Constantinople's Walls

Ashagar said:

Yep when from Constantinople's Theodosian Walls to the mysteriously missing Aurelian walls of Rome, to ships. Yep makes sense to me.

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Technology! . . . yeah, I know sorry . . . I'll show myself out of the thread . . .

The thing is, Aurelian walls were built in an era when Roman Empire was still strong enough, didn't face an immediate threat from anyone (at least after the 50 years of chaos before Aurelian), and the walls weren't intended to be put under a gruesome and prolonged siege by a huge army, because ever since Republican Civil Wars, Rome was never put under siege and the hostile armies nearby usually met in the hinterland of Latium (if not further away) and were decisively victorious or defeated. Any threat Aurelian might've felt against Rome itself was negated by the fact that Rome always kept a Legion somewhere in Italia province, with more lined on the southern Rhine and western Danube to respond fast as a backup if someone marched on Italy (proven during that Vitellius VS Vespasian civil war). No need for a real siege, because the victor would always march in with intention to win over the people rather than to sack the city...at least that stood out until barbarians finally invaded and sacked Rome in 410. Not to mention Rome being far away from the borders.

Theodosius II needed far better and larger fortifications due to the location. Constantinopolis was a semi-frontline city of the Empire and had been under threat of full-scale siege numerous times, especially from Goths. And then there is the constant threat of the feared Huns in his reign, who were bribed away (after forcing Roman Empire to pay a humiliating tribute) but could still return and get them anytime. And this time Roman Empire was in utter chaos.

Hence I guess is the reason that Theodosian Walls turned out to be better, and hence get represented in the game while Aurelian Walls, which got increasingly poorer over time due to lack of maintenance, don't get represented despite being another set of brilliant fortifications of the era.

The trouble with the Aurelian Walls wasn't the maintenance. They were generally kept maintained into the 19th century and they were effective defenses after their repair and enforcement in the early 5th century though the 19th century when the Italian army blow a hole in the walls and they are perhaps the best surviving example of mostly intact Roman city defenses but the prohibitive man power to man them, even the combined 25,000 men of Praetorian Guard, the cohortes urbanae, and the vigiles couldn't effective man twelve miles of the walls, the nearly four hundred towers, 18 main gates and 5 postern gates. They were certainly much better taken care of than the Theodosian Walls which were ill maintained after the fourth crusade the ERE had neither the manpower or the resources to maintain them.

Ashagar said:

The trouble with the Aurelian Walls wasn't the maintenance. They were generally kept maintained into the 19th century and they were effective defenses after their repair and enforcement in the early 5th century though the 19th century when the Italian army blow a hole in the walls and they are perhaps the best surviving example of mostly intact Roman city defenses but the prohibitive man power to man them, even the combined 25,000 men of Praetorian Guard, the cohortes urbanae, and the vigiles couldn't effective man twelve miles of the walls, the nearly four hundred towers, 18 main gates and 5 postern gates. They were certainly much better taken care of than the Theodosian Walls which were ill maintained after the fourth crusade the ERE had neither the manpower or the resources to maintain them.

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Exactly. The problem with them was that only a portion of them could be defended at once, even after a decent garrison. That happened during Battle of Milvian Bridge, although Maxentius took a great deal of the garrison out as a merger with his army. Another thing to consider is the severe depopulation of Rome after the collapse of Western Roman Empire, turning it into little more than a village by late 6th century. You cannot defend the walls of a giant city that was once inhabited by more than a million people, with only a few thousand men.

Aurelian Walls, on the other hand, mainly had a single direction to defend from. The Roman navy dealt with any attacks directed at sea walls, considering they didn't have cannon ships in that time to even think of breaching the wall using sea. Galata was a small frontier in itself and could be defended easily with city's guards.

Still a pity, wonder if there could be a event, Garrison the Aurelian Walls, after restoring the empire and moving the capital back to Rome. I mean any empire that could pull off the restore the roman empire event and move the capital back to Rome could likely garrison the walls effectively and still have forces to wage wars.

Yeah, the big problem with the Aurelian Walls -- even after their upgrade -- is that the city was just too enormous. I mean, Constantinopolis was a smaller city than Roma. The circuit the Aurelian Walls had to cover was monstrously huge.

Federalist girl said:

Yeah, the big problem with the Aurelian Walls -- even after their upgrade -- is that the city was just too enormous. I mean, Constantinopolis was a smaller city than Roma. The circuit the Aurelian Walls had to cover was monstrously huge.

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Correct in spirit and half-correct in fact, I think. Wikipedia gives the length of the Aurelian Walls at 16km. While the Theodosian land walls are only 7.5 long, to that must be added the 5.5km on the Golden Horn and 9km on the Sea of Marmara. Yes, Rome was (at its height) more populous than Constantinople but in terms of area covered Constantinople seems to have been larger. (c18km2 versus 14km2).

The advantage Constantinople had was that attacking from the sea is tricky, so that you could concentrate your defences on the 7.5km length of the land walls.

Another advantage that Constantinople had, referring back to the this picture,



was that while the Aurelian Walls were single, the Theodosian were double and had a semi-fortified moat.

This created serious problems for besiegers: how exactly are you meant to scale the walls? In 1453 the Ottomans spent an awful lot of time filling in the moat, then rushing (sometimes hinged) scaling ladders to scale the first wall and acrobatically attempt the second while under fire from the inner wall. Siege towers were dangerous, because of the uneven ground caused by the moat, and because the Byzantines burned them very efficiently, and in any case only partially useful unless the besieger were able to dismantle the outer wall.

Yeah, I meant just the coverage of the land walls. The sea walls were a different beast entirely, and not nearly so impregnable. The great chain and the imperial navy played a large role there -- without their presence, the Queen of Cities was very vulnerable to an attack by sea (see: the Fourth Crusade).

As for scale, yeah -- population-wise, Roma at her height was greater than Constantinopolis at her height, and more built up too. I don't think that there was construction all the way out to the land walls until the Ottoman period. You had the Blachernae Palace and some other complexes out by the walls, but there was definitely some empty space there too. Roma, on the other hand, was basically completely built up all the way to the circuit of the Aurelian Walls.

In the medieval period, Roma's lack of manpower -- particular with the aqueducts cut during the 5th century and the Gothic Wars -- made it impossible to sustain the kind of manpower to support the walls, and key sectors of the medieval city -- such as the Mons Vaticanus -- were outside the circuit anyway.