Walls of Constantinople

Put your hand flat against the stone. It is cool, rough, and uneven. Thin bands of red brick run through pale limestone like layers in a cake. Above you, a tower leans slightly. Weeds and small fig trees grow out of its cracks. Somewhere nearby, a car horn sounds, a gull calls, and a man sells simit from a cart. For more than a thousand years, this line of stone was the edge of a city that believed it was the centre of the world.

What you are touching is part of the land walls of Constantinople, the old Byzantine capital that became Istanbul. They run across the peninsula from the Sea of Marmara in the south to the Golden Horn in the north. Today they mark the western edge of the Fatih district, the oldest part of the city. Walk their full length and you cover roughly five and a half kilometres. It is one of the longest continuous ancient fortifications you can still walk beside in any modern city.

The main line was built in the early fifth century, under the emperor Theodosius the Second. That is why historians often call them the Theodosian Walls. The city had grown beyond the older defences of Constantine the Great, and Rome itself was under pressure from invading peoples. The new walls pushed the city boundary further west. They enclosed fresh land for churches, cisterns, gardens, and homes. The design was ambitious, and it was meant to last.

And it is not one wall, but several layers. Look at the full profile if you can. First came a wide moat, now mostly dry and filled with soil. Behind it stood a low breastwork. Then came an outer wall with its own towers. Finally, highest of all, rose the great inner wall, with taller towers spaced along its length. An attacker had to cross every layer under fire. Each one was higher than the last, so defenders could shoot over their own front lines.

Here is a story that surprises many visitors. In the year 447, a powerful earthquake brought down large sections of the walls. At the same moment, Attila and his Huns were moving through the Balkans. The city was in real danger. According to the sources of the time, the citizens rebuilt the damaged walls in about two months. The rival chariot-racing fans of the Hippodrome, known as the Blues and the Greens, were put to work together. Sports rivals became a construction crew.

For centuries afterwards, these walls held. Armies came from many directions — Avars, Persians, Arabs, Bulgars, and Rus. Some of them camped right outside, perhaps within sight of where you are standing. Again and again, they went home without breaking through. Even in 1204, when soldiers of the Fourth Crusade captured and looted the city, they did not come through these land walls. They attacked from the water, along the weaker sea walls by the Golden Horn.

The great exception came in the spring of 1453. The young Ottoman sultan, Mehmed the Second, brought a huge army and something new: very large cannon. For weeks, stone balls hammered the walls. The defenders, led by the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine the Eleventh, repaired the damage each night with timber, earth, and rubble. Finally, on the twenty-ninth of May, Ottoman troops broke into the city. The emperor died in the fighting, and his body was never clearly identified.

The area around the old Gate of Saint Romanus, near today's Topkapı, saw some of the heaviest bombardment. Some of the worst damage in the siege happened along this middle stretch, where the walls dip into a small river valley. There is also a famous story about a small side door called the Kerkoporta. Legend has it that someone left it open, and a few attackers slipped inside. Historians still debate how much of this tale is true. Treat it as a story the city likes to tell.

The Ottomans did not tear the walls down. They used them. Near the southern end, close to the sea, Mehmed built the Yedikule Fortress, whose name means Seven Towers. It wrapped around the old Golden Gate, the ceremonial entrance where Byzantine emperors once rode in triumph. Later, the fortress served as a treasury and as a prison. Its high walkways still look out over the city, the railway line, and the sea.

Now look at the ground in front of the walls. In several places, especially in the south, you will see neat green rows of vegetables. These are the market gardens of the moat and the land just inside the walls. Locals call them bostans. Gardeners have grown lettuce, herbs, and greens here for many generations. It is one of the quiet surprises of the walls. A thousand-year-old defence line now helps to feed the neighbourhood.

You will also notice that the walls do not all look the same. Some stretches are crumbling and wild, with trees on top. Others are smooth, bright, and almost new. Several sections were rebuilt in the late twentieth century, and some of that work drew strong criticism from historians for using modern materials too freely. So as you walk, ask yourself which stones are original and which are recent. The difference is often easy to see in the colour and the sharp edges.

The walls are part of the Historic Areas of Istanbul, listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. But they are not a closed museum. People live right up against them. Children play football in the old moat. Cats sleep on fallen blocks. Small mosques, cemeteries, and tea gardens sit in the shadow of the towers. Near Edirnekapı, one of the old gates, you can walk from the walls to the Chora area and its Byzantine mosaics in a few minutes.

Before you move on, stand still for a moment and look along the line of the walls. Notice how they follow the land, rising over hills and dropping into hollows. Notice the brick bands, the arrow slits, the dark gaps where towers have fallen. Listen to the traffic passing through gates once guarded by soldiers. As you walk away, look back once more. The city has grown far beyond this edge, but the line is still here.