To the rear of Deïrmen Kapoussi a hollow, now occupied by market-gardens, indicates the site of the Kynegion, the amphitheatre erected by Severus when he restored Byzantium.[901] A combat of wild animals was held here as late as the reign of Justinian the Great, in honour of his consulship.[902] Subsequently, the Kynegion became a place of execution for important political offenders. There, Justinian II., on his restoration to the throne, put his rivals, Leontius and Apsimarus, to death, after subjecting them to public humiliation in the Hippodrome, by resting his feet upon their necks, while he viewed the games.[903] A little to the south of the Kynegion stood the Church and Monastery of St. George at the Mangana (Μοναστήριον κατὰ τὰ λεγόμενα Μάγγανα, ἐπ᾽ ὀνόματι τοῦ ἁγίου μεγάλου μάρτυρος Γεωργίου). It was an erection of Constantine Monomachus,[904] and one of the most splendid and important monasteries in the city. Its site is determined by the following indications; the church was opposite Chrysopolis,[905] and near the Mangana and the Kynegion;[906] it stood in the midst of meadows, and to it were attached gardens and a hospital.[907] “There was,” says Clavijo, the Spanish envoy, “before the entrance (of the church), a wide court containing many gardens and houses; the church itself stood in the middle of these gardens.”[908] Now, room for a church with such surroundings existed only to the south of the Kynegion, where a comparatively extensive plain is found; while the territory to the north was contracted, and was, moreover, otherwise occupied. This conclusion is corroborated by the statement of the Russian pilgrims that the Monastery of the Mangana lay to the _west_ of the Church of St. Saviour.[909] That church, we shall find, stood at Indjili Kiosk.[910] Hence, a building to the west of that point would be on the plain above indicated. From the Church of St. George mediæval writers derived the name of Braz Saint George for the Sea of Marmora and the Hellespont.[911] The Emperor John Cantacuzene, upon his abdication, was for some time a monk in the Monastery of Mangana, under the name Joasaph (Ἰωάσαφ), until he withdrew to the deeper seclusion of the Monastery of Batopedi, on Mount Athos.[912] The next gate, Demir Kapoussi, is a Turkish erection that may have replaced an older entrance.[913]