Category: This entry was posted in Byzantine, Fortification by MSW. Bookmark the permalink.

Walls of Constantinople Following the withdrawal of the Roman legions from the out-posts of the Western Empire and the fall of Rome, the Western nations were left to defend themselves against their barbarous foes as best they might. For many centuries henceforth they were involved in a desperate strife of a kind which allowed little […]

Winters on the Bosphorus can be surprisingly severe, as the Arabs had discovered during the siege of 717. The site of the city, jutting out into the straits, leaves it exposed to fierce squalls hurtling down from the Black Sea on the north wind. A particularly dank and sub-zero cold penetrates to the marrow of […]