Along the Land Walls - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 350

the Tower of the Ambassadors, since in Ottoman times foreign
envoys were often imprisoned there. Many of these unfortunates
have carved their names and dates and tales of woe upon the walls of
the tower in half a dozen languages. An inscription in French gives
this advice in verse: “Prisoners, who in your misery groan in this sad
place, ofer your sorrows with a good heart to God and you will find
them lightened.” The floors of the tower have fallen, but one climbs
up by a staircase in the thickness of the wall. When at the top it is
worthwhile walking around the chemin de ronde as far as the Golden
Gate, for there is a fine view of the castle and the walls down to the
sea, and, if it is spring, one finds a profusion of orchids, hyacinths and
Roman anemones growing in the turf.
We then return to the courtyard, in the middle of which there was
once a small mosque for the garrison; the remains of its minaret are
still standing. We next enter the pylon to the left of the Golden Gate;
this too was used as a prison and place of execution in Ottoman times.
One is shown the instruments of torture and the infamous “well of
blood”, a pool said to communicate with the sea, down which were
supposed to have been thrown the heads of those executed here. (We
do not guarantee the truth of this story.) Sultan Osman II was one of
those executed here, on 22 May 1622, when he was only 17 years old.
Evliya Çelebi gives this account of the execution of Young Osman, as
he was called: “They carried him in a cart to Yedikule where he was
barbarously treated and at last most cruelly put to death by Pehlivan
(the Wrestler). Whilst his body was exposed upon a mat, Kafir Ağa
cut of his right ear and a Janissary one of his fingers for the sake of
a ring upon it.”
The much celebrated Golden Gate between the pylons was
originally a Roman triumphal arch erected in about 390 by Theodosius
I the Great. At that time the present city walls had not yet been built
and the triumphal arch, as was customary, stood by itself on the Via
Egnatia, about a mile outside the walls of Constantine. The arch was
of the usual Roman type with a triple arcade containing a large central
archway flanked by two smaller ones. The outlines of the arches can
still be seen clearly although the openings were bricked up in later
Byzantine times. The gates themselves were covered with gold plate -