extraordinary trouvaille. Whatever opinion we may form as to the scientific and historical results of Dr. Schliemann's discoveries, and however we may feel disposed to dissent from some of his conclusions-tinctured as they are with an enthusiasm natural enough under the circumstances-there can be but one opinion as to the gratitude we owe him for the unwearied zeal with which he prosecuted his labours, at a very heavy expense, during a period of nearly two years, on the supposed site of Troy; as well as for the candid and complete manner in which he has communicated the results of those labours to the public, and afforded them the amplest means of drawing their own conclusions from the materials thus placed at their disposal. Our object in the following pages will be to make our readers acquainted with the facts connected with these very remarkable discoveries, and to point out their bearing on the immediate questions connected with the site of Troy, while we must content ourselves with briefly hinting at some of the other subjects of archæological interest on which they are calculated to throw a new and unexpected light. But before we proceed to follow the progress of Dr. Schliemann's excavations, it will be necessary to advert briefly to the topography of the surrounding localities, and to the causes that determined him to devote his attention especially to the particular spot where his researches have been productive of such remarkable results. All our readers are probably aware that the topography of the plain of Troy, and the true site of that famous city, have been in modern times the subject of much controversy. No doubt existed, indeed, as to the position assigned to it by the concurrent voice of ancient tradition. Throughout the historical period of Greek literature-from the Persian War to the Roman Empire-there existed on a hill about two miles from the shore of the Hellespont, a town, which still bore the celebrated name of Ilium, and which was generally believed to occupy the site of the city of Priam. A temple dedicated to Pallas Athena, who figures so prominently in the Iliad as the tutelary goddess of Troy, still crowned the heights of its acropolis; and so strong was the belief in the identity of the city thus subsisting with the Homeric Ilium, that when Xerxes was about to conduct his mighty host of barbarians across the Hellespont, he went up to the Pergamus ' of Priam' (as it is called by Herodotus), and sacrificed a thousand oxen to the Ilian Athena.* His example was followed, a century and a half later, by Alexander, who not only went up Herodotus, lib. vii. c. 43. 6 to the citadel and offered sacrifices to the tutelary goddess, but dedicated there his own suit of armour, and took down in return some of the arms preserved in the temple, which, according to the popular belief, had belonged to one or other of the heroes that had fought in the Trojan War.* After the death of Alexander, the city of Ilium, which had hitherto been a poor and decayed place, notwithstanding its historical celebrity, was restored, enlarged, and fortified anew by Lysimachus, and continued through several centuries, first under the kings of Pergamus, afterwards under the Roman dominion, to be a flourishing and populous town. That it should continue throughout this period to enjoy the character of representing the Homeric city, is no more than was to be expected, and must be admitted to prove nothing, as such a traditional belief, when once established, will almost always continue unchanged. It was not, indeed, universally adopted. The still, small voice' of criticism was raised against it, though with little effect, by a certain Demetrius, a native of Scepsis, a small town in the Troad, who was a contemporary of Aristarchus, and devoted himself to the study of the Homeric poems with so much zeal that he composed a work, extending to not less than thirty books, devoted entirely to a commentary on the Homeric catalogue of the Trojans and their allies. His opinions, however, appear to have met with very little assent in antiquity, and had it not been for their mention by Strabo, who himself adopted his conclusions, we should have remained in total ignorance of the blow thus aimed at the mythical legitimacy of Ilium.' The difficulties which presented themselves to his mind-especially the limited space between the reputed Ilium and the sea-were the same that have been the stumbling-block of so many modern writers. It was not in accordance with any different tradition, or on the evidence of existing remains, that Demetrius and Strabo were led to disbelieve in the pretensions of the Ilium of their day, but because they found it impossible to reconcile its position with the details given in the Iliad concerning the incidents of the war and the movements of the conflicting armies. It was solely in order to obviate these difficulties and allow more space for the theatre of war, that Demetrius was led to the novel and startling hypothesis that the Ilium which had been so long revered as the representative of the sacred city' had no real claim to that dignity, and that Troy had in reality occupied a site considerably farther inland, where there still stood in his day a place called the village of the Ilians.'* On one point, indeed, the arguments first brought forward by the sceptical critics were unanswerable. They proved beyond a doubt that the Ilians of their time could not appeal to the unbroken evidence of tradition which would arise from the continuous occupation of the site from the heroic ages downwards. According to the legendary history of Troy, which was admitted by both sides in the controversy, the city had been destroyed-burnt with fire-and though the Trojan people continued to exist for a considerable period, there is no trace of the re-establishment of the ancient city, until-centuries after the supposed date of its destruction, and long after the age of the Homeric poems-a Greek colony was settled on the spot which for ages afterwards bore the name of Ilium. The date of this second foundation is somewhat vaguely assigned by Strabo to the period of the last Lydian dynastythat is between 720 and 550 B.C. In the long interval between the two, the Troad and the neighbouring districts had been invaded and occupied in succession by several barbarous tribes, chiefly of Thracian origin, and the result was, according to Strabo, that the ethnography of the surrounding region had undergone such changes as to present hardly any resemblance to that which was represented in the Homeric catalogue. But the one definite fact clearly remained: the Ilium known in historical times was a Hellenic city, and its inhabitants could not therefore be descended from the ancient Trojans. In modern times the particular view advocated by Demetrius and Strabo has found little favour, but the same line of argument has been urged by a host of modern critics in support of another wholly different site as that of the Homeric Ilium. It was as far back as the year 1786, that a French traveller named Le Chevalier, on a visit to the Troad, discovered near the Turkish village of Bunarbashi two springs, which appeared to him so well to answer to the well-known description in the Iliad of the two sources of the Scamander,† as to leave no doubt on his mind that they were really those described by Homer, and that the city of the heroic ages-the only one that could be present to the mind of the poet-was situated on the heights behind Bunarbashi, at a distance of not less than eight or nine miles from the mouth of the Scamander and the shore of the Hellespont. The suggestion thus made was eagerly taken up by several eminent scholars, while it was not less * Strabo, lib. xiii. c. 1, § 35. † Iliad, xxii. v. 147–156. warmly combated by others; the localities were visited again and again by numerous travellers, and the result has been that the plain of Troy has been a battle-field of scholars and geographers in modern days, as it was of heroes in the olden time. The works which have been written on the subject (observes one of the latest contributors to the list) form a literature to 'themselves.' It would be of little interest to enter afresh into the details of the earlier controversy. Our readers will find in the able summary of Mr. Grote all that they need care to know of the arguments and theories advanced on both sides by the writers who took up the question in the last century-Bryant, Morritt, Gilbert Wakefield, and the eminent geographer, Major Rennell.* The contest has been renewed in more recent times-especially by the distinguished German scholars, Professors Welcker and Forchhammer, as well as by our own great topographer, Colonel Leake; and a very clear and impartial survey of the arguments, pro and con., is given by Mr. Tozer,† who visited the plain of Troy as lately as 1861. All these writers had the great advantage of personal acquaintance with the localities, and they have all pronounced in favour of the height known as Bali Dagh, about a mile beyond Bunarbashi; a site which is described as combining all the requisites which the ancient inhabitants would be likely to seek for, in choosing a position for their city. On the other side we have the very grave authority of Mr. Grote, who, after reviewing all that had been published before his time upon the subject, pronounces emphatically for the old traditional site of the historic Ilium. The same view has been maintained by Mr. Maclaren, and in Germany by Dr. Eckenbrecher and other writers in recent times-among others, as we learn from Dr. Schliemann, by the learned archæologist, Dr. Braun. Dr. Ulrichs, we believe, stands alone in maintaining the theory of Demetrius of Scepsis and Strabo, that Troy occupied the site which was known in their days as the village of the Ilians,' and is now marked by the decayed Turkish village of Aktchi-kôi. But the general current of opinion among scholars and geographers ran strongly in favour of the modern theory, which transferred it to the neighbourhood of Bunarbashi; and all the best modern maps agree in marking this as the site of the ancient Troy, while they give the name of New Ilium to the ruins on the hill of Hissarlik, *Grote's History of Greece,' vol. i. chap. xv. pp. 435-460. which unquestionably indicate the site of the historic city of the name. On looking back to the state of the question as it stood before the recent researches of Dr. Schliemann, we think it must be fairly admitted that the case was not proven' on either side, and that there was no great predominance of argument in favour of the site which had been so generally adopted. If the one party found difficulties in supposing Troy to have stood at so short a distance from the sea as the New Ilium-the objection originally urged by Demetrius, and taken up by many modern writers-it might be contended on the other that the heights of Bunarbashi were too distant. In either case it was impossible to explain many passages of the Iliad, without great allowance for poetic licence; and if this were to be admitted in some cases, why may it not be extended to others? The fact, we think, must be allowed by all impartial inquirers that the minor details of the poem cannot be made to agree with the present topography of the plain of Troy, on either hypothesis as to the site of the city. Enthusiastic advocates, indeed, find them coincide so perfectly with whichever theory they adopt, as to make it clear to calmer judges that little reliance is to be placed on this line of argument. The commanding position of the supposed site on the Bali Dagh, and the splendid view which it affords of the whole plain from Bunarbashi to the sea, produces so strong an effect upon those who have visited the spot as to give them a strong prepossession in its favour. Both Colonel Leake and Mr. Tozer were evidently so impressed with the idea that this ought to be the site of Troy, that they could hardly avoid the conclusion that it was the site. And had the question rested solely on the character of the ground, and the general topography of the plain, it may perhaps be admitted that the balance of probabilities was rather in favour of the modern theory. In this state of things it became clear that the only hope of arriving at any definite conclusion was by means of excavations on the sites selected by the rival theorists. The first attempt to derive information from this source was made in 1864 by the late Austrian Consul, Von Hahn, whose name is well known to all persons acquainted with Greece and This Journal has in times long gone by taken some part in this discussion. The curious reader will find an article on the Topography ' of Troy' in the sixth volume of the Edin. Review, p. 258, which claims additional interest from the fact that we believe it to have been written by the Earl of Aberdeen soon after his return from a journey to the Troad in 1805. |