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these towers serve as guard-houses, and the sentries are enjoined to maintain their vigilance by passing the word of each successive hour from post to post during the night.^[1] The usual thickness of this wall is about eight feet, but no regular rampart has been prepared along the summit, the defensive value of such an area being superseded by the peribolos. Hence the top, the width of which is limited to less than five feet by the encroachment of the parapet, has no systematic means of access from the ground or from the towers. Hewn stone, worked in the vicinity, has been used for the construction of these fortifications,^[2] and in some places close to the city the ground may be seen to have been quarried into hills and hollows^[3] for the supply of the builders.^[4]*

↑ Paspates, op. cit., p. 10. See also Texier and Pullan, Architect. Byzant., Lond., 1864, pp. 24, 56, for diagrams illustrating walls of the period. Some, unlike the wall of CP., had continuous galleries in the interior. The towers were also used for quartering soldiers when troops were massed in the vicinity of the city (Cod. Theod., VII, viii, 13). There were about one hundred and two of the great, and ninety of the small ones. Owners of land through which the new wall passed had also reversionary rights to make use of the towers (Ibid., XV, i, 51).
↑ The Roman plan of filling an outer shell with rubble and concrete was adopted (Grosvenor, loc. cit.). At present the walls appear as a heterogeneous mass of stone and brick, showing that they have been repaired hurriedly numbers of times. But little is left of the fifth century structure. Some parts, better preserved, exhibit alternate courses of stone and brick, a favourite style of building with the Byzantines, but not dating further back than the seventh century (Texier and Pullan, op. cit., p. 165).
↑ Paspates (op. cit., p. 14), to whom much more than to historical indications we are indebted for our knowledge of these walls.
↑ Those who have a topographical acquaintance with Stamboul are aware that at about three-quarters of a mile from the Golden Horn the wall turns abruptly to the west and makes a circuit as if to include a

[1] Paspates, op. cit., p. 10. See also Texier and Pullan, Architect. Byzant., Lond., 1864, pp. 24, 56, for diagrams illustrating walls of the period. Some, unlike the wall of CP., had continuous galleries in the interior. The towers were also used for quartering soldiers when troops were massed in the vicinity of the city (Cod. Theod., VII, viii, 13). There were about one hundred and two of the great, and ninety of the small ones. Owners of land through which the new wall passed had also reversionary rights to make use of the towers (Ibid., XV, i, 51).

[2] The Roman plan of filling an outer shell with rubble and concrete was adopted (Grosvenor, loc. cit.). At present the walls appear as a heterogeneous mass of stone and brick, showing that they have been repaired hurriedly numbers of times. But little is left of the fifth century structure. Some parts, better preserved, exhibit alternate courses of stone and brick, a favourite style of building with the Byzantines, but not dating further back than the seventh century (Texier and Pullan, op. cit., p. 165).

[3] Paspates (op. cit., p. 14), to whom much more than to historical indications we are indebted for our knowledge of these walls.

[4] Those who have a topographical acquaintance with Stamboul are aware that at about three-quarters of a mile from the Golden Horn the wall turns abruptly to the west and makes a circuit as if to include a

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

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