According to Ducas[950] it was through the Gate of the Hodegetria that John VI. Palæologus penetrated, in 1355, into the city to overthrow John Cantacuzene. The voyage of the conspirators from Tenedos had been accomplished in rough weather; and it was dark and stormy when they arrived before Constantinople. As their force consisted of but two galleys, with 2000 men, the assailants could hope to enter the city only by stratagem. Approaching, therefore, the Gate of the Hodegetria, they proceeded to hurl empty oil-jars against the walls, and to rend the air with loud cries of distress. The startled sentinels, imagining it was a case of shipwreck, and touched by appeals to their humanity and by promises of a share in the rich cargo of oil reported to be on board the galleys, opened the gate and rushed to the rescue. When they discovered their mistake, it was too late. They were promptly overpowered and killed, and the Italian adventurers seized the gate, mounted the adjoining towers, and raised the cry in favour of Palæologus. It was at the Gate of the Hodegetria, probably, that Bardas, in 866, embarked to conduct an expedition against the Saracens in Crete, after invoking the aid of the Virgin Hodegetria.[951] Here, the troops sent by Alexius III. to suppress the insurrection under John the Fat landed to gain the Great Palace, which the rebel leader was occupying.[952] The gate appears in the last siege, as a point blockaded by the Turkish fleet which invested the walls along the Sea of Marmora.[953] In the recess of the shore immediately beyond the Seraglio Lighthouse, where the coast bends westwards, are two gates, known, respectively, as Balouk Haneh Kapoussi and Ahour Kapoussi. The former, the Gate of the Fish House, obtained its name from the circumstance that it led to the quarters of the fishermen in the service of the Turkish Court; the latter was styled the Stable Gate, because it conducted to the Sultan’s Mews.