Byzantine Constantinople, the walls of the city and adjoining historical sites — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Byzantine Constantinople, the walls of the city and adjoining historical sites
John Stuart Mill · en
The supposition that the Neorion at the Heptascalon was the same as the
Kontoscalion is open to objections equally, if not more, serious. The
identity of the two harbours is inconsistent with the fact that the two
names occur in the writings of the same author, Cantacuzene,[1167] in
the same section of his work, in passages not widely separated and
treating of kindred matters, without the slightest hint that under the
different names he refers to the same thing. The natural impression made
by the use of the two names in such a way is that they denote different
things. Then, there is an opposition between the respective meanings of
the two names, which makes their application to the same object
incompatible; a harbour distinguished by a short pier cannot also be a
harbour distinguished by seven piers. In the next place, the different
accounts which Cantacuzene gives of the condition of the two harbours in
his reign imply that he is not speaking of the same port. He refers to
the Kontoscalion,[1168] in 1348, without a note of disparagement, as a
harbour in which he constructed several large triremes for the increase
of his fleet; while he describes the Neorion at the Heptascalon,[1169]
only three years later, as a harbour which had long been neglected,
which was full of silt, and which he restored at great expense, for the
public advantage, on a scale which entitled it to be styled the New
Neorion.[1170]
And just as all that Cantacuzene states regarding the two harbours
implies that they were different, so does the language of Nicephorus
Gregoras. When the latter writer alludes to the Kontoscalion, he
describes it as the harbour near the Hippodrome;[1171] when he alludes
to the Neorion at the Heptascalon, he describes it as the harbour facing
the east.[1172] Different marks are generally employed to distinguish
different objects.[1173] This being so, the unavoidable conclusion is
that the Neorion at the Heptascalon was a harbour situated between Koum
Kapoussi and Yeni Kapou, the only possible situation for an additional
harbour.