Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/603

Rh had given lessons in the game of draughts. The only other ancient writer who is known to have admitted the Ilian claim is of Lesbos (c. 482-397 ), who, as Strabo remarks, wished "to gratify the Lians, as is his wont." Like the Ilians, Hellanicus was of Æolian origin; and in compiling the local legends of various places he is known to have been wholly uncritical, merely repeating what was told to him as he had heard it. On the other hand, the claim of the Greek Ilium to stand on the site of im; Troy was decisively rejected by the general consent of those ancient writers who had any claim to critical authority. The orator Lycurgus (c. 332 ) speaks of the site of Troy as desolate, and this at a moment when the recent visit of to the Greek Ilium (334 ) had drawn attention to the claim made by its inhabitants. Demetrius, a native of Scepsis in the Troad, who flourished about 160, wrote a book entitled T/MIHKOS ZiaKocr/xos ("The Marshalling of the Trojans"), an exhaustive commentary on the catalogue of the Trojan forces in the second book of the Iliad. Demetrius knew the topography of the Troad as thoroughly as he knew the text of Homer. The extant notices of his work, which had a great reputation in antiquity, warrant the belief that he was not only learned but acute. In the Diacosmus, which was the chief work of his life, he must have bestowed much thought on the question as to the site of Homeric Troy, the central point of his subject. He pronounced decidedly, as we know from Strabo, against the claim of the Greek Ilium. It has been suggested that Demetrius rejected the Ilian claim because, as a native of Scepsis, he was jealous of Ilium, a suggestion which is not only absurd in itself, since it assumes that such a motive would have induced Demetrius to mar his life's work, but also betrays ignorance of Strabo's text. Scepsis was not a possible claimant of the contested honour, since it was not in the plain of Troy but in the plain of Bairamitch; and further, Demetrius had already provided in another manner for the Homeric dignity of Scepsis by making it the royal seat of ./Eneas on the strength of its position relatively to Lyrnessus. The verdict of Demetrius against the Ilian claim was also the general verdict of the other ancient writers consulted by Strabo, as the latter's language shows. From the passage in which Strabo notices the various definitions of the Troad (xiii. 4) it appears that among such writers were the following historians and geographers: (flor. 500 ),  of Sigeum (400 ), Scylax of Caryanda (350 ), Ephorus of Cyme (340 ), Eudoxus of Cyzicus (130 ). It is to such writers as these that Strabo refers when he indicates the general consent of his authorities. In favour of the claim of the Greek Ilium, on the other hand, there are only two literary witnesses, and these, as we have seen, are alike worthless. Equally valueless from a critical point of view is the fact that the Ilian claim was sometimes allowed by soldiers or statesmen who wished to utilize Trojan memories. They required an official Troy, and they cared not where they found it. Nothing could more curiously illustrate the extreme poverty of the case for the Greek Ilium than the fact that some of its advocates have been reduced to arguing as if Alexander and Lucius Scipio, when they led their armies through the Troad, had been conducting archaeological excursions, and as if their acquiescence in a convenient local myth had the weight of independent critical testimonies.

In negativing the Ilian claim the conclusion of ancient criticism has been confirmed by a great preponderance of modern opinion. Since Lechevalier visited the Troad in 1785–86 an overwhelming majority of competent judges have favoured his belief that the Bali Dagh above Bunarbashi was the Pergamus of the Homeric poet's conception. Before Leake's visit this opinion had been expressed by Choiseul-Gouffier, Morritt, Hawkins, Gell, and Hamilton. Leake spoke with a decision which derives additional weight from the habitual sobriety of his acute judgment, and from the care with which, in this case, he had ex amined the alleged objections to the view which he finally adopted. He remarks that no one accustomed to observe the sites of ancient Greek towns could fail to fix on Bunarbashi "for the site of the chief place of the surrounding country." So Mr Tozer, in his Highlands of Turkey, says: "A person accustomed to observe the situation of Hellenic cities would at once fix on this as far more likely to have recommended itself to the old inhabitants of the country than any other in the neighbourhood." Count von Moltke has expressed the same opinion, that "he knew no other site in the Trojan plain for a chief town of ancient time." Another supporter of Bunarbashi is Forchhammer. Another is Kiepert. The opinion of Ernst Curtius has been already cited. But space precludes more names; it is enough to say that the correspondence of the Bali Dagh with the Homeric Pergamus a correspondence absolutely unique in the Trojan plain has been recognized with virtual una nimity by modern travellers who have patiently inspected the scenery of the Iliad, having competent knowledge, and being free from bias in favour of a theory formed before their visit. Partial excavations on the summit of the Bali Dagh have been more than once undertaken, with the result of discovering ancient walls. Pottery, too, has been found there, part of which is allowed on all hands to be probably as old, at least, as 900 But the Bali Dagh has never yet been explored with any approach to thoroughness.

The result of the excavations conducted by Dr Schliemann on the mound of Hissarlik has been to lay bare the remains of the Greek Ilium, and also, below these, some prehistoric remains of a rude and poor kind. In Troy, his first book on the subject, the explorer held that the remains of the Greek Ilium ceased at a depth of 6 feet below the surface, and that all the other remains, down to 52 feet, were prehistoric. He distinguished the latter into five groups, representing five prehistoric "cities" which had succeeded each other on the site; and in his second work, Ilios, he added to these a sixth prehistoric city, on the strength of some scanty vestiges of supposed Lydian workmanship, found at a depth of 6 feet. In both books, Homeric Troy was identified with the third prehistoric city from the bottom, which was supposed to have been destroyed, though not totally, by fire. Professor Jebb was the first to show (1) that the lines of demarcation between the alleged prehistoric strata, as drawn in Ilios, could not be accurate, and (2) that, if any part of the pre historic remains could be supposed to represent Homeric Troy, it must be that part which Dr Schliemann had called the second city from the bottom, and the destruction of which by fire appeared to have been total. In 1882 the architects employed by Dr Schliemann proved that the stratification given in Ilios had in fact been incorrect. The errors, too, affected precisely that region of the deposit which was most important to the Trojan hypothesis, viz., the lower strata. In Dr Schliemann's third volume, Troja, these errors were admitted; and Troy was now identified, no longer with the third city, but with the second, of which the supposed area was now enlarged. Another fact to which the English critic had drawn attention was that the remains of the Greek Ilium must extend to a considerably greater depth than 6 feet below the surface. Further examination confirmed this view also. It showed that the remains on the mound at Hissarlik belong to the following periods or groups. (1) At the top, the remains of the Greek Ilium as it existed in the Roman age, i.e., as rebuilt