On the morrow at the first capture of the city the Janissaries rushed to the great church, which they conceived was filled with gold, silver, and precious stones. They found the doors fastened, but broke them open, and at once began to pillage. The sultan as soon as possible rode to S. Sophia. Dismounting on the threshold, with the mystic symbolism of an Oriental, he stooped down, and, collecting some earth, let it fall on his turbaned head, as an act of humiliation. Then he entered the edifice, but stopped in the doorway some moments, and gazed in silence before him. “He saw a Turk breaking the floor with an axe. ‘Wherefore dost thou that?’ inquired the conqueror. ‘For the faith,’ replied the soldier. Mahomet in an impulse of anger struck him, saying, ‘Ye have got enough by pillaging, and enslaving the city, the buildings are mine.’” A letter to Pope Nicholas V., written in 1453, describes how “the profane heathen broke into the marvellous temple of S. Sophia, unsurpassed by Solomon’s; they reverenced not the sacred images, nay, rather broke them in pieces; they put out the eyes of the priests, scattered the relics of the saints, and seized on the gold and silver.”[217] Ducas, who died eleven years after the Fall, bewails “the Great Church, a new Sion which has now become an altar of the heathen, and is called the house of Mahomet.” “The dogs hewed down the holy ikons, tore off the ornaments, the chains, the napkins, and the coverings of the holy table. Some of the lamps they destroyed, and others they carried away. They stole the sacred vessels from the skeuophylakium. Everything made of silver and gold or other precious materials was taken away, and the church was left naked and desolate as it had never been before.” With the exception of the removal of much of the treasure, the church did not immediately suffer great harm from its new masters. On the outside however the destruction of many of the low attached chambers, and the addition of the minarets, have very much changed its appearance. The first minaret, which was indeed the first in Constantinople, was built at the south-east corner by Mahomet the Conqueror. Selim II., who reigned from 1566 to 1574, built the second at the north-east corner, and also restored the eastern apse which had been again damaged by an earthquake: Amurath III. erected the last two minarets at the western corners.[218]