Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/365

 CHAPTER XV. THE ASSAULT, CAPTURE, AND PLUNDER OF THE CITY. The preparations which the leaders had been pushing on Preparations duHng Several weeks were completed by the 8th of for the attack, ^pi^j]^ j^j^j ^ij^t day was choscn for an assault upon the city. A noteworthy change of plan had been made from that which had been acted upon nine months before. Instead of attacking simultaneously a portion of the harbor walls and a portion of the landward walls, Yenetians and Crusaders alike directed their eSorts against the defences on the side of the liarbor. The horses w^ere embarked once more in the huissiers. The line of battle was drawn up ; the huissiers and galleys in front, the transports a little behind, and alternating between the huissiers and the galleys. The whole length of the line of battle was upwards of half a league,^ and stretched from the Blachern to beyond the Petrion.' The emperor's vermilion tent had been pitched on the hill just beyond the district of the Petrion, where he could see the ships when they came immediately under the walls. Before him was the district ^ Robert de Clari says it was a league long (Ixx.) — a statement which cannot be true. 8 The Petrion, which is repeatedly mentioned by contemporary writers, was a district built on the slope of a hill running parallel to the Golden Horn for about one third of the length of the harbor walls eastward from Blachern. It had apparently been a neglected spot during the early centuries of the history of Constantinople, but had lately come to be the residence of numerous hermits, and the site of several monasteries and convents. A great part is now occupied by the Jewish colony of Galata. — Du Cange, " Cons. Ch." Dr. Mordtmann, of Constantinople, has carefully examined the question, and has published the result of his inquiry in Constantinople. Nicetas says that the ships reached from Blachern to the monastery of Everyetis. This monastery was near and below the present mosque of Sultan Selim.