344 DESTBUCTION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE before an entry had been effected elsewhere. 1 Critobulus's statement that Caraja's men crossed the foss, made a vigorous assault, and sought to pass within the broken-down (Outer) wall, but were repulsed, probably refers to the same incident. 2 Ducas is careful to state that the emperor and the Eomans did not know what had happened, because they were at some distance and were too much occupied in defending themselves in a different place, which he explains to be where the wall had been broken down : that is, at the stockade in the Lycus valley. "While they were thus fighting, he says, to resist the entry through the ruined wall, God willed that the enemy should enter the city by this other way. Leonard mentions that the arrangements for sending messengers from one part of the wall to another were defective. The emperor, how- ever, was probably informed of the entry by the Kerkoporta and of the capture of at least part of the enclosure between that postern and the Adrianople Gate, and hastened thither before his army under Justiniani learned that the Turkish standards had been hoisted on the towers near the Adrianople Gate. 3 The few Turks who had entered the city, bent upon plunder, made for the rich monasteries of Choras and St. John in Petra and the Blachern palace ; but it would appear that the brothers Bocchiardi were able to regain possession of the Enclosure and to prevent any considerable number of the enemy from following those who had entered the Kerkoporta. Possibly even they were strong enough to close it. The fact that the entry at the Kerkoporta is not mentioned by Critobulus may be taken to confirm the view that, if he knew of it at all, he only regarded it as a somewhat unimportant incident. 1 Phrantzes, p. 285. 2 Crit. lvi. 3 Sad-ud-din gives an interesting variant of the story of Ducas. He states that while 1 the blind-hearted emperor ' was busy resisting the besiegers of the city at his palace to the north of the Adrianople Gate,' ' suddenly he became aware that the upraisers of the most glorious standard of " The Word of God" had found a path to within the walls ' (Sad-ud-din, p. 30). The statement that the emperor was present at Tekfour Serai agrees with that of Ducas ; but the latter's account of the events immediately following the entry by the Kerkoporta varies so much from that given by others that I suspect some sentences have dropped out of his narrative.
