The history of our knowledge of this inscription is curious. There is no mention made of the legend by any writer before 1453, unless Radulphus de Diceto alludes to it when he states that in 1189 an old resident of the city pointed a Templar to certain words upon the Golden Gate, foretelling the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders.[214] And of all the visitors to the city since the Turkish Conquest, Dallaway is the only one who speaks of having seen the inscription in its place.[215] The inscription is cited first by Sirmondi[216] and Du Cange,[217] the former of whom quotes it in his annotations upon Sidonius Apollonius, as furnishing a parallel to that poet’s mode of spelling the name Theodosius with a _v_ instead of an _o_ for the sake of the metre. How Sirmondi and Du Cange, neither of whom ever visited Constantinople, became acquainted with the inscription does not appear. Matters remained in this position until 1891, when the attention of Professor J. Strzygowski[218] was arrested by certain holes in the voussoirs of the central archway, both on its western and eastern faces. The holes are such as are found on stones to which metal letters are riveted with bolts. Here, then, was conclusive evidence that the Porta Aurea had once borne an inscription, and here, Professor Strzygowski divined, was also the means by which the genuineness of the legend given by Sirmondi and Du Cange could be verified. Accordingly, a comparison between the arrangement of the holes on the arch and the forms of the letters in the legend was instituted. As several of the original voussoirs of the arch had been removed and replaced by others without holes in them, the comparison could not be complete; but so far as it was possible to proceed the correspondence was all that could be desired. Where H, for example, occurred in the inscription, the holes on the archway are arranged thus, ::; where an A stood, the holes are placed thus, ∴; where V came, their position is ∵; and so on, to an extent which verifies the inscription beyond dispute. Thus, also, it has been ascertained that the letters were of metal, probably gilt bronze, and that the words “Haec loca Thevdosivs decorat post fata Tyranni” stood on the western face of the arch, while the words “Avrea saecla gerit qvi portam constrvit avro” were found on the opposite side.