Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/253

 230 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. appear to be proved then, that the lower plain of Troy does not cover the ancient bed of a gulf, and that the Asiatic coast at the entrance of the strait preserves, with one single exception, the aspect which it wore twenty or thirty centuries ago. In front of Cape Sigeum — connected with the inland ranges by low ridges — runs out, to about 1,500 metres, a tongue of sand formed by the Scamander, and above all by the action of the north and north-east winds, which sweep down the strait with great violence during the best part of the year. Its extreme point is crowned by the fortress of Kum Kaleh. Before wind and river had cast up this neck of land which conceals Cape Sigeum from the sea, the coast must have described, somewhat to the rear of its present line, a slightly inward curve, alluded to by the poet when he adverts to the spot where the Greeks beached their boats and established themselves. '* They have," he writes, ** filled the great mouth of the coast which is fenced in by the two promontories." * Nor do the defenders of Bunarbashi fare any better when they endeavour to harmonize their theory with the names and direction of the streams of the Troad, such as we know them from the poem or from subsequent writers. The cumulative evidence derived from these different sources was always under- stood as establishing the fact that the Scamander was the main river of the country, and that it had its rise on the heights of Ida.^ The old name, slightly modified, has survived in that of " Mendere." On the other hand, Lechevalier rests a main argument on the passage of the Epic wherein reference is made to eddying fountains close to the Scaean Gates, which he would identify with those of Bunarbashi.^ The expression, " whirling, eddying," employed by the poet, though vague, implies that two springs discharge their waters into the Scamander ; note the absence of the definite article ; they are springs of the Scamander, in the sense that they 1 Iliad— cat irX^ffai' dird<ri7c 'HVoi'Oc arofia fiaicpoy, 6trov (rvyeipyaOov &icpai, 2 Iliad; the son of Hector is called Scamandrius, Herodotus, Strabo, on the authority of Demetrius Scepsis, who was a native of this comer of the world. 3 I/iad— Kpovvw 2* ucavoy icoXXc/Spoo;, ivOa de wrjyai ^oial avaiffffovtri Sva/xdi'dpov hpfiEPTOQ.