Cistern of Mocius

The cistern is located in Istanbul, in the district of Fatih (the walled city), in the quarter of Altımermer and the mahalle of Seyyid Ömer, to the northeast of the Seyyid Ömer Mosque, between Ziya Gökalp Sokak to the north and Cevdet Paşa Caddesi to the south. It lies on the highest part of the seventh hill of Istanbul, and overlooks the Marmara Sea. ==History==

According to the Patria of Constantinople, the construction of this cistern, which lay in the twelfth region of Constantinople, occurred under Emperor Anastasius I (r. 491–518). The cistern, which lay just outside the Wall of Constantine, which formed the city's original landward boundary, was built to supply water to the new quarters erected between the former and the 5th-century Theodosian Walls. Writing after the Ottoman conquest of 1453, the 16th-century French traveler Pierre Gilles observed that around 1540 the reservoir was empty. ==Description==

The cistern has a rectangular plan with sides long and wide, and covers an area of : this makes of it the largest cistern ever built in Constantinople. The reservoir could contain about of water. Its walls, thick an elegant pattern similar to that also used by the similar cisterns of Aetius and of Aspar. ==See also==