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Of the many resting-places assigned, by patriotic fancy, we must regretfully admit, rather than by well-authenticated traditions, to the last Greek emperor of Constantinople, none is more picturesque or more appropriate than the Golden Gate, through which, when the years are fulfilled, the victorious army of the Greeks is to enter the city and take possession once more of their ancient heritage. More than this, as Professor Polites has remarked, relatively ancient traditions of the saviour-king, who is to rise from the sleep of death at this historical moment, speak of him as dwelling ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ ἄκρᾳ τῆς Βυζαντίδος which may well enough be interpreted of the Golden Gate, standing as it does at the south-west corner of the triangular city.
Despite this appropriateness, we note in the traditions a certain discrepancy as to one essential point—the identity of the sleeper at the Golden Gate. He is either the emperor Constantine Palaiologos, or his predecessor John Palaiologos, or—S. John the Evangelist! All these traditions are historically almost equally incredible. But the intrusion of S. John, who, according to mediaeval traditions, sleeps without tasting of death in his tomb at Ephesus, is at least intelligible in this setting. The figure of John Palaiologos, on the other hand, seems to be no more than a bridge effecting the transition between the deathless saint, John, and the deathless emperor, Palaiologos, of popular tradition. This hypothetical development would be explicable if we could find such a combination as the existence at the Golden Gate of a body marvellously preserved, and therefore reputed that of a saint, which was ignorantly identified first for obvious reasons with S. John, and later swept into the long cycle of local legends concerning the sleeping saviour-king. It seems possible that some, though not all, of the missing links can be supplied.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1923
References
1 Commentary on Παραδόσεις, No. 33, where the curious reader will find full references for this whole legend-cycle.
2 Carnoy, et Nicolaïdes, , Folklore de Constantinople, p. 103.Google Scholar
3 Charles XII. took refuge in Turkey after the battle of Poltava (1709).
4 Letters (12mo., London, 1805), ii. 198.
5 Chargé d'Affaires at Constantinople, 1805–6.
6 Travels, London, 1813, p. 257.
7 Constantinople, p. 288.
8 Βυζαντιναὶ Μελέται p. 179. Mme. de Gasparin (c. 1860) was told it was the chain of the Dardanelles (À Constantinople, p. 171).Google Scholar
9 Since writing this I find my opinion has the independent support of Sir Edwin Pears (see Schlumberger, , Siège de Constantinople (1914), p. 332Google Scholar, n. 1).
10 Details kindly communicated by Mr. W. S. George.
11 Du Cange, , Const. Christiana, I. vi.Google Scholar
12 Buchon, , Recherches, I. i. 486.Google Scholar
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15 Glavany, in Φ λολ. Σύλλογος Κωνστ. iv. 1867, p. 86Google Scholar: 
16 The Knights are known to have closed their harbour with two chains. The first, placed in 1476, was stretched across the mouth of the inner harbour, between the fort of S. John (on the windmill mole) and the ‘Arab’ (de Naillac's) tower, a distance of about 720 feet. The second, made in 1522, barred the wider mouth (1800 feet) between the fort of S. John and that of S. Nicolas. Both are described as thick and very substantial (Picenardi, , Itinéraire, p. 24 f.Google Scholar). A third chain is said to have protected the narrow mouth (540 feet) of the north or galley harbour (‘Mandraki’) in Turkish times, and is mentioned by several authors so late as the second half of the seventeenth century (Thévenot, (1656), Voyages, i. 369Google Scholar, copied by Bruyn, Le, Voyage, i. 547Google Scholar; Veryard, , Choice Remarks (1701), p. 330Google Scholar).
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18 Rhodes, p. 127; cf. Biliotti, , Rhodes, p. 191.Google Scholar
19 See Mendel's preface to the Sculpture Catalogue of the Imperial Museum, i. pp. x–xi.
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21 The volume is a mixed folio volume of theological work, mostly collections of canons with historical pieces and a few letters. It is mostly of the fifteenth century, but it also includes a portion of a twelfth-century MS.
22 [On this account the Greeks still hold Tuesday a dies nefas: not having access to our manuscript, they regard the whole day superstitiously, avowing ignorance of the hour at which the Turks entered Constantinople.—M. M. H.]
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24 The word seems derived from the Italian: foussata is the ordinary modern Albanian word for army. It occurs in a fifteenth century Greek MS. from Mount Athos (Meyer, P., Haupturkunden, p. 171Google Scholar).
25 I. e. Tchelebi.
26 Νέος Ἑλλ 1910. vii. 160 f. (Nos. 126–131).
27 Barbaro, , Giornale dell' Assedio di Cospoli, ed. Cornet, , Vienna, 1856, p. 20.Google Scholar Three Cretan ships on the chain are mentioned by Leonard of Chios and by Phrantzes (p. 238). The latter says two were from Kydonia and one from Candia.
28 Barbaro, p. 57 ff. The escape is also related by Dolfin, Zorzi, Belagerung und Eroberung von Constantinopel aus der Chronik von Zorzi Dolfin, ed. Thomas, G. M. in Sitzb. k.b.Ak. Wiss. 1868, ii. p. 40.Google Scholar
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