The Theodosian Walls defended Byzantium successfully for eight hundred years, until the treacherous Venetians caused the Fourth Crusade to breach the sea walls in 1204. For 250 years after that the walls held other enemies at bay, a symbol of a once mighty city that had sadly decayed.
Visiting The Theodosian Walls
The best guide I found to actually walking the Theodosian Walls yourself was on a Tripadvisor forum, by Mightywease:
Thanks for finding my post – nothing to add really except it was a fantastic experience, however, if you are on your own I would be very careful trying to actually walk on the walls as, apart from being difficult terrain, you are isolated from nearby roads and houses which could make you feel uncomfortable. However this does mean you are walking beside a busy main road – though the views of the walls are lovely.
That, however, applies more to the first section of the walls from Yedikule to the Topkapi Gate, the section of the walls from Topkapi Gate or Edirnekapi Gate (which is not too far from Ulubatli Metro Station) runs through small ‘suburban’ (wrong word but I can’t think of a better one!) areas which are much less isolated and you get to see is different side to life in Istanbul but, on the down side, the section of walls there are not quite as pretty.
Can’t comment on the stretch of walls towards the Golden Horn as we walked as far as St. Saviour in Chora (must try and finish the route some time!)
Not sure what to suggest really – if I was on my own I’d probably visit Yedikule and then wander along the path of the walls for a while – possibly to the Belgrade or even Silivri Gate – as that is the most pictureseque section and you get a really good idea of what the walls must have looked like. I think it was somewhere between the Belgrade and Silivri Gate that we actually managed to get onto the walls so perhaps you could have a peer around there and see how things are looking.
You could then either return to Yedikule to get the bus back or get a bus/taxi from one of the gates.
Good Luck and enjoy Istanbul
Louise
Further research uncovered an excellent guide to walking the walls here.
My Experience
I was lucky enough to have a taxi for the day to give me a personal tour of the best places to stop and see the Theodosian Walls safely. Details of the full trip in 2012 are in my travel blog here. We combined the walls with a visit to the excellent Panorama 1453 Museum (built about 200m from the walls) and the Yedikule fortress, that incorporates some of the Theodisian Walls into its structure.
The walls, being over 1500 years old, are an incredible testament to Roman engineering and despite gunfire and earthquakes they still stand tall in a lot of places. Sections have been plundered for stone or dismantled, some areas are crumbling and some have been ‘restored’. I have no idea if these restorations are historically accurate but they do allow you to get some sense of the majesty of the original walls, especially when compared to the cracked and crumbling towers of the unrestored sections. There are some lovely vegetable allotments in the old moat too!
The Theodosian Walls Photo Gallery
History
It was the capture of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 that forced the Byzantine government to build a fourth wall, which is called the Theodosian Wall, and is about 1½ km wall of the wall of Constantine. It must be admitted that the emperor Theodosius II (408-450) can take little personal credit for its construction: the man who was responsible, was his praetorian prefect, the capable Anthemius, who was the effective ruler of the eastern part of the Roman world when Theodosius was still a boy. The wall was built in 412-414, surrounded an area of 12 km², was 12 m high, and had 96 towers that were about 18 m tall. Two related projects were the construction of the Aetius Cistern, close to the new walls, and improved Sea Walls (439).
In 447, the walls were partly destroyed by an earthquake, which was all the more worrying because the Huns were by now making aggressive raids. Theodosius ordered the praetorian prefect, Cyrus of Panopolis, to rebuild and strengthen the fortifications. A second wall, about 8 m high, was built in front of the original wall, and the number of towers was doubled, so that there were now 192 of them. Two inscriptions near the Rhegium Gate (now called Mevlevihane) claim that the job could done in sixty days because the fans of the famous Circus factions were doing the work. The third, low, wall and the moat were created later. A final addition was the wall around the Blachernae Palace, hastily built before when the Avars besieged Constantinople in 627.
The Theodosian Wall is almost 5½ km long. It begins on the shores of the Golden Horn, near the Blachernae Palace, and continues to the south, to the Golden Gate – which was included in the new wall – and Sea of Marmara. There are many gates.
These defenses could not be captured by any medieval attacker, and withstood several sieges by – among others – the Avars, the Arabs, and the Bulgarians. However, after the Crusades, the Empire was exhausted and the city was no longer as populous as it once had been. When the Ottoman sultan acquired cannon, the walls of Constantinople were rendered obsolete. On 29 May 1453, the Gate of Saint Romanus was destroyed by artillery, the garrison of the Circus Gate was seized, and the Fifth Military Gate was stormed by the Turks. The city was finally captured. It was the end of the Byzantine Empire, which had, for more than eight centuries been Christianity’s bulwark against the armies of Islam.
References
There is a fantastically detailed post on the Theodosian Walls on the Byzantine legacy site here.
Byzantium 1200 has an interesting digital reconstruction of the walls here.
The history above is copied from the livius.org site here.
We love Istanbul has a nice guide to visiting the walls here.
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