From Haghia Sophia to Beyazit Square - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 136

from the mouth of the well and reflects on the water, where the
fish usually come for air.
The Cistern is three hundred and thirty-six feet long, a
hundred and eighty two feet broad, and two hundred and
twenty-four Roman paces in circumference. The roof, arches
and sides are all brickwork covered with terra-cotta, which is
not the least impaired by time. The roof is supported by three
hundred and thirty six pillars. The space of the intercolumniation
is twelve feet. Each pillar is over forty feet, nine inches high.
They stand lengthwise in twelve ranges, broadways in twenty-
eight… There is an abundance of wells that empty into the
Cistern. When it was filling in the winter time I saw a large
stream of water filling from a great pipe with mighty noise until
the pillars were covered up with water to the middle of the
capitals. This Cistern stands west of the Church of St. Sophia a
distance of eighty Roman paces.
Ninety of the columns in the south-west corner were walled of
in the nineteenth century. The columns are topped by Byzantine
Corinthian capitals; these have imposts above them which support
little domes of brick in a herringbone pattern. One of the columns
on the left side is carved with a curious peacock-eye or lopped
branch design. This identifies it as part of the triumphal arch in the
Forum of Theodosius I on the Third Hill (see Chapter 9), where
fragments of identical columns were excavated in 1965. In the
far left corner of the cistern, at a slightly lower level, one of the
columns is mounted on ancient classical bases supported by the
heads of Gorgons, one of them upside down and the other on its
side. (The Gorgons in Greek mythology were three sisters, one of
whom, Medusa, was slain by Perseus.) These Gorgon heads and the
two we have seen outside the Archaeological Museum were, as we
have noted, originally in the Forum of Constantine, whose site we
will see later on this itinerary.
FIRUZ AĞA CAMİİ
On leaving Yerebatan Saray, we retrace our steps and return once