascribed
by
Zosimus
(an
unreliable
author)
to the middle
of the third
century,
had become
ruinous
by Justinian's
time;61
scraps
of it
appear
to
be
incorporated
in his
wall,62
which
for the
last
300
m
before it met the eastern
shore ran
upon
a
Mycenaean predecessor.
There were
153
towers;
those
extant
are
rectangular,
of such dimensions as
4
m
projection
by
6 m
width,
and
occur
at
very
irregular
intervals
to suit the
ground.
Where the
ground
was
fairly
level
a
proteichisma,
70
cm
thick,
is found
6
m
outwards;
it
was
preceded
at
a
distance
of
3
m
by
a
ditch,
a
couple
of metres
deep.
The
garrison
for
the
eastern sectors
was
quartered
in
a
fortress63
that
extended
far inwards from
a
great
bend
in
the wall and was fortified
in
the
same
manner,
with towers
along
the
outline
some
550
m
to
the rear.
The
grandest
extant
piece
of
Justinianic
fortification is one of which
Procopius
merely
includes the bare
name,
Nicopolis,64 along
with
his
6oo-odd
others. The
previous
history
of
the
place
is
relevant.
Augustus
founded the
city
to
commemorate
the
battle
of
Actium,
giving
it a
perfunctorily
walled area
of a
square
mile
to receive
an
enormous
number of
conscripted
settlers. But
there was
no
possibility
of an
adequate
livelihood
for
so
many.
The
soil
was
poor,
the chances of
becoming
a commercial
centre for the
hinterland were restricted
by
the
distances
to and
between fertile
districts,
while the
one
outstanding
asset,
the fact that the
overseas
trade
of
Epirus necessarily passed
that
way
(just
as,
long
afterwards,
it
went
through
Preveza),
cannot have
yielded
much of
a
revenue.
Decline
was inevitable.
An
appeal
to
Julian
alleges
that
Nicopolis
had almost
wholly
'fallen
into
lamentable
decay,
the
public buildings
were
roofless, water supplies had broken, dust and rubbish lay everywhere'. Conditions are likely
to have
worsened till
nearly
two centuries
later,
when the
barbarian
invasions
of the Balkans
conferred
strategic
importance upon
Epirus
as a
southward
route for
them
and
upon Nicopolis
because
Byzantine
communications
by
sea with
Epirus
could not be
kept open
unless the
neighbourhood
of its
port
were
safeguarded. Justinian
therefore
fortified
the north-east
quarter
of
the
Augustan
city,
separating
it
from
the
derelict remainder
by
building
a
new wall on the
west and
south,
while on the other two
sides he reconstructed
the
original
wall.65 The
fortress,
though
conventionally
termed
'the
citadel',
presumably
contained
the
whole town of
his
time
as
well as
space
for
troops.
The
ground
both
in
and around
the
fortress is
practically
flat,
except
on the
east where
it
descends
gently
from
the
wall. The
design may
not have
provided
outworks
but
in
other
respects greatly (and no doubt consciously) improved on the Theodosian at Constantinople.
Only
on
the west
side
(PLATES
I
I,
12,
I
3a)
is
the wall
preserved
to
a
fair
height
and
almost
intact
in
parts.66
It
appears
of one
build
throughout
its
straight length
of
600
m.
Two
layers
of
brick,
each
composed
of several
courses,
ran
through
curtains and
towers alike.
Each end
60
Bhquignon,
RA
4
(I934) i8;
Mackay,
AJA
67
(1963)
241,
252.
61
Zosimus
i
29;
Aed. v
I
27.
62
Broneer,
Antiquity
2
(1958)
80
fig.
i.
63
Illustrated
reports
on
American excavations
n
the fortress
become more
informative
after
I967.Jenkins
and
Megaw,
BSA
32
(1931-2)
68
pl.
26.
64
RE xvii.i
(1936) s.v. cols.
513-14--plan;
cf.
sketch-plans
by
W.
J.
Leake,
Travels
n
Northern
Greece
(1835) 187
and
Chris.
Wordsworth,
Greece
1839) 230.
65
The Roman
wall on the north
seems
to have
been
rebuilt
to match the
new
west side. The
irregular
Roman wall on the
east
may
have been left almost
unaltered;
outworks
would
have
been
advisable,
it
being mainly
without
towers,
but
none
has
been
noticed.
66
EA
1961
44;
Courtauld.
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194
A. W. LAWRENCE
was covered
by
a
round
corner
tower,
rectangular
towers
project
intermediately
at
intervals
of about
33
m,
and
a
horseshoe-shaped
pair
outflanks the main entrance.
An
unusually
well-preserved
ntermediate tower
is
7.15
m
wide
and
projects
6-5
m;
a
tall slit
opens through
the front and each
flank on
the
upper
storey.
The
curtains
now stand
as
high
as
the intermediate
towers, but the walk they bear passed through the horseshoe towers on which the parapet
was attached
midway
between the stone
crazy
paving
of
the walk and the
roof.
Each
horseshoe
tower contained
a
room
4
m
wide with
a maximum
length
of
nearly
5
m,
enclosed
by masonry
2-65
m
thick. An arched embrasure
in the
northern-the
southern
is
ruined-opens
straight
through
the centre of
a
presumed
mezzanine
centre of the lower
storey,
between
two that
slant
through
the
cheeks,
and
there are other embrasures
on the
upper
storey, diversely placed
so
as not to weaken
the
structure.
All
the
embrasures
are
splayed
at
so
mild an
angle
that
their extreme
contraction,
2
m
outwards,
leaves room for
a man to stand behind a
frame,
65
cm
thick,
that reduced the mouth to
a slit
(at any
rate on the
lower
storey).
A
brick arch
on
masonry
jambs
led to the main entrance of
the
fortress,
a
space
3-5
m
wide
and
4
m
deep,
covered
by
a vault
of
which
only
the
edges
remain.
A
portcullis
travelled
in
grooves 15
cm wide and
deep;
the winch was
operated
on the lost floor of a vaulted room
above.
The wall-walk
passed
through
that
room,
which was accessible
by
an arch
in
the
flank
of the southern
tower,
and
by
an
extant tunnel
through
the entire back
of the northern
tower,
lit
by
windows
on
the inward side
(PLATE
I2b).
Where the walk
emerges
from
the
tower,
the
top
of
the curtain is
broadened
towards
the
rear
by
a
landing
at the head of
a
staircase,
1-2
m
wide,
which
rests
upon
arches of
graduated
height.
A
narrower double
stair,
now
dilapidated,
rose
in
the same manner
(PLATE
3a)
upon
two
blind and
two
open
arches;
the
tallest,
in the
centre,
both
supported
a
landing
at
the
stairhead
and
gave
access underneath
to
the
doorway
of a tower that has fallen.
The lower arch ends
externally against
a
postern
close
to
the attachment of
the
tower
flank;
half of
the broken
lintel is
preserved,
below
the
fill
of
a relieving arch.
Probably Justinian
did
not
wall
villages
far
away
from the frontier zone.
The little
fort at
Plataea-a
place
he refortified
according
to
Procopius-might
have been
a
refuge
for local
peasants,
but
since
they
could
escape
invaders
by retiring
to Mount
Cithaeron
with their
animals,
a
more
likely
purpose
was to enable
a detachment
of soldiers
to remain
in
safety,
watching
and
reporting
enemy
movements
in
the low
undulating
country
overlooked
from
that
position
on
the north
edge
of
a
plateau.
Defensibility
against
manual
weapons
was
assured
by
the
rectangular
towers
that
project
in
every
direction,
but the structure
is
abysmal.67
The
fort was
erected,
rather than
built,
by superimposing
blocks
taken from
the
city
wall
of
Alexander's
time;
most of these are
rectangular,
but some
had
originally
been
keyed
together
by fitting
a
protrusion
on one into
a
rebated
corner of
another,
and the
Byzantines
did
not
reinstate them in the same order. (On PLATEI3b, a photograph of the exterior of a tower,
daylight
shows
beneath
two
blocks,
each
rebated
at a
corner.)
Haste
alone would excuse
such
casual
treatment,
and
a
barbarian
thrust
towards
Corinth
was
presumably
the
emergency
that
impelled
it.
In
Justinian's
reign,
defences far
behind the
Balkan frontier
were
needed
against
enemies
of
immense numerical
superiority
but
incapable
of
maintaining
a
protracted
siege; any
barbarian horde
that had
penetrated deeply
into
Byzantine
territory
must have relied
on
foraging
for
subsistence,
and so was bound to move
from each
district in turn when
no
more
supplies
could be
found there. The
emperor's expenditure
on barrier-walls
is
comprehensible
67 Washington, AJA'
6
(1890) pl.
33;
Courtauld
A63/3590o.
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196
A. W.
LAWRENCE
who
had been trained to
arms
in
the
habitual
fighting
between
rival factions at the
chariot-races. The
garrison
of
6,ooo
men
rode to the
main
gate74
and
forced
a
way through,
trampling
over the
crowd,
composed mainly
of women and
children,
who were
rightly
even
more
anxious to
escape
the
impending
horrors.
These
soldiers
would,
as
usual,
have
been
mercenaries recruited from barbarous peoples, owing no loyalty to the Empire; if taken
prisoner,
or
if
their
pay
were
in
arrears,
they
were
always ready
to
join
the Persian
army
instead.
Their morale
was,
no
doubt,
at its
highest
when
they
were
behind
uncommonly strong
fortifications,
and
perhaps
that
was one of the
motives
that
impelled
the
building
of
some
that were of
gratuitously
ostentatious
excellence;
of these
Nicopolis
is
an
example,
and
Antioch
became another
shortly
after
Chosroes
retired to his own
realm,
when
he had
burnt
as
much
of the
city
as
he could and
depopulated
it.
Although
Chosroes eft the
wall
intact,
the Antioch
revived
by Justinian
was
newly
fortified,
not
merely
at
the weak
point
where the
Persians had entered
but,
it would
seem,
around
much
or
possibly
all
of the
immensely long
perimeter,
of which
very
little is
preserved.
Natural
causes and
robbery
of stone
long ago
reduced
it
to
fragments
on
the
mountain,
but a forest
of towers stood in the flat
valley
below till an
earthquake
in
1872
destroyed
the town, which
was rebuilt with
their
material.
The one
spectacular
remnant
of
the whole
enceinte
is now
called,
in
both
Arabic and
Turkish,
the 'Iron
Gate';
it was built
across the
deep
ravine
cut
by
a seasonal
torrent
(FIG. o).75
Seen from
without,
only
two rather
narrow windows
interrupt
masonry
that
stands like
a sheer
cliff
over the arch
through
which
the stream can
flow,
where
an
iron
grille
must have been
fixed
in
accordance with old
Greek
usage;
probably
that was
the
'gate'
which
gave
rise to
the
modern name.
At
the
back,
the
thickness of the
masonry
is
reduced to form
a
ledge
that
carries the
wall-walk,
beside
the two
windows,
which command
a
view downstream. The stark
boldness of the
concept
is
in
keeping
with
Justinian's
taste
(e.g.
as
manifested
in
Ayia Sophia),
and the
great
height
is
consistent
with
his
habit
of
raising
unsatisfactorily ow fortifications.
Some lost towers
on a
very
important
sector
of Antioch
were
exceptionally
tall;
they
stood
on a natural terrace where
the
wall
turned to climb the mountain.
The
engraving
of a
drawing
by Cassas76
s the sole
authority
for the fortifications
along
the
outward
edge,
where twin
towers rose
two or three
storeys
above
an
intervening
curtain
that
was
intact
up
to
a
cornice
which must
have extended
the
wall-walk.
Two other
towers,77
nwards towards the
ascent,
are illustrated on
the same view
and
(with trifling discrepancies)
on
one
by
Bartlett,
published
in
1838.
From
their
appearance,
none
of these towers
can
have
been
appreciably
earlier
than
Justinian,
who was the
last
emperor
to build
on
a
grand
scale
at
Antioch,
and
beyond
reasonable doubt
they
can be
ascribed
to
him,
particularly
on
comparison
with
Terracina.
The
ascent itself is the one
lost
sector of
Antioch for
which
there
exist
fully
intelligible
data.
It appears in the background
(FIG.
I I)
of
both the illustrations, looking straight upwards,
also
in a
distant
lateral
view,
again
by
Bartlett,78
rom the
Orontes
bridgehead;
a
description
by
Col. F. R.
Chesney
was written
before
I868.79
He
estimated
the
height
of the curtains as
50
to
60o
eet,
and the width
of
the walk
upon
the cornice
as
8 or
Io
feet. The towers contained
74 Probably Justinian
did
not
appreciably
alter this
entrance,
to
judge
from
the
engravings
of
views from both
back
and front
by
L. F.
Cassas,
Voyage
ittoresque
e
la
Syrie...
(1797-9)
xi
I,
xiii
I.
The inner
portion
resembled Theodosian
entrances to
Constantinople except
for
a
greater
thickness
of
the
flanking
towers and an inward
prolongation
of
the
passage
by
means of
spurs.
A
low
outwork
seems to
have been
a
proteichisma,
doubled to contain two
successive
archways.
75
Over-romanticized
in
the sketch
by
W. H. Bartlett
engraved
for Fisher's
Views
J.
Carne,
Syria,
The
Holy
Land,
Asia
Minor,
etc. i
(1836) 63).
76
Cassas,
op.
cit.
i
7,
xiii
2.
77
Carne,
op.
cit.
iii
(1838)
11.
7s
Ibid.
i
(1836)24.
79
I
know of
Chesney's
account
only
from
quotations
by
some Victorian author.
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A
SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
197
FIG. 10.
Antioch. 'Iron
Gate'
(after
Bartlett)
three storeys resting on brick arches, and a small cistern in the base; an internal staircase,
mentioned
by Chesney,
must
have continued to
the 'stone
platform'
of the
roof,
where its
exits
presumably
were covered
by
the
little excrescences
represented by
both
draughtsmen.
They
have made
plain
that
most,
if
not
all
the
towers,
resembled
in
style
those on the
terrace,
and
Chesney
confirms the
uniformity
of
construction,
'about
30
feet
square', projecting
both
forward
and backward 'so as to
defend the interior side as well as
the exterior face of the
wall';
low doors to the walk
along
the curtains had the
effect that it
could be
regarded
as
connecting
'a
chain of small
castles'. The
gradient
was so
steep
that the walk
composed
'a
succession of
steps
between the
towers,
which are
very
near each
other,
and have a
storey
rising
above the
wall,
to
protect
the
intervening
portions
from the
commanding ground
outside'.
Chesney
would,
of
course,
have been able to
verify
that
the wall-walk
and tower
platforms
could not be
overlooked from anywhere on the upper part of the slope, and presumably the designer had
also taken care that
they
should be out of reach of
missiles
coming
at
a
low
trajectory.
Barely
half
the
perimeter
of
Dara,80
which was
almost
3
km
long,
remains
in
fairly intelligible
though
ruinous
condition;
it
included
the crests of
three
hills,
and the whole site is
intersected
by
a
small
river,
which
periodically
overflowed
through
arches that
were
gridded
for
security
(in
accordance with
ancient Greek
practice).
The
double enceinte of Anastasius
I
was rebuilt
stronger by Justinian,
improved by
his
successor,
and
presumably repaired
or restored
later,
when the
city
was twice
captured
by
the
Persians but
recovered
by
the
Byzantines.
The basic
80
Procopius,
Bell. ii
13 17-18;
Aed.
ii
I
14-25;
Crow,
rayla 4
(1981)
12
figs.
2-12.
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198
A. W. LAWRENCE
FIG.
I
I.
Antioch. Detail
of
engraving (Cassas)
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A
SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
199
scheme
(which
was,
no
doubt,
subject
to
modification
to suit differences of
terrain)
must
be
due
to
Justinian;
it
provided
huge apsidal
towers,
some at least
with windows in a
circular
lower
storey
which
is
sturdily
domed at
curtain
level,
while at intervals of not more
than
20
m
were
interposed rectangular
turrets,
vaulted
at
roughly
the same level. We know
from
Procopius that Justinian's endeavour to prevent the inner wall being overlooked from
elephants,
and even
from
siege-mounds,
resulted
in
still
greater
height
than at
Antioch-
00oo
eet
in
towers and
60o
feet
in
curtains,
which
he
backed with a
roofed
'stoa',
no
longer
visible
(cf.
a
feature at
Sergiopolis,
described
below).
There were defensive
positions
at
three
levels
in
towers
and
two
in
curtains,
where the old
battlements had been
reduced
to
slits
beneath
30
feet
of
added
masonry,
which seems to have
been no thicker than a
parapet.
Justinian
also thickened
and
raised the outer
wall,
making
it a
really
serious obstacle to
the
advance of
siege-engines,
although
only
a
breastwork;
its
height
seems to
have been
about
3
m
to
the
walk. The
space
between the two
walls was not less than
50
feet
wide;
the
townspeople
put
their cattle
and other
animals
there whenever
a
Sassanian
force
obtruded. Where
feasible,
Justinian
added
a
third line
of
defence
by
cutting
a
ditch with vertical
sides
in
hard
rock,
so
far in advance of the outer wall that a
proteichisma
must have existed to
overlook it.
The
height
at
Dara
seems
to have been
altogether exceptional.
Procopius
writes as
though
the
dimensions
he records
for
Martyriopolis,s8
another
city
on the
Sassanian
frontier,
were
startling
enough; Justinian
there
increased the
thickness of the wall
from
4
to
12
feet and
the
height
from
20 to
40
feet.
Sergiopolis/Resafa,
the
capital
of an
Arab
principality subject
to
Justinian,
had
been
surrounded
by
a wall
proof
against
Beduin
only;
he
replaced
it
by
one82
calculated
to resist
the full
might
and
offensive
skill of
the
Sassanian
empire,
with a
surrounding
bank
and
ditch
(which
at
the
downward
end holds
rain)
to
impede
access,
except
by
causeways
to the
gates.
An
oblong
expanse
of
sloping
ground
was
enclosed within
four
straight
sides,
all
of which
differ in length; they total some I-9 km. The curtains were 0o-II-50 m high to the open walk.
In
the
lower half
they
are
solid,
about
3
m
thick; above,
they
were
divided into
three
approximately
equal
sections.
A
ponderous
arcade
runs
along
the
inward
face,
giving
light
to a
vaulted
corridor,
and
then,
in
most
parts,
there
follows the
masonry
of
the
frontage,
interrupted by
a slit
opposite
the centre
of each arch.
But,
midway
between
every
two
towers,
a
piece
of
frontage,
5
m
long,
projects
3
m
and
supports
an
outward
expansion
of
the
corridor,
which
thus
suddenly
becomes
5
m
wide
within the
enclosing
masonry,
though only
for
a
distance
equal
to
the
span
of
the arch
behind,
3-20
m.
These little
salients
appear
to
have
been
no taller than
the
curtains
in
general:
the
roofing
carried the
wall-walk,
and the
frontage
presumably
ended
by
forming
protrusions
of its
crenellated
parapet.
The
purpose
can
be
deduced
from
the fact that
a
slit
existed
in
each flank
as
well as
in
front;
defenders
of
the
corridor were thereby able to send missiles
along
the face of the wall without
incurring
serious
risk
to
themselves,
and
there
must
have
been
embrasures
in
corresponding
positions
above.
The
layout
of the
towers
at
Sergiopolis
took
account
of
the
corridor,
not
vice
versa. At
each
corner
stands
a
completely
circular
tower,
formerly
of
I2-I2.40
m
external
diameter,
with
its
wall
2-40-2-50
m
thick;
the
curtains
are
joined
to
it,
and
between
them
runs
a
passage
at
ground
level,
another from
the
corridor
to the floor
above,
and a
simple
doorway
from the
open
wall-walk
to the
third
storey.
Slits in
the lowest room
served
merely
for
light
and
ventilation;
those in
the
upper storeys
were
accessible
through deep
vaulted
embrasures.
Intermediate towers
are
disposed
somewhat
irregularly,
often
only
about
50
m
apart
and
81
Aed.
ii
2.
82
Ibid. ii
9
3-9;
W.
Karnapp,
Die
Stadtmauer
on
Resafa
n
Syrien
1976).
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200
A. W. LAWRENCE
never as much as
ioo
m.
Most of them
are
rectangular,
of
9-Io
m
a
side;
three
are similar
in
every
respect
but for
a
beak,
which
makes
them
pentagonal.
The
arrangements
of
storeys
and slits are
practically
the
same
as
in
the corner towers. Short
spans
were covered
by
vaults,
but
larger by
wooden
flooring,
set on corbels. The corridor
passes
behind
some
towers,
others
are backed by double staircases of converging flights, resting on arches.
There is a main entrance to
Sergiopolis
on
each
of its four sides. The arched
gateway
was
put
at the
centre of
a curtain that links two
rectangular
towers.
Except
on
the
west
side,
which
opens
on to the
Syrian
Desert,
each
gate
was
approached
through
a
court bounded
externally
by
a wall almost
as thick as the
curtain;
this
is
aligned
with the
outward
faces of
the towers
at the east and south entrances but
at
the
northern turns back to
join
the
corners
of the towers. Details of the scheme
vary
at
every
entrance,
and there is
a
major
difference
at both the
southern
and the northern
in
that their courts are
broader
(I9-2o
and
21
m
instead
of about
14
m)
because the towers
are
narrower;
they
project
to the
customary
II
m.
Presumably
these
discrepancies
were
enforced
by
the needs
of traffic.
Zenobia,
a small
town of
Palmyrene origin
on
the
Euphrates,
lay
abandoned
inside
a
ruined
wall until
Justinian
revived it as a
garrisoned
fortress.83
He widened the area that had been
enclosed,
and
extended it
up
a
hill
that had overlooked
it,
where he
built
a
fortlet on
the
summit and
scarped
the
slopes
to
make it difficult of access from outside.
On
sectors overlooked
from
cliffs he added structures
called
'wings'
(ptera)
which 'looked as
though
they hung
off
the
wall';
they
cannot
have
resembled
the
improvised
overhang
that
collapsed
at Antioch
earlier
in
the
reign,
and should
perhaps
be visualized as continuous covered
balconies.
They
were
the more needed because solid
masonry
rose to their
level,
uninterrupted
even
by
slits.
The
towers
appear
to
have
all
been
rectangular;
whether
they
differed much
in
size has not
been ascertained.
7.
TRUNCATION OF
THE
EMPIRE,
LATE
SIXTH AND
EARLY SEVENTH
CENTURIES
The immediate successors of
Justinian
(who
had exhausted
the
treasury)
built
very
little.
In
the
Balkans
they
seem
to have made
repairs
at
a
few fortifications
and to
have
blocked
(at
least
partially)
some
gateways,84
while
the frontier still held. After
the barbarians
poured
in,
the loss of
territory
became so
rapid
that there would not have been
time to construct
new
defences,
nor,
in
general,
could
any
benefit have resulted.
In
Italy,
however,
there was
a
fair
chance
of
stopping
the
advance of
the Lombards
by
placing
forts
at
strategic
points,
and the discontinuous ruins of one have
probably
been discovered
at
Filattiera.85
No
innovations are visible
in Africa
after
Justinian's
reign. Nothing
is known of
any attempt
to
build
obstacles
to
Arab
conquest
in
Syria,
Egypt,
North
Africa,
or
Spain.
8.
SMALL-SCALE WORK AGAINST THE ARABS, MID SEVENTH-EARLY EIGHTH
CENTURIES
A
new,
and
extremely
serious,
menace
arose
upon
the Arab creation of
a
fleet to
convey
expeditionary
forces. Its first recorded
exploit,
in
or
shortly
before
649,
was the
capture
and
sack
of
Salamis/Constantia,86
the
capital
of
Cyprus;
the Arabs
thereby
obtained
some
83
Aed.
i
8
8-25;
Karnapp,
op.
cit.
27 figs.
Ioo-9;
Lauffray,
AnnArchSyrie
(1951)
41 pl. iv-plan questioned
by Karnapp's
n.
99;
A.
Poidebard,
La
Trace
de
Romedans le disert
de
Syrie
(1934) pls.
82-4.
84
But
T. Ivanov ascribes
to
Justinian
the
total
blocking
of
three
out
of
the
four
main entrances and
of
all
the
posterns
yet
found at
Abritus
(Abritus 239,
241,
248).
85
Bullough,
BSR
24
(1956)
14
pl.
v.
The
only
distinct
feature
is a
tower,
less
than
4
m
square
but
16
m
high,
set
back
from a tall concrete
base above
which it
is faced with
stone;
the
courses alternate
between
half and full
height
as was
customary
in north Africa.
86
Geo.
F.
Hill,
History
of
Cyprus
i
(1940)
284, 285,
326-9;
Antiquities
Dept.
Salamis
1966)
5.
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A SKELETAL
HISTORY OF
BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
201
measure
of control over
the whole
island,
which
they
compelled
to
pay
tribute. The
fleet
returned
in
653/4
to crush a
revolt,
and
again
captured
Salamis,
which this time
was
more
thoroughly destroyed,
and
the
killing
of
inhabitants
allegedly proceeded during
forty days.
An
unimpressive
fortification,
limited to the central
part
of the ancient
city,
had been
built
hastily, probably in readiness for this second attack-the earlier may have been unexpected.
The
wall,
of which
very
little is now
exposed,
consists of reused material
and
incorporates
stretches
of
buildings
that
were
already
ruined,
as had
long
been
a
regular practice, especially
characteristic
ofJustinian's
officers
in
Africa.
Even the first
capture
of Salamis
appears
to have been
accompanied
by
horrors. The news
must
immediately
have
caused
profound apprehension
along
the
opposite
coast of Asia
Minor,
but
apparently
the
defences there that had
repelled
the Isaurians were believed to be
still
adequate, except
at
Side. That
city
had
been
prosperous
on account of its
shipping,
which
must have
dwindled
owing
to the Moslem
conquests
of so
many Byzantine
provinces,
leaving
it no
special
asset
apart
from a
reduced trade
in
timber from its hinterland
(where
travellers
of the nineteenth
century
rode for hours
through
oak
forest).
A
shrunken
population
could
not man all the
long perimeter
of the old
enceinte; however,
it included a low
promontory,
suitable for a
very
capacious
refuge
(or
perhaps
to contain the whole
town)
if
converted into
an inner
fortress,
and this
was
effected
simply
by building
a
cross-wall on the
neck,
where
a
gap
of
some
330
m
had
intervened between
the
Hellenistic
defences
along
the
open
sea and
beside the harbour. The
cross-wall8'
was about
20
m
longer
because it
took
a
tortuous course
(PLATE
I4a)
incorporating
Roman structural
remains,
one of which is
an
arch that was
narrowed
to become the main
gateway.88
(An
inscription
of the third or fourth
century,
reused
as
building
material,89
has
mistakenly
been
thought
to date the
wall;
it names
a
comes,
Philippus
Attius.)
Midway
between
the two
shores,
the
stage
of the theatre was
replaced
by
a thin
barrier;
the auditorium
rises
9
m
to
the
highest
bench and so would have
provided
dominating
positions on both sides of the orchestra. The rest of the cross-wall was tall and sturdy. In the
piece
towards the
open
sea are two
almost
square
towers,
with facets of over 8
m
which differ
in
being
equipped
either
with slits alone or both slits and windows on one or two of their
three
storeys
still
preserved
to
heights
of
12-15
m.
The Arab fleet soon
undertook annual
expeditions
to
greater
distances. Rhodes was
plundered
in
653,
and
twenty years
later received
an
Arab
settlement,
which is
said
to
have
endured seven
years;90
presumably
it formed an
advanced
base
for
the
attempts
to
capture
Constantinople
in
674
and
678.
Though
the fleet was
used
primarily,
as
on such
occasions,
to
promote
grand strategy,
opportunities
to loot
places
of no
political consequence
would
scarcely
have been
neglected.
Since
all
shipping
between
Syria
and
Rhodes
naturally
kept
inshore while
passing
Lycia,
into which the Isaurians had been unable to
penetrate
because
of the mountainous interior, the earliest Byzantine fortifications on or near that coast should
have
originated
during
the
third
quarter
of the
century. Although
no ruin is
datable from
archaeological
or
(so
far
as I
know)
literary
evidence,
we
may unhesitantly
assume that the
first
precautions
included the
provision
of
strong
refuges,
each
by
the
speedy
method of
renovating
an
ancient
acropolis.
One is at
Telmessus/Fethiye,
the nearest
port
to
Rhodes,
at
the
head
of a
deep
inlet;
another,
at
Myra,
then a rich
city,
rises from the
plain
an hour's
87
A. M.
Mansel,
Die
Ruinen onSide
0,
figs.
12,
24-5, plan
in
pocket;
Courtauld;
P.
Knoblauch,
Die
Hafenanlagen
nddie
anschlieflenden
eemauernonSide
(Ankara
1977)
-not
seen.
88
The
junction
with
the harbour
wall is
thickened
into
forming
a
miniature
tower,
as
though
it had
flanked a lost
gateway.
The
corresponding junction
towards the
open
sea
has
fallen.
89
Foss,
Zeitschriftar
Papyrologie
nd
Epigraphik
6
(1977)
172.
90
Brook,
JHS
18
(1898)
187.
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A SKELETAL HISTORY
OF
BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
203
constantly
made
abrupt
turns but
only
three
or four towers
are
known to have
existed,
and
few data were recorded
by
excavators intent on
revealing
the Roman
monuments.
This
wall
ceased to be used
following
one or other of
the Arab
incursions.
Instead,
the
surviving
population
abandoned
the ancient
city
and settled outside
it,
on the
hill
now called
Ayasuluk,
the summit of which was ringed for the purpose with a strong fortification; one older feature
was
preserved,
the ornate 'Gate
of
the
Persecution'"99
hat
had formed the entrance to the
precinct
of the
Church of St.
John.
The defences
would,
in
any
case,
be
incomplete
owing
to the construction
of the Turkish
citadel;
their
remains100
are in
bad
condition,
and
may
not all be
contemporaneous.
Recent
excavations
on
an
eastern sector are said to
have
dated
it to the
eighth
century,
which should mean that
it was built
before
740,
when
Leo
III
broke
the
military
power
of the Arabs.
Here stood four
rectangular
towers and
three
triangular
salients,
which were
filled
solid.
Along
the south
end are
visible three
rectangular
towers
(actually oblong
beside the
frontage
of the
wall)
between one that is half-oval and
a
short
(probably
solid) triangle.
Probably
at the
same
time,
the twin towers
flanking
the
'Gate
of
the Persecution' were
made fit for
war
by
adding
beaks to the
square
ends.
A town wall at
Pergamon101
was
inadequately
recorded before its demolition
by
excavators,
who
attributed
it
to
Leo
III
(717-41).
The course
seems
to
have
followed contours
as
closely
as
possible,
with
flanking only
at
a
few
abrupt
turns,
apart
from a
pair
of
very
small
towers
beside
a
gateway;
one somewhat
larger
tower
overlapped
a
corner.
In
or about
718
the Arabs
lost
practically
the
whole of their
invasion
fleet,
during
and
on its return from
their last
siege
of
Constantinople,
and
they
never
regained
command of
the seas.
Subsequent
effort from
Syrian
or
Egyptian ports
was
limited
to small-scale
forays
or mere
piracy.
An
effective
Byzantine
countermeasure could have been
to
garrison
a
reconditioned
acropolis
or
a
new fort built for the
purpose.
In
727
Leo
III
and
his
son
(afterwards
Constantine
V)
renovated some
towers
at
Nicaea,
facing them with ashlar instead of the previous alternate bands of stone and brick. The change
of material conferred
only
a
slight
practical
benefit,
and
perhaps
a
stronger
motive was to
emphasize
the
military reliability
of
the Isaurian
dynasty,
as
an
antidote to the
frenzy
aroused
by
Constantine's
iconoclasm.
Certainly
Michael
III
felt no shame
over
reverting
to the
traditional method of
facing,
130 years
later,
for he
put
inscriptions
on
other towers to
commemorate his restoration of
them. Neither
Leo's
programme
nor
his affected
the
basic
design,
which
had
been modified
only
in
minor
respects
since the third
century,
chiefly
while
repairing
damage
caused
by
an
earthquake
in
368;
an
additional
tower
had
at
some date
been
inserted
midway
between
every
two
along
the
curtains,
but
precisely
resembled
them.
Even as late as
1204
the curtains did not
exceed
their
original height
(modest by Justinianic
standards),
and
the towers still
terminated
with
a low
room entered from
the
wall-walk;
replacements for lost merlons were backed, like their predecessors, by a short traverse102(when
measurable,
projecting
70
cm inwards and
85
cm
wide).
The
retention of
a
scheme
so
antiquated
is
not
really
comprehensible
unless
the wet ditch
that
confronted
assailants
in
Io97
had
already
existed
for several centuries.
An
example
of local
enterprise
far inland
(in
the
vicinity
of
Iconium/Konya)
was
pathetically
crude;
it
was
probably
undertaken soon
after
the Arabs
destroyed
the
nearby
town,
about
7oo,
and is known
by
the name of that
site,
Defile.103
It was an
attempt
to
make a
small
99
So
called
because
of
mistaking
the
subject
of
an
earlier
relief built into
the arch.
100
Miiller-Wiener,
IstMitt
11
(1961) 97,
102
fig.
23
Beil.
iii ii
101
Altertismer
von
Pergamon
i
2
305
pl. iii
Beib.
62.
I
-2.
102
W.
Karnapp
and A. M.
Schneider,
Die
Stadtmaueron
Iznik
(1938)
12,
I6
fig. 5-
103W. M.
Ramsay
and G. L. Bell, The Thousand nd One
Churches
(1909)
152,
542, 545 fig- I17-
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A SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
205
(although
at
least two
are
reconstructions)
remains on the
west
side
(PLATE
I7a),
which
is
straight
behind for its
whole
length
of over
300
m,
and
there
would have been another
straight
row of
six
instead of the
extant
four
(FIG.
I2)
along
the
south
end
but
for the
interposed
projection
of the
barbican,
on which there is
space
only
for two
smaller towers. The towers
of full siz.evary between 6 and 8 m in width, and are placed at extraordinarilyshortintervals,
usually
of
8-12
m,
at
most
of
14
m.
The whole
of each
tower stands
forward from
a
continuous
wall.
The
lower
part,
accounting
for more than
half
the
height,
is
solid
and consists of
rubble,
strongly
bound
with lime mortar and brick
dust,
behind
a
facing
of
great
blocks;
in
the
upper
part,
bands
of small
stones,
often laid
in
three
courses,
alternate
with brickwork of similar
height.
A
low vault
covers
a
little
room,
more or less level with
the
top
of the block
facing
but over
2
m
inwards
from it on
the
flanks and
roughly 3
m inwards from the beak. It
is
extended
by
embrasures,
large enough
for
a man
to stand
within,
which
contract
just
before
the
exterior,
where
they
are
closed
except
for a narrow
slit;
sometimes
as
many
as
two or three
slits were
provided,
with one or two on each
flank,
sometimes
there
was
only
one
on a
single
flank. Each of these rooms
was
entered
separately, by
a
passage
tunnelled
straight through
from
the inward face
of
the
wall,106
which maintains the same thickness behind
the towers as
between them.
Each vault
supported
an
upper
room,
which
is more
spacious,
covered
by
a
taller
vault,
and
surrounded
by
a
larger
number of embrasures
hat end at
windows suitable
for
catapults;
a
doorway
in
the back
opens
off a
corridor,
2
m
wide,
tunnelled
longitudinally
within the thickness of the
curtains. This was overlaid
by
an
exposed
walk,
and a flat roof
at
the
same
level covered each tower.
A
crenellated
parapet
seems
to have bordered
curtains
and towers
alike,
rising
from a
height
of
10-I2
m
above the
steep
eastern side but
14-16
m
over
gentler
slopes.
Although
the
horrid
medley
of
the
facings
would not
have
shown
through
a
coating
of
plaster
and
limewash,
the
exterior described must have been
singularly ugly,
with
constant
differencein proportions.The single basicpatternof alternate beaked tower and shortcurtain,
repeated
over and over
again
along
the
west,
south,
and east of
the
citadel
(though
apparently
not on the
north,
which was
strong by
nature),
was
exceptionally practical
because adherence
to it
was
compatible
with variation
in
the
size,
shape
and
placing
of
features,
large
or
small,
presumably
to fit the
requirements
of the
ground,
the
contours
of which have
since
changed
through
erosion
and
the
accumulation
of refuse.
Embrasures,
for
instance,
are
variously
sited
for
no reason that
is now
intelligible.
In
general,
however,
the
dense
massing
of towers
in
alignment
must have
allowed
an
abnormal
concentration of cross-fire
against
any
distant
target
from
catapults
mounted on each
beak
and
outward
portion
of a
flank;
perhaps,
too,
the
length
and
angles
of each
beak were
specifically
ordained
so
that
oblique
fire
from the
flank of the next
tower
would
pass
clear of it
towards some
lateral
area that
offered
vantageto the
enemy.
The
exceptionally
narrow
space
between almost
every
couple
of
towers
was,
of
course,
dead
ground
to all
catapults,
but
abnormally
subject
to manual
weapons, particularly
stones,
thrown
from both
sides and from the
curtain.
These
advantages
were
obtained
at
an
inordinate cost of
construction;
that
may
in
part
explain why
no other
fort
except Pagnik
Oreni
is
known to
have been so
amply
equipped
with
towers. But
greater
importance
should
be attached to the
probability
that
only
a
very
small number of
forts
would
ever hold
enough
defenders
to
man
such a
wilfully
lengthened
perimeter;
Ankara,
on the other
hand,
was
certainly
pre-eminent
for
strategic
value.
The barbican
(FIG.
I12)
at
the middle of the south
end has
been
accepted
without demur
106
Whenever
these
passages opened
high
above
ground
they
must
have
been
reached
by
wooden
steps
or
a fixed
ladder. One of
the few still intact and
accessible
s
85
cm
wide,
and
5'35
m
long
to
the
inner
face
of
the thick vault.
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206 A. W. LAWRENCE
O 10
20
30
40m
0
5
10m
I
I
I
MAISON
TURQUE
FIG. 12. Ankara.
Plan of
refronted
polygon,
barbican,
and entrance
(Jerphanion)
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A
SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
207
as
an
addition of
the
ninth
century,
merely
because
one
of two
inscriptions
of an
Emperor
Michael
claims
credit
for
it;
the
other does
the like
for the south-west corner
tower,
which
he
can have
done no
more
than
repair
or
partially
reconstruct. That his work
on the
barbican
was
similarly
limited
may
be assumed
in
view
of the
precise
resemblance
in
technique
and
in
shape of towers to definitely original portions of the citadel. There is no other Byzantine
example
of
such a
barbican. It
is
a
representative
of
a
very
ancient oriental
typeo07
which
persisted
in
Asia
for
several
millennia;
the
width
is
always
greater
than
the
depth,
so
as
to
afford
space
for
traffic
to
turn at
right angles
between
two
gateways,
of
which the outer
was
entered
laterally.
The
barbican
at
Ankara was not
as tall
as
the
old wall
behind,s08
from
which defenders
could
shoot over
it;
their missiles
would
inevitably
have
fallen well
past
its
foot,
supplementing
closer
fire
off
the
barbican
itself
and
its
two
little
beaked towers.
The
jambs
of the
outer
gateway,
in
the
east
flank,
are
grooved (PLATE
8b)
for a
portcullis,
which
could be
raised
into
the
gap
between two lintel
blocks made from
column
shafts;
this
immediately
preceded
a
wider
two-leaved
gate
covered
by
a
vault. Then
followed a
court,
spacious enough
for a cart
to turn at
right
angles
into a vaulted
passage through
masonry
5'25
m
thick,
which ended at another two-leaved
gate.
The barbican thus
gave
far
greater
protection
than
if
it
had
been
of
the
regular Byzantine
type,
which
would
have
put
the
entrance
in the
outward
face;
the
actual
gateway
was so
overlooked
from
three directions that
attack with
manual
weapons
or with
a
ram
would
have
been
extremely
hazardous,
while the
enemy
had
scarcely any
chance
of
bringing
a
catapult
to
bear,
even with
oblique
aim.
The
whole area lies
within
the
outer
ward,
whatever their
relative dates
may
be.
No
other
Byzantine
structure
is
in
any way
comparable
with
that at
the
south-east
corner,
where
a
knob of
rock
rose
above
all
its
surroundings
and
was
completely
enveloped
by slightly
taller
masonry,
rather
in
the manner
of the
shell-keeps
built
in
France
and
England shortly
before and
after
I200.
The
shape
is
unparalleled
(FIG.
12;
PLATES
6b,
I7a).
An
irregular
polygon, of seven external facets and two more forming the back, encloses a roughly oval
space
of some
15
X
20
m
which was
never roofed
(and
if
it
contained
any
buildings, they
have
left no
trace).
The
chief or
even sole
purpose
of
the
back
may
have been
to
buttress the
front,
acting
as a
horizontal
arch
from the
ground
upwards.
The front
was
thicker,
exceeding
5
m
at
the
ruinous
top,
which
was
treated in
continuation of
the
adjoining
curtains. The crenellated
parapet
has
left
recognizable
tatters;
the
exposed
walk
alongside
has
vanished
owing
to the
collapse
of
its
support,
the
vault
that
covered the
corridor,
the
outward
edge
of which is still
bordered
by
masonry
2
m
thick
containing
embrasures. There is
some
reason
to
think that
the wall
(unlike
the
curtains)
was
solid below that
level,
because
there
are
no
doorways
in
the
inward
face;
the
outward face
has been
concealed
ever
since
the ninth
century,
except
in
the most
westerly
facet.
Presumably
the rest of it
had
suffered
damage
that
could not
safely
be remedied by usual methods of
repair,
and therefore was refronted
(as
shown on the
plan
by
hatching)
with
additional
masonry,
2-50-2-80
m
thick,
up
to a
somewhat
greater
height
than
previously (but
the
new
top
no
longer exists).
Additional
masonry
was
applied
also
along
the
contiguous
beginning
of
the east
side
(PLATE
17a),
where
it
composed
a
small new tower
and a
new
exterior
to
an
old
larger
salient. On
the west
face of
the
polygon
(PLATEI6b)
the
107
For
barbicans
of
the
Assyrian
period
see
my
Greek
Aims
in
Fortification
I979)
23,
25 fig.
io.
Every
entrance
to Hatra
was
approached
through
a
comparable
barbican,
probably
before A.D.
200
(W.
Andrae,
Die
Ruinenvon
Hatra
ii
(I912)
figs. 25-7,
30-2).
Descriptions
of
the
Round
City
of
Baghdad,
which
was
completed
about
766,
indicate that some
such work
existed
outside one
or
more of its
entrances
(K.
A.
C.
Creswell,
Early
Muslim
Architecture
(1958)
162). Many
undated
instances
in
Soviet
Turkestan
are relevant
because of the
initial
unity
of
the Islamic
conquests,
and
Mogul
barbicans of the same
type
followed
the
tradition
of
that
region.
108
Jerphanion's
restoration
(his
pl. 92) misrepresents
the
height
relation
of
barbican
and main
wall.
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208 A. W. LAWRENCE
addition
begins
with
a
rectangular
protrusion
against
which the wall of the outer ward was
intended
to
abut;
a
blocked
doorway,
more
than
half-way
up,
led
to
a walk
along
the lost
first
curtain
(where,
on the
photograph,
a
house
stands).
Since neither the
facing
of
the
polygon
nor the wall of the outer ward suffered
any
appreciable
damage
during
the
remainder
of the
Byzantine period, both must date'09 after the siege of 8o6, which nearly succeeded.
The
wall
enclosing
the outer ward
is
faced,
just
like the
polygon, entirely
with
reused
stone
below
a
brick
parapet.
The towers are solid to the same
height,
and
at
first
none
was
carried
up
to include
a
room above
it,
while the curtains
always
terminated with
an
exposed
walk.
These
divergencies
from the
methods
of
the
original
citadel all
made
for
quicker
and
cheaper
construction,
and resulted
in a less formidable barrier
although
the terrain
generally
was less
defensible
by
nature. The wall
climbed some
60o
m
along
a course
of
700
m
to
join
the
original
citadel. The
builders
presumably
worked southward from the
lip
of the
ravine,
but
also
ran
a
weak extension eastward
upon
it
to meet the
original
north-west corner and continued
below the
north end
in
a manner
suggestive
of
a
proteichisma
(so
far as can be seen
in
spite
of Turkish
alterations).
After
the
southward
wall
leaves the ravine
it
first
traverses more or
less flat
ground,
keeping
roughly
parallel
with the west side of the
original
citadel at an
average
distance of
slightly
over
Ioo
m. It
began
the definite ascent when it came
west of the
old south-west
corner,
and
then
swung
further outward
to the
main
gateway,
which
stands
directly
south
of
that
corner;
a series
of
gentle
bends follows
on the
way up
towards the
polygon,
but the
last remains
now
stop
45
m
short of
it,
where the
gradient
must have become
exceptionally steep.
The main
gateway,
from
which a track
climbed to the
barbican,
interrupts
a
short
piece
of wall between two
apsidal
towers,
one of which
(PLATEI7b)
has
a
diameter
of
I3-50
m
and
projects
i i
m. At
some later
date this entrance was
strengthened by
a barbican of
the habitual
Byzantine
type,
with a thin cross-wall
in
Byzantine
technique
between the
straight
flanks of
the towers, forming a court 5-6o m deep; its gateway is grooved for a portcullis. Semicircular
towers flanked
a
minor
gateway,
almost
opposite
one
through
the west side
of the
original
citadel.
Rectangular
towers,
interspersed
among
the
curtains,
usually
project
about 8
m
and
tend to be some
Io
m
wide;
they
are
spaced
nowhere less
than
twice as
far
apart
as
in
the
original
citadel,
occasionally
more than four
times,
but their
greater
width enabled
a
larger
number of
catapults
to be
mounted--eventually,
if
not
at
first.
For,
although
the
parapet
had
enclosed.only
an
open platform,
more brickwork was afterwards
imposed
to
form
a
room,
in
which
former
embrasures were
sometimes converted into windows.
New
parapets
were then
built;
one of the
merlons,
on
a
tower
flanking
a
minor
gateway,
is carved with
a
cross,
proving
that the increase
in
height
dates
from
a
time of
Byzantine
tenure.
In
the towers
flanking
the
main
gateway,
the room
was
floored well above the level of the former
parapet,
which was
blocked up, leaving the edges of merlons visible as vertical joints in the added brickwork.
The whole
design
of the
outer ward
was
traditional;
its one unusual feature
was
the
magnitude
of the
apsidal
towers
beside the
main
entrance,
and for
this there were
doubtless
more
precedents
than now
exist,
derived
from Roman
examples (such
as at
Babylon/Old
Cairo).
Even after
all
improvements,
the fortification
remained
poor compared
with the
original
citadel,
but was
by
no means
weak;
the
curtains,
though
little more than
half
as
thick
(in
fact,
about
3 m),
could
not
easily
be
breached,
while their
height
was
enough
to make
escalade
precarious.
If
properly
defended,
capture
should have entailed such
heavy
casualties
109 No valid
argument
can be based
on the fact that
the
stone
facing
of
the
entire wall came
from
buildings destroyed
in
630,
because these must
have been
500
m
distant
from the
new town and
there was
no reason to clear
away
their ruins
except
when need
arose
for
the material.
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A SKELETAL HISTORY
OF
BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
209
as
might
deter the
enemy
from
proceeding upwards
against
the
original
citadel,
knowing
that
far
more serious osses would be
incurred
in
attacking
it. For
the
defenders,
the
worst
drawback
of the
outer wall was
the
inordinate
length
of
perimeter
that
might
simultaneously
be
liable
to
real
or
feint
assaults,
especially
if
catapults
had
failed to hold
the
enemy
at a
distance.
But
the population of the town is likely to have increased greatly under the protection of the
citadel,
and
probably
most
took
refuge
in
the outer
ward,
where
they
would bear the
brunt
of
engagements
at close
quarters by
throwing
stones and
using any
other manual
weapons,
in
numbers that
might
compensate
for
lack of
proficiency.
10.
ADDITIONS
AT
CONSTANTINOPLE PRIOR TO
C.
850
The Theodosian double line ends
almost
I
km
short of the
Golden
Horn,
at
a
point
where
it
must have
joined
older
defences;
these were
gradually
superseded during
the next few
centuries
by
a
succession
of
new
fortifications'10 hat
allowed
the
city
to
expand.
The earliest
of them-it
already
existed in
626-was
a broad salient
called
The Pteron
(i.e. 'Wing')
which
enclosed
a
large
part
of the
Blachernae
suburb;
its flanks
projected
at least
200
m.
Heraclius' wall above the Golden Horn was built in 626-7. It is so placed that it normally
incurred
comparatively
little
danger,
and was
given
a
simple,
conventional
design,
with
rather
small
rectangular
towers.
In
the
siege
of
1204
the towers were
raised
by
two
or
three
wooden
storeys;111
use
of this
ancient
device
could have been
anticipated by
Heraclius.
Between
813
and
820
Leo
V
added
an
outwork
in
front of the
Pteron.
Emperors
n
several
centuries
undertook renovations
which
may
have
been
general
or limited to
parts only,
but
surely
altered details of
the
scheme
and
possibly
modified
the
course. The
existing
ruin
(FIG.
13)
can
be
recognized
as a tall
proteichisma,
raised
by
vaulting
instead of solid
masonry,
and its
front
is
extraordinarily
distant
from
the Pteron wall
(well
over
20
m at
most
points).
But
Leo's
proteichisma
seems
to
have been a
feeble
obstacle.
Perhaps
it
resembled
one
in
central
Asia
Minor,
the least
imperfect
relic
of the
earliest
stage among
the
meagre
ruins
at
Seg
Kalesi,112
a
hilltop
site
conjecturally
identified with
Thebasa,
which
was
fortified
by
Nicephorus
I in
805,
captured by
the Arabs
in
8o6,
and
recaptured
by Nicephorus
in
807;
the
fact that
Leo
held
an
exalted
position
in
his
army may
be
relevant. The
proteichisma
cannot
have been much
taller than
a
man,
the
masonry
being
only
about a
metre thick. The
front is
straight along
the
50
m
preserved,
to the corner
of
an
oblique
return to
the
wall,
which
is
otherwise
Io-I
m
distant on an
upper
level. Hence the
top
would have been
overshot
by
missiles
discharged
from the wall
on
any
trajectory.
Apparently
within a
couple
of
decades after
Leo's death
in
820
the
Blachernae
proteichisma
was
thought
untenable
against
determined
assault because it
could
not
sufficiently
be
overshot;
we
do
not know whether
it
remained
entirely
his
work
till
that
time,
or
was
already
in
process
of improvement.The solutionadopted (FIG. 3) went to the extreme of building three towers1a3
to a
height
of some
26
m,
projecting
forward from the
Pteron,
so
that
catapults
on
the third
storey
could
shoot across the
whole
outwork
although
that
had
been not
only
strengthened
but
also
raised.
Each
tower
ends
bluntly
with three facets of a
hexagon
or,
in
the case of one
attached to a
bend,
of a
heptagon
in
which
part
of the back
stood free for
shooting
towards
the rear.
Spacious
embrasures lead to
slits;
there are six on as
many
exposed
facets of the
heptagon,
five on those of
the
intermediate
hexagon,
one
alone at the
centre of the other
(Tower
15)
which
overlaps
the western return
of the
proteichisma.
110
Landmauer
i
I18
pl.
40.
111
Geoffroy
de
Villehardouin states that
the
Byzantines
spent
most
of Lent
adding
these wooden
storeys
to the
towers,
before the Crusaders
attacked
from
shipboard.
112
Ramsay
and
Bell,
op.
cit.
491
fig.
366.
113
Landmauer
i
fig.
32 pls.
40-2.
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210
A. W. LAWRENCE
IZ
O 10 20
30m
FIG.
13.
Constantinople.
Plan of
part
of
outwork
and
Pteron
with
towers
(Landmauer)
The second
of Leo's
successors,
Theophilus
(829-42),
repaired
or rebuilt
many
towers of
the wall
along
the
shore,
where their
design
was
appropriately unenterprising.
Few survived
unaltered to
1453.
II.
EARLY AND
MID TENTH
CENTURY:
ATTALEIA, SAMOTHRACE, PHILIPPI,
KYRENIA
In
904
Moslem
pirates
raided
Salonica,
and
allegedly
carried
off
22,000
saleable
inhabitants
together
with the inanimate loot. This
calamity
would have
been
enough
to rouse both the
reigning
emperor,
Leo
VI
(who
died
in
911),
and the
regent
for his infant successor to the
danger
that threatened another
seaport,
Attaleia/Antalya,
because its shrunken
population
could not
hope
to defend the
long
Hellenistic
perimeter. Inscriptions
dated to
912
and
916
record
shortening by
means of cross-walls
(together
with
a
simpler, perhaps
still
largely
Hellenistic,
barrier
along
the
harbour);
mention of 'the second wall'
implies
that one
had
already
been
completed
during
a first
stage
of the
programme.
Considerable
though
fragmentary
remains
of both are
sketchily
attested
in
a
plan
that Austrian
archaeologists
published
in
I890.114
And the
entire course
of each is marked as
clearly
visible,
except
for
a few
severely
ruined stretches
or actual
gaps,
on
an
incompetently
drawn
plan
of uncertain
date
(FIG.
14),
reproduced
by
the Curator of the
Antalya
Museum,
S.
Fikri,
in
his book on
the monuments
of the
province, Antalya
Livasi
Tarihi,
which was not
published
till
shortly
before
Turkey
discarded
the Arabic
alphabet
in
1928.
Fikri,
whose
age appeared
to
be at
114
See
n.
17
above.
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A SKELETAL
HISTORY OF
BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
211
0
50m
N
A
-SEA:
CITY
WALL
PROTEICH
ISMA
INNER
WALLS
RUINED
FiG.
14.
Attaleia.
Plan
of
late
defences
(Fikri)
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212
A. W. LAWRENCE
O
lm
FIG.
15.
Attaleia.
Sketch-plan
of
gatehouse (Author)
least
seventy
in
1950,
told
me
then
how he had watched with
impotent regret
the
progressive
destruction of walls
throughout
his life
(and,
some months
later,
an intact
Hellenistic
tower
beside the harbour was
demolished
in
my
own
presence).
He would
certainly
have
corrected
any flagrant
errors
in
the
plan.
On
it
the
two
wallsl15
are
stylistically distinguished;
the inner
one
(towards
the
north)
seems to have been the
more
formidable,
as befitted the
purpose
if
the small and
compact
enclosure,
formed
by
it
and
a
piece
of Hellenistic
city
wall,
was
intended
for
a
citadel that could
be used as
a
last
refuge.
In
1950
I
could find
no remnant of either
wall
apart
from the
ponderous
tower-gatehouse
(FIG.
15)
of the
larger
enclosure
and a
piece
of one
adjoining
curtain;
the other had
been
broken
off. This bent entrance is
not shown on the
Fikri
plan,
which marks
only
an
ordinary
tower
(probably
the
third or
fourth
from
the west
end of the south
Byzantine
cross-wall).
A
barrel-vault
covers the
square portion
of
the
interior
between
the arches over
the
outer
and
inner
gateways
and the
alcoves of the other
two sides.
A
little
fort
on Samothracell6
must have
been
built
against
Moslem
pirates,
who
operated
constantly
from their base
in
Crete
until the
Byzantines
took
it
in
960.
Excavation
uncovered
115
I
am indebted
to Dr. G.
L. Lewis and
Professor Seton
Lloyd
for
kindly
reading
the third
line
of the
Turkish
key
as
'I
Kale',
meaning
an internal
fortress
(though
its defences
on the
north and
east,
if not also
on
the
west,
were formed
by
the
city
wall). My photographs
of
the
gatehouse
from north-
west
and
south-west
(Courtauld
A5I/408-9)
are foreshortened.
116
Hesperia
37 (1968) 204-
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A
SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
213
four coins of the tenth
century;
one of
them,
which
lay
in
the
foundation
fill,
was issued
between
919
and
944.
The site is on a
plateau
just
above the
uppermost
outskirts of the
pagan
Sanctuary,
from which
all
the material was derived. The
wall,
some
2
m
thick,
could have
carried
a
parapet
and a walk of
generous
width,
probably
at no
great height.
The exterior
is
roughly square (36-8
m
each
side) except
that
two
towers, 3
m
wide, project 4
m
southward
from
the corners of the south
side,
and
may
have been balanced
by
a lost
pair
on the
north.
...;~~
C~is2
.28;.9?,
O 0.0oo
6p-/64
p:P?.O
'20P/62'
u
_389./9
fP:
40
29/. /O
CHAPELLE
.00.7b'
cI"I-EoN~E.
.
76.00
s A10
to
1
o ,o
20
30
1.,1-48
,,rr.2~
fPOfRE,i]j
~FP
~,7J-~.
10J~
I
(-vL-
-
.o~
4s
r-
.',,~:
e^w
POT.
PNE
./Vj,
V-98
2270
i~Z~~i6
2
j?
(
,A
FIG.
I6. Philippi.
Plan of fort on summit
(BC(H)
During,
one
may
suppose,
the fourth-sixth
centuries
a
thorough
reconstruction was
completed
of ancient walls
that
both surrounded
Philippi
and intersected it at various levels
of the
great
hill;
the
summit,
in
the former
acropolis,
retained its
purely
military
function."'
It
alone,
no
doubt,
constituted the kastronwhich
Nicephorus
Phocas
renovated,
according
to
his
inscription
of the
year 963;
the end of the
enceinte
along
its outward face includes less
masonry
of
large
blocks
(then already 1300 years old)
than
rubble
obviously
of two
periods,
one of which
might
be
his. However
that
may
be,
he
surely
constructed the internal court
(FIG. 16)
of the
enclosure,
with the so-called
'keep'
(FIG.
17)-a
feature that could not
fail
to
bring lasting
honour to
the
emperor
who associated his name with it. It filled the
gap
between
two partition walls that project at right angles to one another from the enceinte, in conjunction
with which
they
delimited a court of
some
45
x
23
m
in a
corner of the summit enclosure
(which
was
roughly
diamond-shaped
with a maximum
length
of
160
m
and width of
70
m).
Each
partition
was thick
enough
to
carry
a
parapet
and a
walk,
probably
accessible
in
one
case from
a
curtain of the
enceinte,
in
the other
through
the
Byzantine
encasement of
an
ancient
tower;
neither communicated with the
intervening
'keep'.
Travellers had much
specious
justification
for
applying
the term
'donjon'
or
'keep'
to the
tower
which,
but for a
careless
layout,
would have been about
12
m
square,
is walled with
117
Ducoux and
Lemerle,
BCH
42
(1938) 4
pls.
ivA,
vi vii.
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A SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
215
unusually good
rubble
nearly 3
m
thick,118
and was
taller than
any
other
structure
in
sight;
part
of it still rises
12
m
above
ground,
though
somewhat reduced
in
height
(FIG.
I7).
The
only
original
doorway119
opens
1.50
m
above the
present
external
ground
level,
and could
be
held closed
by
a
massive draw-bar.
A
winding
stair
ascends beside
it
in
the
thickness
of the
wall and must have cast a glimmer of light in the ground floor, 6 m square, which is covered
by
a dome on
pendentives.
The
upper
rooms-one
on
the
flat
top
of the
dome,
and
two
more,
floored with wood-were rather
larger;
the lower two
were
lit
through only
two
or
three
embrasures
apiece,
and some or
perhaps
all of these ended at slits. The lost
top
floor
was,
no
doubt,
provided
with
apertures
for
shooting
in all
directions;
both
partitions
could be
enfiladed,
while
the
position
near the
centre of the enclosure
gave
a
comprehensive
view of the
entire
summit. Fallen tiles indicate the material
(though
not
the
shape)
of the
roof; they
are
thick
enough
for
men to have
congregated
on
it.
The dimness
of
the
interior,
up
to
the
height preserved, proves
that
the tower
was
not
residential,
therefore
not a
keep;
at
most,
the rooms could have been used as dormitories
or
for
refuge,
but
storage
is
the
likely
purpose.120
The chief motive for
building
the tower
was
unquestionably
to
safeguard
the inner
court,
in which the back of the enceinte is lined with
barracks;
these could
have
held
at
least
fifty
beds in double rows and
a few more
for
higher
ranks
in
a
single
row beside the
gate. Evidently
the
garrison
of
the enclosure
lived
here,
ready
for
emergency.
And
the court
would have been
capable
of continued
resistance,
thanks
to
the
tower,
if
the
enemy
had
penetrated
into
the
enclosure
(which,
properly
defended,
should
have
been
impregnable
against
overt
attack,
but
there
was
always
a risk of
surprise).
The
Byzantine recovery
of
Cyprus
in
965
was doubtless consolidated
by fortifying
the
best
landing-places,
one
of which
would
inevitably
have been
Kyrenia.
A
fort,
of which the
remains
can still be seen
in
the otherwise Frankish and Venetian castle beside
the
harbour
there,
may
have stood
till
688 when
a
treaty
obliged
the
Byzantines
to
demilitarize
the whole
island,
and
there is no reason to think it had been repaired during the Arab period that followed.
A
replacement
for its south wall
may
therefore
be ascribed
(though
not
confidently)
to the
tenth
century.121
It
was thicker
than
its
predecessor,
and from it
projected
three
pentagonal
beaked
towers,
close
together.
But
Venetian additions above have left no
really
precise
data
on them.
12.
QALCAT
SIM'AN,
979,
AND
SMALLER
BEACON
FORTS
Insufficiency
of
data
prohibits any
attempt
to
describe
a
great
work,
mainly
of
979-89,
the
Armenian
city
wall at
Ani,
with
its
sturdy
apsidal
towers which
may
have
been
built
under
Arab
as well
as
Byzantine
influence.122
It
was
evidently
far
superior,
though
alike
in
design
and
execution,
to a
contemporary Byzantine
fortress
of
rather similar
scale,
which
has been
adequately studied. This, however, must not be accepted as representative of the age, for it
was
hurriedly
contrived
in
979
to
protect
the
monastery
of
St.
Simeon
the
Stylite,123
re-established
by
the
Byzantines
after
three and a half
centuries
of disuse
under
Muslim
rule.
Some
of the
old
buildings
must
still have
been
serviceable
(at
least,
with
a
minimum of
repair),
118
The
masonry
was tied
by many
wooden
beams laid
flat
in
chases
packed
with
cement,
through
from
the inward to
the
outward
face.
That
method of
reinforcement had
been
common in
Hellenistic
walls,
even
of
large
blocks;
prevalence
in
late
Byzantine
walls
may
be
deduced from use in
the
medieval
Ottoman
castle at
Kalecik.
119
A
later
doorway
formed the
sole entrance to a
chapel
that
was
added,
utilizing
the
shorter
of
the
partitions
for
a
side-wall.
120
Food
for
several
months
could have
been
stored in
the
tower. The
rainfall on
both
tower and
barracks
must have
been
conserved
in
the cistern
between them.
121
Antiquities
Dept. Kyrenia
Castle
(1961)
81.
122
The defences of Ani
were
repeatedly
altered
between
the
terminal dates
of
783
and
1312,
and
investigation
has
been
restricted
owing
to
the
proximity
of the Soviet
frontier.
123
G.
Tchalenko,
Villages
ntiques
e la
Syrie
du
Nord
(1953)
i
242,
ii
pls. 79,
82,
209;
Courtauld.
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A SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
217
causes,
only
intentional demolition
can
readily
account for the break in an
exceptionally
sturdy
wall at its
very
outset
(PLATE 9a)
where it left the
flank
of a tower on the north
end
to
run
some
45
m
obliquely
outwards and
join
a
square
structure
identifiable as the
lofty
base
for
a
beacon.
This
stands
on
slightly higher ground
than the north
end,
and beside the
verge
of a steep descent; its view includes a wide arc of the skirts of the mountain towards the Afrin
valley.
The fire would
have
signalled
warning
of
enemy troop-movements
in
time for
countermeasures
to
be
organized
in
the
low
country, though scarcely
for
reinforcements
to
go up
to
Qal'at
Sim'an,
which is within a
day's
walk of
Aleppo;
the main
function of
the
beacon
was
to
alert the
populous region.
And
the value attached
to it is
demonstrated
by
the
siting
of
the north end
of
the fortress
in a
depression
instead
of,
like other
sectors,
above
a
slope;
the
military
advantage
of
overlooking
attackers was sacrificed
in
order to
leave
space
enough
for
the
buildings
within
to
escape
sparks.
The
connecting
wall is
composed
of
cemented
rubble
between
thin
faces
of
masonry
which,
at
the
top,
rose above
the core to form
a
parapet
along
either
side
of a
corridor;
so one
man
at
a time
could
walk,
sheltered from
missiles,
between a
tower of the
north end and
the beacon.
Moreover,
the slant
at
which
the
corridor-wall
projects
let its entire
length
be enfiladed from that tower and also commanded
from
another,
each
shooting against
one side
of it.
Adjuncts
of the same
type,
a
lengthy
wall
projecting obliquely
to
a
tower-like
base,
are
known
in
Greece and
Bulgaria.
Each is
attached to
a
fort that seems
to
have
existed for no
other
purpose
than to
service
its
beacon.
One was
on
the
summit
of the
promontory
of
Monemvasia.124
It is
represented complete
on
a
small-scale Venetian
plan,
but
has
perished
except
for
fragmentary
ruins
(FIG.
19).
It
was
a
little,
lop-sided tetrapyrgos,
and
aligned
with
the
corner of a tower runs
the
connecting
wall,
2.40
m thick in
the
existing
lowest courses
and
75
m
long,
slanting
out to
a
foundation
about io m
square (but
rounded at
the
corners),
which
evidently
bore a
circular
hollow
structure.125
The first mention of the fort at Monemvasia is by Idrisi, who finished his geographical
compilation
in
I154:
'a
castle
very high
above the
sea,
from
which one
may
look
across to
Crete.'
The
observant
seafarer who was the
source
of
this
information
would not
have
known
of the
beacon
because
it
must
have
long
been
disused. It
might
conceivably
have
been built
in
the
eighth century
when the Arab
fleet
dominated the
seas,
but
cannot
have been
desperately
needed till
the Muslim
pirates
who
seized
Khania
in
823
had
subdued
all
Crete;
they
operated
at sea
increasingly
till
960.
Perhaps, though,
the
beacon was renovated
later,
to
cope
with
the North
African
recrudescence of
piracy,
for
it
was so well
preserved
after
Venice
annexed
Monemvasia as to be
converted
into
a
powder-magazine,
which
exploded
in
1689.
The
present
scatter
of
masonry
suggests
that
total
destruction
resulted.
On
historical
grounds,
the
eighth
century
is the earliest
plausible
dating
for
a
fort
on
the
Sakar Mountains, since it must have been intended to
give
warning
of
Bulgar
raids.
A
sketch-plan
with no
scale
has
been
published
(FIG.
20).126
The
ruin,
called
Biiuyuiik
ale
(Turkish
for
'Big
Castle'),
is shown
as a
square
tetrapyrgos
with
a wall
protruding
from
the corner of one
tower
and
ending
at
a
large
square
foundation;
a ditch
encircled the
whole
site.
124
Kevin
Andrews,
Castles
of
the
Morea
(1953)
206
figs.
218-19
pl.
36-Venetian
plan.
125
The
roughly
contemporary
Venetian
plan
calls the
hollow
structurea
mill,
although
no one would
have
transported
grain
so far
across uneven
rocky ground
when
there was
a
wind-swept cliff-top
immediately
above the town.
The
same
identification as windmills has been
accepted
by
Welsh
countrymen
to
explain
a chain of much
smaller ruins that
were
actually
the
bases
of beacons to
give warning
of
pirate
raids
in
years
around
6oo
(Lloyd, Archaeologia
ambrensis
13
(1964)
I50).
126
Velkov,
GNMP/Annuaire
du
Musle
National
Plovdiv
ii
(1950) 176,
(in
French)
183, fig.
13.
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218
A. W. LAWRENCE
13.
END
OF
THE
TENTH
CENTURY:
PACUIUL
LUI
SOARE, SAHYUN, OHRID,
DIDYMA
John
Tzimisces
greatly
extended
the
Byzantine territory
in
both
Europe
and
Asia. His
Balkan
conquests
brought
the
frontier into
the delta
of the
Danube,
where towns
of
Roman
N
ITCH
N
.Q4/
0 30m
A
FIG.19. Monemvasia. Sketch-plan of fort with beacon (Author)
FIG.
20. BuiyiikKale. Sketch-plan of fort with beacon (Velkov)
origin
were
being
attacked
by
the
Russian fleet. He
is
presumed
to
have
built,
in
or soon after
972,
a base for
his own
navy
on a
long
island,
Pacuiul lui
Soare,
where
only
a fraction of
the
fort has
escaped
destruction
by
the
river;
a
monograph
in
Romanian,
Pacuiul ui
Soare
1972)
by
P. Diaconu
and
D.
Vilceanu,
interprets
the
ruins,
with
a
resume
and
list of
illustrations
in
French. The determinant
feature is
a
stepped
landing-place
that measures
nearly
24
m
between
a
pair
of towers
that bounded
it,
projecting
Io
m
from
the wall
behind,
in
the centre
of which
is a
gateway,
3-90
m
wide
externally
but
expanding
to
4-20
m
within;
slits
that
open
obliquely
through
the
masonry
alongside
probably
held cables
for
mooring
shipping.
About
Ioo
m
downstream
the wall
turns
sharply
at a
tower
that
has one
side
curved but
the other
straightand placed at an obtuse angle, as though to present less of an obstacle to ice-floes. The
wall
beyond
the
corner
runs
straight
inland to
a
break
50
m
onward,
and stands
to a
height
of
over
4
m.
It
includes
another
entrance,
through
a tower
that
projects
nearly
9
m
forward
and
slightly
inward. The
passage
contracts
to
3-60
m
both
at the
mouth,
where
a
portcullis
moved
in
grooves
16 cm
wide,
and at the
inner
end,
where
there are holes
for
a
locking-bar.
In
975
John
Tzimisces
captured
Sigon/Sahyun
from the
Aleppines,
and the
Byzantines
retained
ownership
into the
beginning
of the twelfth
century,
when
the
place
became
a fief
of the Crusaders'
Principality
of Antioch. The construction
of the
French-style
castle,'27
called
Saone,
was
presumably
undertaken
soon
after,
and
changed
the
system
of defence
(FIG.
21
).
127
T.
S. R.
Boase,
Castles ndChurches
f
the
Crusading ingdom
(1967)
49, 51;
R.
G.
Smail,
Crusading
Warfare
(1956) 236
fig.
6;
W.
Miiller-Wiener,
Castles
f
theCrusaders
1966)
10,
44,
96-7
pls.
12-13,
17-19-
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A
SKELETAL HISTORY OF
BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
219
The site
occupied
a
tongue
of
plateau
above the confluence of
two streams
that
had worn ravines
in
the limestone. Where
these are
750
m
distant from the eroded
cliff that
forms the
extremity
of the
tongue, they
are
120
m
apart,
but connected
by
a
rock-cut ditch of
astonishing dimensions;
it is
I8 m
wide
with
practically
vertical
sides,
27
m
deep
to
a flat
bottom.
The
stone extracted must have been
used
for
building
the
castle;
probably
one
motive for
making
the ditch so immense was to
quarry
from
it.
There
is
some reason to
suspect
that
a
compara-
tively
shallow
cutting
existed before the
Crusade,
or even
before
975,
because there
are remnants
(PLATE
I9b)
of
at
least one
Byzantine
cross-wall
(possibly
two) among
the
starkly
impressive
Frankish works that restricted
entry
from
the
bridge.
But the
principal Byzantine
fortifications,
those
that
surely go
back to
just
after
975,
can still be
seen,
though
in
bad
condition,
between
Ioo
and
200
m
inwards from the
abyss; they
became
redundant when
Crusader
improvements
obstructed hostile
approach.
The
Byzantines
put
a
triple
barrier across the
tongue,
composed
in
turn
of
a
masonry-lined
counterscarp,
a
shallow
ditch,
and
masonry
that
lined the
scarp
and rose
free-standing
over it
upon
the
slope up
a
natural
hillock.
A
second ward started on
top
of the
hillock,
which
bears the
confused ruins of
a
small
fort,
designed
rather like an
unsymmetrical
tetrapyrgos;
some
parts
of
it,
no
doubt,
were
habitable but others fit
only
for
storage.
The
height
of the
position
gave
command over both
wards;
in
that
respect,
comparison with an isolated European keep is justifiable, but
differences
in
execution
outweigh
the resemblance. The second
ward extended
to
another little
ditch,
beyond
which a
third
ward,
long
and
narrow,
gradually
descends to the
extremity
of the
tongue,
enclosed
by
a wall
so
rambling
and
perfunctory
as
to
suggest
that
it
might
have
originated
earlier
than
any
other
feature at
Sahyun.
The
Byzantines
had
reconquered
almost
all
the
territory
seized
by
the
Bulgarians, except
for
Macedonia,
before
the
accession of the last Tsar but
one,
Samuel
(976-1014).
At
some such date
as
990
he moved
his
capital
to
Ochrida/Ohrid,
where he resided in an enclosure128 subsequently called the
Upper
Serai,
and built
it an
entrance
(PLATE
20a)
that
is,
inevitably,
of
pure Byzantine style;
it
might
have been either
an imitation of
an
individual
older monument
or else
genuinely
CRUSADER
BYZANTINE
ARAB
LOWER
COURT
POSTERN
POSTERN
JPILLAR
DITCH
BYZANTINE
KEEP
WALL
IsLJO
CISERN
ARAB
CONSTRUCTIONS
,MINARET
/
POSTERN
,7y7/
BYZANTINE
WALL
CISTERN
ySSTASB
O
KEEP
GREAT
DITCH-
PILLAR
S 50
100
ENTRY
Scale
In metros
FIG.
21.
Sahyun.
Plan of
castle
(Boase)
representative
of its own
time,
but we
can
be
sure that
Samuel,
who
campaigned
over much of the
Balkans,
would not
have
accepted
an obsolete
design.
The
structure,
of unfaced cemented
rubble,
is still
generally
sound
in
spite
of its
far
from
glamorous appearance.
However,
the outer
arch,
now
broken,
looks
as
though
it had
128
A.
Deroko,
Srednjevekovniradovi
Srbiji,Crnoj
Gori
Makedoniji1950)
i94
figs.
36,
40;
Courtauld.
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220
A. W.
LAWRENCE
been
a
Turkish
replacement.
A
pair
of
rather
small
oval
towers129
flanks the
passage,
which
is about
42
m
wide
except
where contracted
by
this outer arch for
the
purpose
of
masking
a
portcullis,
and
by
the
piers
of
the
gateway
at the
inward end.
The
portcullis
was
operated
inside
a room
overlying
the broadest
piece
of the
passage
and accessible
from
both
towers,
which also communicated with the walk along the curtains.
An
earthquake
in
988
damaged
the fortress into which the
great
temple
at
Didyma
had
been
transformed
(probably
in
the seventh
century),130
and
an
inscription
records
some
measure
of
rebuilding;
this
may
possibly
have introduced
modifications,
though
the
scope
for
them
was
severely
limited. The excavators of the
temple
removed all the
defensive work
they
found,
and
expressed
no
opinion
on
whether
it
was
homogeneous
or
of diverse
ages,
but
we
may,
at
least,
feel
assured
that
it had
met
the
standards
required
for
security
in
the
990s.
14.
END OF
THE
ELEVENTH CENTURY:
ZVECAN
AND
ST.
HILARION
Anna
Comnena
records Serbian
defeats
of
Byzantine
troops
in
1093
and
I
Io6
near
Sphentzanion/Zvetan, where a fort was then held by the Serbs; they probably built it to
support
their
incursions into
Byzantine territory
from
Io91
onwards.
It stands
on
a
conical
hill.
The
style
is,
of
course,
purely
Byzantine.
There were
four
towers;
two
are
approximately
rectangular,
one
is a
beaked
pentagon,
while the other
has
only
three
exposed
facets
(one
of
them
slanting)
in
order to
suit the
angles
of
the
adjacent
curtains,
one
of
which
retreats.131
A
monastery
seems first
to have
occupied
the twin
peaks
of
a
mountain
called
Didymus,
which
rises
abruptly
6 km
inland
from
Kyrenia
to a
height
of over
700
m. The
buildings may
have
needed
little alteration
to
convert
rooms into
barracks,
but were
barely
defensible,
being
too
easily
accessible from
the
peaks'
joint
southward
slope;
no less
than
a
hectare of this
was
therefore
enclosed
as an
outer
ward.132
The
purpose
of
the fort
must
have been to
station
a
garrison
for
controlling
the
pass
between
the
north
coast and
the central
plain
of
Cyprus,
as would have become
obviously
advisable in view of a rebellion in
io92;
the
emperor,
Alexius
Comnenus,
is
likely
to have
originated
all
three fortresses
on
the
northern
watershed,
but
later
work
predominates
at
Buffavento and Kantara as
well as
in
these
upper,
residential
wards.
A
hundred
years
later
the
fort
proved
able
to
withstand
Frankish
attacks but
eventually
surrendered;
a French
corruption
of the
name
Didymus
to Dieudamour then came into
use,
and much
rebuilding
followed,
transforming
the site to a
Lusignan
castle now known as St.
Hilarion.
However,
the defences of the outer ward
escaped
drastic
alteration,
apart
from
the
imposition
of a
European-style
barbican,
and
Lusignan
restorations
are
practically
confined to
its
vicinity.
The outer
ward was
fully
enclosed
only
on the
west,
where the
Byzantine
wall
runs
straight
uphill
in
traditional
manner,
and
along
the
south,
where it followed
a
contour;
higher up,
the
steepness
of the rock made it
unnecessary
to
link
with either
peak,
and
a
Byzantine
tunnel
still forms the entrance to
the lower
one,
from which
steps
ascended
to
the other.
The
design
was uniform
on both west and south.
Roughly
semicircular
towers
(PLATE
2ob,
2
Ia)
occur at
fairly regular
intervals,
mostly
of some
30
m.
Few towers are backed
by
solid
masonry;
instead,
an arch
spans
a
single
wide
doorway,
or
a
pair
of arches
springs
either
side
of
a
pier.
The
dimensions of
the rooms within
vary
in
each
tower;
typical
instances of
maximum
length
and breadth measure
2-70
x
2"25
m
and
3'45
x
2"70
m,
within
masonry
at that level
75
cm
129
The maximum dimensions
of
the towers are
approxi-
mately:
6 m
projection,
5
m
width,
height (slightly reduced)
13
m,
internal
length 5
m
and width
3
m.
130
See n.
95
above.
131
Zdravkovi'
and
Jovanovid,
Actes
du
XII
Congrls
nternat.
d'tudes
byz.
Ohlrid
9g6
ii
(1964) 423
fig.
2;
Jovanovi',
Starinar
13-14 (1962-3) 137,
(in
French)
150,
fig.
6.
132
Antiquities Dept.
St. Hilarion
Castle
(1950).
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A SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
221
thick. The exterior
tapers
upward,133
aided
by
set-backs of some
15
cm beneath the two
upper
storeys
and the
parapet.
Ramps
(PLATE
0C)
lead to both
upper
floors
of
Tower
'18',
which
stands at the south-west corner.
In
Tower
'19'
on the west
slope
(PLATE 1a)
the second
storey
was
2.I7
m
high
and floored
2-10 m
above
the walk on the downward
curtain;
the
doorway
from the upward curtain was probably in the lost back of the second storey. The embrasures
in
towers are about
75
cm
high,
and
splay
to
30-45
cm
from not more than
25
cm at
the
mouth
of
the
slit.
15.
MID
AND
LATE
TWELFTH
CENTURY; CONSTANTINOPLE, PERGAMON,
MILETUS
Manuel
II
Comnenus
(I
I48-80)
built
a
long
salient
to
include
part
of the Blachernae suburb
to
which the
imperial
residence had
been transferred.
He was a
paladin
credited with
martial
exploits
of
incredible
audacity,
and an element of ostentation can also be
discerned
in
his
wall.
The
curtains,
3-75
m
thick
and buttressed
within,
were
15-18
m
high,
of which much
is still
preserved
up
to the base
of
the
parapet.
The
towers,134
spaced
at
intervals
as short as
18-35
m,
were calculated
to
attract attention
by
a wanton
diversity
of
shape
even more
than
by their scale and massiveness. An oval outline was reasonable in the case of one that projects
from an
outward
bend,
but
no
particular advantage
resulted from
the
differentiation of others
that
are
semicircular,
or curved
beyond
a
semicircle,
or
polygonal
with a
varying
number of
facets,
or
approximately square.
Internally
they
are
vaulted,
with
alcoves extended
by
embrasures
that
ended
at slits.
Some of Manuel's towers
must
date
early
in
his
reign,
but
he
may
afterwards have added more. The seventh
in
the
sequence
bears
an
inscription
of
Isaac
II
Angelus,
dated to
I
186-7,
and
presumably
was inserted for the sake
of
closer
spacing.
The
slope
of the
acropolis
at
Pergamon
had
been deserted for several centuries
till
Manuel
II
refortified
it
and
encouraged
the
growth
of
a
new
town,
between
I161
and
I173
according
to
Nicetas Choniatis. The
wall
was visible
on
both north and south sides of the
hill135
until about
I88o
when it was almost
entirely
demolished
by
excavators
in
order to free
Hellenistic
remains;
they
spared
only
a
few towers
on
the
south
(PLATE 21b)
which had been
attached to
a
terrace wall of the ancient
gymnasium.
Crude
plans
and sketches drawn
at
the
time
of destruction
represent
a
line of five
square
(or
at
any
rate
rectangular)
towers on
the
north
together
with
a minor
gateway
formed
by
an
overlap
and secluded behind
a
simple
barbican.
On
the
gymnasium
terrace stood four
approximately
semicircular
towers,
one
rectangular
at
a
slight
outward
bend,
and one
circular at an
abrupt
corner.
A
main
gateway
on the south of the
hill
was
flanked
by rectangular
towers
and
opened
into
an
inner court.
A
hypothetical dating
to the same
period
for a town wall
at
Miletus136
is
too
plausible
to
be
ignored.
Here too
an
entrance was
flanked
by
approximately
square
towers.
The wall
in
general
seems
to
have been
uninteresting;
it was
demolished
for the excavation of
classical
remains.
16.
THE
SUCCESSOR
STATES,
I204-C. I
250
A
by-product
of the
Fourth
Crusade,
the Frankish annexation
of
most
of the
Greek
mainland
and
islands,
and even
parts
of the Asia Minor
coast,
was confirmed
by
the
building
of baronial
castles,
which must
gradually
have disseminated
knowledge
of
European
methods outside
the
133
Another
apsidal
tower with an
emphatic taper
is
apparently
the
only Byzantine
relic
in
the
otherwise
Seljuk
fortress
at
Anamur,
within
sight
on
the
opposite
coast of Asia
Minor;
it stands
next to the
gateway
(Courtauld
A51/354).
It
must
have
been built
as
a
defence
against
Moslem
aggression,
perhaps
rather earlier than
1092,
but
looks
too like the
towers
of St.
Hilarion for the
resemblance to
be dismissed
as
coincidental.
134
Landmauer
i
figs. 28-9.
135
AR
1978-9 67;
Altertiimer
on
Pergamon
(1885) pl.
iii;
i.I
9;
i.2
307
Beib.
63-4;
AM
29
(I904)
pls.
viii,
x-xi.
136
Miiller-Wiener,
IstMitt
17 1967) 285
fig.
3.
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222
A.
W. LAWRENCE
areas
occupied.
The
fall
of
Constantinople
itself led to
an
outburst
of
fortification,
initially
pure
Byzantine
in
style,
in
the various successor
states.
Two of
these,
Trebizond
and
Epirus,
were remote
from the
public
view,
but the
third,
the Lascarid
Empire
of
Nicaea,
must
have
seemed
at
constant
risk
from
the
Franks,
and its
capital,
with the
city
wall
dating
from
the
third century, is unlikely to have regained full strength after siege and capture in og97. Even
from
its
present
dilapidated
condition
we can see
that
in
I204
it
was
a virtual museum of
restoration continued
throughout
all its
periods,
and so diverse
a
fabric was almost
certain to
be unreliable
in
some
parts,
however
sound
in
others.
Moreover
the chances of
collapse
under
bombardment were
increasing
owing
to the
development
of the
trebuchet,137
a
siege-engine
that
anyone
could
make,
which
slung
unprecedentedly
heavy
missiles,
but with
inaccurate
aim
(a
drawback
besiegers
of Nicaea
might
have found
of
comparatively
slight consequence
on the
flat
terrain).
The
expedient adopted
by
the
Lascarids
in
1204-22
was to build
an
outworka38
that also
acted as
a
buffer;
it
surrounded the whole
city except
where the wall
accompanied
the
lake-shore.
There had been
many
precedents
around
the
fifth
century
for such
a tall and
massive
proteichisma,
defensible from a walk on
top,
and
separated
from the wall
by
a few
metres or
as much as
ten;
it
was
usually straight
but on occasion
curved outwards
to
pass
the
towers
that encroached on
the
intervening
space.
When the
type
was revived
at
Nicaea,
the
thickness was
i-6o-2
m
and
on
every
sector
included
a
varying
number of
embrasures
ending
with
slits;
the
height
is
3
or
4
m
to the
walk,
above
which two
more should be allowed
for
the
parapet
and
merlons;
the distance
from the wall
is
13-16
m
apart
from encroachment
by
towers.
But
an
improvement
on
this
fifth-century
scheme
was
evidently
inspired
by
the
Theodosian
double
system
at
Constantinople,
where
a
rather
small tower
stands
opposite
the
middle of each
curtain of
the
main wall.
At
Nicaea,
the outwork
bulges opposite
the middle
of each curtain
into
a
slightly
taller salient
that is
externally
semicircular
and
5
m
wide,
but
internally only 2 m. These salients were really stands for shooting, whether off the roof or
through
an
embrasure
inside;
they
were
miserable substitutes
for the towers
of the Theodosian
outer
wall,
but
presumably
the utmost
that could be
afforded for
repetition
in
such
quantity.
Some
of them are
enclosed,
like
turrets,
but most
had an
open
gorge.
Gateways
through
the
outwork
are
flanked
by
taller
and somewhat
broader
turrets,
apsidal
or
horseshoe-shaped,
with embrasures
opening
from
the room. The
outwork blanketed
the
defenders'
fire from the
wall,
which
was therefore
raised
by
2'50
m in
the
towers,
less
in
some
curtains,
but not
at all
in
others.
Altogether,
this
Lascarid
transformation
at Nicaea was
an
unsatisfactory
makeshift.
Trapezus/Trebizond
had
been
the seat of
a
provincial
governor
before
it was chosen
as the
capital
of
a successor
empire,
which
lasted
257 years,
and
its fortifications
must
incorporate
relics of
many
centuries.'39
But the
topography
required
them
to be
like
cliffs of
masonry,
featureless
except
for bends that divided towers from recesses; there are no indications of date
unless
parapets
are
preserved (and
these
may
have been
replacements).
However,
at Heraclea
Pontica/Eregli,
the frontier
town
towards
Nicaea,
an
inscription
records
the
rebuilding
of
a
tower
in
120o6-7,
and
probably
this formed
part
of
a
general
renovation
of the
city
wall;140
in
that sector
it involved
only rectangular
towers
(now
mostly
demolished),
but
in a more
137
The trebuchet
was
developed
by
a
gradual process
of
improvement,
probably
in
France.
The
Byzantines
merely
transliterated
the word
into Greek.
One of the Arabic
names
means
'Frankish
mangonel'
while
the other calls
it the
maghrabi,
.e.
'Western',
mangonel.
The dissemination
of the
weapon
should
have been
rapid
because
of
the
simplicity
of
both its construction
and
its
operation.
138
W.
Karnapp
and
A. M.
Schneider,
Die
Stadtmauer
on
Iznik
figs.
7-10
pls.
3-7, 13,
plan
at end.
139
Talbot
Rice, JHS
52
(1932)
47;
E.
Janssens,
Trdbizonde
en Colchide
1967) 238 figs.
14,
31,
56.
140
W.
Hoepfner,
Herakleia
ontike-Eregli
(1966) 42-5 figs.
16-17
pl.
4b;
the
supposedly
Byzantine
citadel
is not datable.
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224
A. W. LAWRENCE
looks
as
though
it
had
belonged
to an internal
apse,
which would
designate
the room as
a
chapel.
The
main entrance
bends,
unaccompanied
by
slits,
through
a
tower
that
generally
resembles
the
others,
but the
doorway
at the back is wider and
its arch overlies
a
plain tympanum
of
thin bricks, while the outer doorway pierces the extremity of the right flank. Here too the
arch
has
an
unusually
wide
span
and overlies another
brick-filled
tympanum,
but this one
was concave
(and
seems to
have been
plastered,
perhaps
into
the form of
a
shell),
so that
it
needed to
be
supported
on
the
tops
of
thick
jambs,
which have
recently
been
replaced
from
the
ground
upwards
in
modern brickwork.
The
only
other entrance
was a
postern.
It
pierces
the curtain that
adjoins
the
main
entrance,
from the outer
doorway
of
which it is
fully
visible
some
20-30
m
distant;
the
simple
arch
springs
from the
straight edges
of
a
rubble
aperture,
still
intact
except
at
the
foot,
where
the threshold also has been
lost.
The entire fortress as
Gardhiki
is
of one
build,
and
purely
Byzantine
in
style.
Neither
claim
could
safely
be
made for
Angelokastro,144
which
is
known
to have existed
by
1294.
Frankish
or
South
Italian influence
may
be
suspected
in
this
tiny
fort,
indescribable
in its
present
state
of ruin. It stood on a low
ridge
overlooking
a track which leads to the ford of the Achelous
immediately
east
of the
ancient site called Palaiomanina.
17.
LAST
DATABLE
WORKS,
I26I-I4453
In
1261
a
revolution
at
Constantinople
delivered
it to the
emperor
of
Nicaea,
Michael VIII
Palaeologus.
He
restored
towers
there which
the Franks had allowed
to
decay.145
Historically
of immense
consequence
was an
acquisition
of
territory
from the Frankish ruler
of the
Peloponnese,
who had been
on a
visit
to
Constantinople
at
the
time
of
the
coup,
and
ransomed
himself
from
captivity
by
swearing
allegiance
to
Michael and
ceding
three fortresses
(Mistra,
Monemvasia,
and
Maina/Tigani)
at extremities
of Laconia and
Mani;
these were
duly
handed
over in
1262.
But the Pope pronounced that the oath of allegiance was invalid, and the Franks
began
hostilities
in
the same
year.
The
new
Byzantine
province,
bounded
by
the three cessions
and the
purchase
of
Geraki,
encountered
perils
into the next
century;
an
incidental
result
must have
been that
officers sent from the
capital
studied
fortifications
inherited
from the
Franks,
upon
which
their
lives
might depend.
Other
examples
were visible on
Aegean
islands
that
Michael
recovered.
And,
early
in the
fourteenth
century,
the
Genoese
improved
the
hurriedly
built
wall
of
their
Galata
trade-post
and so demonstrated
the
Italian
style
of
fortification
to the
court
itself.
According
to
Cantacuzenus
(who
was
adult at
the
time),
both
the wall
around
Gynaecocastron/Avret-Hisar
and
its
'immense
tower,
of such
great strength
as
to withstand
enemy siege-engines',
were
built
by
Andronicus the
Younger;
he was
the
rebel
governor
of
Thrace for a few
years
before his
reign
of
1328-41.
The ruinsl46 crown a
rugged
limestone
bluff that rises over
Ioo
m
above
a
river
called the Zena
or
apparent
derivatives
of that
word,
which
in
Slavonic means
'woman'.
But
Cantacuzenus
thought
the castle owed
its name to
a
saying
that
it
would be
impregnable
even
if
garrisoned
by
women.
Gynaecocastron
was
easily
approached
only
from the
south,
where
the
main
entrance
is
still
visible,
about
3.6
m
wide. The
drop
towards the west was too
steep
for the wall to need
any
towers
throughout
its
length
of
nearly
200oo
m,
and so
probably
was
that to the
north,
where all
masonry
has
fallen;
the
less
steep slope
to
the east was
given
one
small tower of
slight
projection
along
a
course of
nearly
200
m. The width of the enclosure is about
30
m
144
Orlandos,
op.
cit.
9
(I961) 54
figs.
2,
4;
Courtauld.
145
Landmauer
i
17.
146
Woodward,
BSA
23 (I919-20)
98.
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A SKELETAL
HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
225
at the north but
expands
in
conformity
with
the rock
to
Ioo
m at
the
south
end. The
extensive
view over
central
Macedonia
has
changed
owing
to the
drainage
of
Lake
Arjani,
which
I
saw
reaching
as far
as
Chauchitsa,
so
barring
direct
access
to the
hill
from the
north.
The
rectangular
north
end
was
divided from
the
rest
of the
enclosure
by
two
echeloned
pieces of cross-wall (the longer containing a gateway) and, between them, the tower of which
Cantacuzenus wrote. His
praise
was
fully justified,
for
its
length
was
I2-5
m,
its
width
nearly
9
m,
and the thickness of
its outer walls is
approximately
I-4o
m. The
north
frontage
was
prolonged
by
the
shorter
cross-wall,
the south
frontage by
the
other.
Internally
there
were
twin rooms on
the
ground
floor;
the
eastern one has
collapsed,
the
western retains
traces
of
a
vault which rose
to about
4-5
m
above
the
floor,
and
there was an
upper
storey,
which must
have
covered
both
rooms.
No
doorways
are
preserved;
the
fall
of the
north-east corner
of
the
lower west
room,
which
must
have
contained
one,
leaves
no indication
whether it was
placed
at
the
back or
in
the
partition
leading
to the east room.
A
slit
opens
to the
west,
another
to
the
south.
A
fireplace
and
its flue
stand between them.
Unquestionably
the tower was
an
imitation
of a Frankish
keep,
in
an
enclosure
equivalent
to
two wards.
A tower of Yannina castle147 is entered at the back
through
a
remarkably
tall
arch,
over
which
is inscribed
the name
Thomas
(spelt
with
an
omicron);
he
can
scarcely
have
been
other
than
the Serbian
husband of
Angelina
Palaeologus,
Despot
of
Epirus 1367-84.
A
fort
beside
the
harbour of
Thasos148
had
square
towers;
one is
mentioned
in
a will
of
I384.
The
remains
are now
inconsiderable.
The last
great
work,149
a
wall
across the
Isthmus
of
Corinth,
presumably
utilized remnants
of
Justinian's,
if
not also of
earlier
predecessors;
it was
undertaken
by
the
viceroy
of Mistra
in
1396,
and
the
Turks
overcame
it
in
the next
year.
Known
as
the Hexamilion
because of
its six-mile
length,
in
which
there are
said to have been
150
towers,
it
was
restored
by
order
of the
emperor
during
twenty-five
days
of
1415;
the
Turks took
only
one
day
to
capture
it,
and then attempted its destruction. It was again restored, and in 1446 held out against artillery
for a
week,
after
which the
Turks
demolished
it
so
effectively
that it
did
not obstruct
their
subsequent
invasions of the
Peloponnese.
No
vestiges
have been
recognized.
The
defences of
Constantinople
were
strengthened
while
amicable relations
prevailed
with
the
Emir
Mehmed
I,
1413-21.
They
withstood
a
siege
by
Murad
II
throughout
the
summer
of
1422;
the
damage
inflicted must
have been
repaired
quite
soon,
but
inscriptions
document
extremely
thorough
restoration
of
towers
150
during
several
years
up
to
1440.
Murad, however,
made no further
attempt
on the
city.
He died
in
1451,
whereupon
Mehmed
II
started
preparations
for
the final
siege.
Its
success,
in
1453,
was
due
primarily
to
the
cannonade that
in
seven
weeks
wrecked much
of the
outer
Theodosian wall and
breached a few
portions
of
the
inner
one,
and
ultimately
to the
overwhelming
number of
assailants fired
by
the
promised
alternatives, of either incomparable loot or else eternal enjoyment of the carnal pleasures
awaiting every martyr
for
Islam.
A.
W. LAWRENCE
147
Dakaris,
ADelt
19
(1964) B3 314
pl.
353-
148
Guidede Thasos
(1967)
16.
149
Italian
as
well
as
Byzantine
influence
on the
Despots
of
Serbia
(a
Turkish
vassal-state)
resulted
in
two
imposing
fortresses: he wall around
Manasija
monastery
at
Resava,
in
1407-1o
(Deroko,
op.
cit.
figs.
I30-I
pl.
33;
Courtauld),
and
the
city
wall and castle at
Smederevo,
in
1428-30
(Deroko
figs.
139-41
pls.
12,
14, 30;
Starinar
2
(1950)
59,
and
7-8
(1956-7)
18I;
Courtauld).
150
It
is
arguable
that
the
style
of
facing
adopted
by
the
Palaeologi,
which consisted
of
small
regular
blocks
(Landmauer
ii
pl. 21), may effectively
have
localized
damage
caused
by
impact.
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226
A. W. LAWRENCE
APPENDIX:
SOME FEATURES IN VAGUELY
DATED
MONUMENTS
The
monastery
of
Daphni/Dhafni
in
Attica was enclosed
within a
free-standing
wall,
about
100oo square,
which
perhaps
originated
in
the
fifth or sixth
century;
it
stands
almost
complete
on
the north.
It is backed
by
a
continuous
arcade over
buttressing
piers,
which are
I'4
m
wide;
the arches,
3
m wide and about
50
cm
deep, carry
a
protruding
parapet.
Towers
project
outwards,
and some of the
larger
were
pierced
to serve as entrances.
(G.
Millet,
La Monastere
de
Daphni (1899);
A.
Orlandos,
Archeion
5n
Byz.
Mnimeiln
is
Ellados
2
(1955-6)
68,
including
a
newly
discovered
entrance;
Courtauld.)
Procopius
records
the
bare
fact that
some monasteries
inside
walled
towns
in Africa
were
built or rebuilt as fortresses.
Actually
more than
half
the
perimeter
of
an
early monastery
inside
Theveste/Tebessa
was
enclosed,
probably
in
the sixth
century,
by
the
addition
of a
wall
backed with blind
arcading,
the
remainder
being
adequately
safeguarded by
the
height
of
buildings.
The arcades were consolidated
by
little
rectangular
towers
or
turrets,
of
solely
inward
projection.
(Diehl,
L'Afrique
byz.
(1896)
430
pl.
xi.)
An underground passage could maintain communication with the countryside at a
small
town near
Arif in
Lycia
(AS
31
(1981)
199).
The
wall,
of
extremely
simple
design
with
a
few
rectangular
towers,
is ascribed to
the
sixth
century (Harrison
and
Lawson,
Yayla
2
(1979)
13)-
A
fort
at
Mezek,
in
the
extreme
south of
Bulgaria,
not
far from
Adrianople,
was so
large
that it
probably
needed
all
the
peasant
militia of the district
to man
it and could have formed
a
refuge
for
their
dependants.
Pottery
found within resembles
that
in
a
neighbouring
defenceless
village,
of
some such
period
as the
eighth
or
ninth
century
(Velkov, BIABulg
ii
(I937)
120,
and
Annuaire
Mus.
Nat.
Plovdiv (1950)
174,
(in French)
183).
The rubble
wall,
1i90-2'50
m
thick,
encloses a
steep-edged plateau
and
may
have been
about
6
m
high.
Salients were
unevenly
distributed,
to suit the
terrain;
all
are
rounded,
varying
from
a
semicircle to
nearly
a complete circle, and were in two cases solid, while five contained an upper storey with
embrasures
to
slits,
and one at a corner rose
two
storeys
(both
with
slits)
above the blind
ground
floor
and
basement
(Rasenov, BIABulg
I
(1937)
17I).
An
alternation of blind
arcading
and
tall
buildings
continued
to be the favourite method
of
fortifying
the
perimeter
of
monasteries
that had
originally
been defenceless. Those
on
Mt.
Latmus
were
so
treated,
probably
no
earlier
than
I176,
against
Seljuk
raids,
rather
than at
the first threat of
Muslim attacks
(as
was
presumed
in
their
publication,
Milet iii
I).
A
castle with concentric
defences stood behind the beach nearest to
Paphos
until
an
earthquake
destroyed
it
in
1222;
the
ruins are called SarandaKolones
'Forty
Columns')
because
of the
many
Roman shafts
that
were laid
flat
as stretchers.
Part of
the site
had
been
occupied
by
a
glass factory
in
the ninth
century,
and that
fact
gives
the
only
reliable terminus
ostquem;
a
'fort'
in
which
a man
was held
prisoner
about
I
I60
could have been elsewhere
in
the
extensive area of
Paphos.
The site
is an
artificially
isolated outlier of
the coastal
plateau,
roughly square.
The curtains of
the outer defences revetted
the
scarped
rock,
from
which
towers
projected
free-standing;
they
are of all the
shapes
accepted by Byzantine
tradition,
as
surely implies
that the master mason
was a
Greek,
whoever his
employer
may
have been.
(The empire
lost
Cyprus
in
I I84
to a rebel
official,
who was
deposed
after
eight years by
Richard
Cceur de
Lion,
and the
Lusignan dynasty
took over from
I193.)
The
outer
entrance
was situated
at
the north-west
corner,
where the ditch was narrowest and
may
have been
bridged;
a
corridor led
thence between the outer
and the inner
defences,
and turned inward
through
a wide
arch
of
Romanesque
voussoirs,
after
passing half-way
round
the
perimeter.
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A
SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
227
The
rest
of the inner
line
is
in
very
poor
condition,
but includesno
specifically
Byzantine
features.
Megaw,
RDAC
1982
210.)
A
tower
had
become
a
habitual
component
of
monasteries
ong
before he
ninth
century,
when the
Copts
in
the
Wadi Natrun are known to
have
separated
t in
some instances
by
a removablebridge, high aboveground.No one Orthodox s likelyto have seenthese but
the
conceptprobably
was
widespread.
The
subsequent
evelopment
f monastic
owers
began
slowly
and did not reach its acme
till
the thirteenthand
fourteenth
enturies,
on
Athos and
(for
a
Bulgar
patron
in
1335)
at Rila.
But
these are fine architectural
works,
with
little
relevance
o the
history
of
fortification.
ADDENDA
Page174:Mr.R. P.Harperhaskindly entmeanoffprint f hisarticlen Vortrdgeesio. Internat.
Limeskongresses
1977)
453,
with
a
contoured
plan
of
Pagnik
Oreni
and its
setting.
Page
197:
The
same article
describes
(p.
457
fig.
2)
the
town
wall
at
Dibsi
Farij,
where
Diocletian's owers
were
replaced
by larger ustinianic
owers
at
longer
ntervals.
Page
21o:
The
printing
of Fikri's
bookwas
completed
n AH
I340,
AD
1921
2.
I
disagree
with
prevalent
heories
hat the
fortresses
t
Serres
and Platamon
are
Byzantine:
I
believeSerres
o be
Turkish,
probably
a
workof Murad
I
(136o-89),
and saw
no
Byzantine
featuresat
Platamon,
on which
I
spent
three
days;
ts inner
building
seems
to me
definitely
Turkish
and
not
particularly
arly
at
that.
A.W.L.
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(a)
(b)
A
SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF
BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
(a)
Perga.
Back
of
added
tower;
(b)
Corycus.
Mouth
of
ditch
and
SE.
tower
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PLATE 10
B.S.A. 78
(a)
(b)
A
SKELETAL
HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
(a) Corycus.
Path
outside
N.
tower;
(b) Corycus.
N.
tower;
steps
of
path
to
right
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:I:-::
-_%:F_
(a)
(b)
(c)
A
SKELETAL
HISTORY
OF
BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
(a)
Nicopolis.
W.
side
to
tower
flanking
entrance;
(b)
Nicopolis.
W.
side;
attachment
of
lost
tower
flanking
entrance
and
postern;
(c)
Nicopolis.
W.
side,
interior
of
tower
flanking
entrance
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PLATE
12
B.S.A.
78
(a)
(b)
A SKELETAL
HISTORY OF BYZANTINE
FORTIFICATION
(a) Nicopolis.
W.
side,
exterior
of
flanking
tower and
entrance;
(b)
Nicopolis.
W.
side,
back of
entrance and
lights
of
passage
to
portcullis
room
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B.S.A. 78 PLATE 15
(a)
(b)
(c)
A
SKELETAL
HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
(a)
Terracina.
Flank
of
tower;
(b)
Ankara. Outer
gateway
of
barbican;
(c)
Telmessus.
Seaward
(W.)
frontage
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PLATE
18
B.S.A.
78
(a)
(b)
A
SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
(a) Qal'at
Sim'an. S. face
of
middle
ward;
(b) Qal'at
Sim'an.
Rock-cut S. wall and SE. tower
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B.S.A.
78
PLATE
19
(a)
(b)
A SKELETAL HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
(a) Qal'at Sim'an.
Corridor
to
beacon;
(b) Sahyun. Byzantine
curtain
and tower
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PLATE
20
B.S.A.
78
(a)
(b)
(C)
A
SKELETAL
HISTORY OF BYZANTINE FORTIFICATION
(a)
Ohrid.
Entrance;
(b)
St.
Hilarion. Tower '18'
seen
from
barbican;
(c)
St. Hilarion.
Tower
'18'
seen from
'19'
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