Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/365

 CONTINUANCE OF THE MYTHICAL FAITH IN ILIUM. 333 would listen with delight to the tale, how Hector, pursued by Achilles, ran thrice round the city of Troy, while the trembling Trojans were all huddled into the city, not one daring to come out even at this last extremity of their beloved prince and while the Grecian army looked on, restraining unwillingly their uplifted spears at the nod of Achilles, in order that Hector might perish by no other hand than his ; nor were they, while absorbed by this impressive recital, disposed to measure distances or calculate topographical possibilities with reference to the site of the real Ilium. 1 The mistake consists in applying to Homer and to the Homeric siege of Troy, criticisms which would be perfectly just if brought to bear on the Athenian siege of Syracuse, as de- scribed by Thucydides; 2 in the Peloponnesian war 3 but which for that of Troy, he would probably have questioned the fidelity either of the historical part of the poem or his guides. It is not within credibility, that a person of so correct a judgment as Alexander could have admired a poem, which contained a long history of military details, and other transactions that could not physically have had an existence. What pleasure could he receive, in contemplating as subjects of history, events which could not have happened ? Yet he did admire the poem, and therefore must have found tie topography consistent : that is, Bounarbashi, surely, was not shown to him for Troy (Reynell, Observations on the Plain of Troy, p. 128). Major Rennell here supposes in Alexander a spirit of topographical criti- cism quite foreign to his real character. "We have no reason to believe that the site of Bounarbashi was shown to Alexander as the Homeric Troy, or that any site was shown to him except Uium, or what Strabo calls New Ilium. Still less reason have we to believe that any scepticism crossed his mind. or that his deep-seated faith required to be confirmed by measurement of distances. 1 Strabo, xiii. p. 599. OW rj rov "Enropoc 6s irepidpo/irj ij ircpl TTJV ?r6Aiv e%ti TI ev'Xoyov ov yap ian Kepidpouos f] vvv, 6ia rfyv avvex^l faxw rj tie 2 Mannert (Geographic der Griechen und Romer, th. 6. heft 3. b. 8. cap, 8) is confused in his account of Old and New Ilium : he represents that Alexander raised up a new spot to the dignity of having been the Homeric Ilium, which is not the fact: Alexander adhered to the received local belief. Indeed, as far as our evidence goes, no one but Demetrius, Hestiaea, and Strabo appears ever to have departed from it. than to find elaborate military criticisms from the Emperor Napoleon, upon the description of the taking of Troy in the second book of the JEneid. He shows that gross faults are committed in it, when looked at from the
 * 3 There can hardly be a more singular example of this same confusion,