IV. 
176 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
CHAP, added to its crumbling ruined state, give it a 
picturesque appearance exhibited by no other 
city in the Levant : it resembles a series of 
old ruined castles, extending for^t;e miles, from 
sea to sea. This may be considered nearly as 
the exact distance ; perhaps it is rather less 
than more ; but we measured it with all the 
care in our power. A person walking quick 
might perform it in an hour. The whole cir- 
cumference of the walls of Constantinople mea- 
sures eighteen English miles ; and the number 
of mural towers amounts to four hundred and 
seventy-eight ; inclosing a triangular space, whose 
three sides equal ^ve, six, and seven miles each- 
The antient city of Byzantium must also have 
been triangular ; for the Acropolis occupied the 
vertex of the triangular promontory, or point of 
the KEPA2 XPTSEON, (which afterwards gave its 
name to the Bay) where the Seraglio now 
stands'. The old walls of Byzantium were of 
(1) " Acropolis autem sita erat ad angulum urbis, qui Fropontidtttn 
et Fretum spectat, ubi nunc novum Saraium extat. Claudianus, lib.i> 
in Rufinum, 
Celsd qud Bosphorus arce 
Splendet, et OtJirysiis Asiam discriminat (rris. 
" Arcisliera seu Acropolis Byxantinee meminit Ausonius in Professorib. 
Carm. xvn. 
^yxanli inde arcem, Threstteqtic Proponlidis Urbem 
Constantinopolim fama tuifcpuHt. 
