Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/191

 170 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. new ring of earth was added to what already existed. To judge from the accumulation of ruin and potsherds that have gathered here, centuries must have elapsed ere the Greek city arose, with an area which far outstrips that of the previous settle- ments. Caesar and Augustus, it was rumoured in Rome, at one time intended to transfer the seat of the empire to this town, then known as Novum Ilium.^ For convenience' sake we have employed and shall continue to employ the terms of ** first, second, and third" city, which Schliemann has made familiar, to designate the groups that succeeded one another on this spot. No possible harm can come of using the name, provided the reader fully understands the limitations of the same ; for in no respect do the prehistoric settlements image forth our notions of what we mean by town. Let us take DOrpfeld's plan of the burnt city (PI. I.), made after the excavations of 1890; by drawing two lines across it, one from right to left and the other from top to bottom, we shall find that their length is 108 and 115 metres respectively, and the space they enclose 12,425 square metres;^ that is to say, considerably larger than that of the town in question, as any one can see for himself by following the length of line encircling the area. To take a comparison near home : the courtyard called Cour de L'Horloge, at the Louvre, measures 122 metres at the side; this is equivalent to 13,784 square metres, and far exceeds that of the village which Schliemann identifies with Homeric Troy. Given the space of the latter, its population can never have been large, no matter how closely packed the houses may have been. Add as we will a few metres to the area of the third village, enlarge somewhat the surface of the last Greek settlement, which may almost be considered modern, all we shall obtain will be a space barely the size of our court, which is by no means one of the largest squares of the French capital. Accordingly, here, the value of the word **town" is purely conventional, "citadel" would have been more apt. All we know of the first village is now visible at the bottom 1 Suetonius, Casar; Horace, Odes. 2 Two of the sides fall short of this figure bya few centimetres; the difference however is of. too trifling a character to affect the argument, and therefore need not be considered.