Exakionion

The name is given in various forms (Ἑξακιώνιον, Ἑξακιόνι[ο]ν, Ἑξωκιόνιον, Ἑξωκιώνιν, Ἑξωκιώνην), but according to Raymond Janin, it likely derives from a name like Ἑξωκιώνια, meaning "exterior colonnade" (i.e., outside the Wall of Constantine), deriving from a column placed by Constantine the Great in front of the wall, surmounted with a statue of himself.[3][2]

The Byzantine authors apply the term to a variety of heights between the Golden Horn and the Marmara Sea, in the portion of the city between the original Wall of Constantine and the later Theodosian Walls.[4] More broadly, the term was apparently applied to almost the entire area between the walls, but also designated a more specific quarter therein.[1]

Based on the descriptions of imperial ceremonies in the 10th-century De Ceremoniis, that quarter was to the northeast of the area called Sigma, and close to the hill of Xerolophos.[4] According to the Patria of Constantinople, the Exakionion was situated on a hill, being the highest point of the old Constantinian wall, which fell towards the sea on both sides.[5][6] The sources make clear that a gate existed at Exakionion that pierced the Wall of Constantine, through which the road from the Golden Gate of the Theodosian Walls passed into the older city,[4][7] and thence led, flanked by a double portico, through the various forums of the city, to the Chalke Gate of the Great Palace of Constantinople.[8]

This gate at Exakionion is therefore commonly held to have been the main gate of Constantine's city wall, or "Old Golden Gate", mentioned in the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae.[2] This gate is in turn usually identified with the structure labelled porta antiquissima pulchra in the 15th-century map of Cristoforo Buondelmonti.[9][2] After the Fall of Constantinople it became known as Isakapı ("Gate of Jesus") in Turkish, and survived until destroyed by an earthquake in 1508/09.[10][5] The descriptions of the Patria and the 14th-century author Pseudo-Kodinos also give grounds to identify this "Old Golden Gate" with the "Old Gate of the Prodromos" (ἡ παλαιὰ πόρτα τοῦ Προδρόμου) from a nearby monastery of St. John Prodromos, built by Constantine the Great against the city wall, but this gate may have been situated a bit further north.[10]

Apart from the statue of Constantine the Great, there were a number of other monuments in the quarter. Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) erected a number of other statues around that of Constantine; Pseudo-Kodinos reports that columns brought from Cyzicus still stood in the area.[3] There were also a public bath, a mansion of the 12th-century aristocrat Andronikos Doukas Angelos, and three churches, dedicated to the Theotokos, the Holy Trinity, and Saint Eudokimos.[3]

• Guilland, Rodolphe (1969). Études de topographie de Constantinople byzantine, Tome II (in French). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Janin, Raymond (1950). Constantinople byzantine. Développement urbaine et répertoire topographique. Paris: Institut Français d'Études Byzantines.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)