Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/252

 Troy. 229 summit of the hill which carried Troy, and this vision pre- supposes a more or less distinct perception of a relation, a certain evaluation of the space which, on the ground, separated the several points alluded to or named by the speaker. In this way, we may be sure, did the poet suit his tale to the conditions of the surroundings in which his dramatis personce were placed, so that none of his hearers should experience the least difficulty in picturing to themselves from first to last the various acts of the people moving in the drama. Those who favour the Bali Dagh theory are obliged to acknowledge that its distance from the Hellespont is greater than they could wish ; but they think they can wriggle out of the difficulty by appealing to the venerable authority of Herodotus and Strabo ; to the effect that the coast has advanced since antiquity, when the sea penetrated far inland, where it had fashioned for itself a great gulf, and that as a consequence of it the Homeric naustatkmos or naval station was much nearer to Bunarbashi than it is now.^ Unfortunately for its authors, the hypothesis is not corroborated by history or the features of the landscape. Scylax rightly states that Novum Ilium, that is to say Hissarlik, is twenty-five stadia from the sea ; for this is very nearly what we find on the map.^ The pretended gulf is supposed to have been filled up by alluvium brought to it by the Scamander between the tenth and the fifth century b.c. ; but why should the river have waited until then to roll down a quantity of mud and gravel, for the purpose of discharging it on the coast, where it met the sea-current which henceforward seized and dispersed it far and wide, so as to effectually prevent the spreading of the plain for all time ? When man, however, fixed his abode in this district, the Scamander had been flowing for thousands of years, during which it had had ample leisure to accomplish this work. Why should it have been particularly active in the short period which separates Scylax from Homer ? Moreover, researches into the composition of the soil and subsoil of the plain have for ever disposed of the question ; the trenches and shafts sunk by Schliemann all over the Troad have disclosed no trace of a marine formation below the alluvium wrenched from the Idaean rocks by the Scamander.^ It would ^ Herodotus; Strabo. ^ Scylax. ^ ViRCHOw, Beitrcege zur Landeskunde^ 6-r.