Page "Walls of Constantinople" Paragraph 89

The first gate, now demolished, was the Eastern Gate (, Eōa Pylē ) or Gate of St. Barbara (, Pylē tēs martyros Barbaras ) after a nearby church, in Turkish Top Kapısı (" Gate of the Cannon "), from which Topkapı Palace takes its name.

Unique among the seaward gates, it was, like the Golden Gate, flanked by two large towers of white marble, which in 1816 was used to construct the nearby Marble Kiosk of Sultan Mahmud II.

Twice it served as the entry-point for an emperor's triumphal return: in 1126, when John II Komnenos returned from the recapture of his ancestral Kastamonu, and in 1168, when Manuel I Komnenos returned from his victorious campaign against Hungary.