CHAP. IV.

Grecian Cities.

peace.

considered so general as it really was. Every metropolis Topography of possessed its Citadel and its Plain; the Citadel as a place of refuge during war; the Plain as a source of agriculture in To this were some exceptions; as in the instance of Delphi, whose celebrity originated in secondary causes; but they were few, and may be omitted. In the provinces of Greece, at this day, the appearance caused by a plain, flat as the surface of the ocean, surrounded by mountains, or having lofty rocks in its centre or sides, serves to denote the situation of Ruins proving to be those of some antient -capital. Many of these plains border on the sea, and seem to have been formed by the retiring of its waters. Cities so situated were the most antient; Argos, Sicyon, Corinth, are of the number. The vicinity of fertile plains to the coast offered settlements to the earliest colonies, before the interior of the country became known. As population increased, or the first settlers were driven inward by new adventurers, cities more mediterranean were established; but all of these possessed their respective plains. The physical' phænomena of Greece, differing from those of any other country, present a series of beautiful plains, successively surrounded by mountains of limestone; resembling, although upon a larger scale, and rarely accompanied by volcanic products, the craters of the Phlegræan Fields. Everywhere their level surfaces seem to have been deposited by water, gradually retired or evaporated; they consist, for the most part, of the richest soil, and their produce is yet proverbially abundant.

In this manner stood the cities of Argos, Sicyon, Corinth,
Megara,

Megara, Eleusis, Athens, Thebes, Amphissa, Orchomenus, Charonea, Lebadea, Larissa, Pella, and many other. Pursuing the inquiry over all the countries bordering the Ægean, we find every spacious plain accompanied by the remains of some city, whose celebrity was proportioned to the fertility of its territory, or the advantages of its maritime position. Such, according to Homer, were the circumstances of association characterizing that district of Asia Minor, in which Troy was situated.

With these facts in contemplation, it is unreasonable to suppose, that a plain, boasting every advantage which Nature could afford, would offer an extraordinary exception to customs so general among antient nations; that it should remain untenanted and desolate; and no adventurers occupy its fertile soil. It is still more difficult to believe, when the monuments of a numerous people, and the ruins of many cities, all having reference, by indisputable record, to one more antient, as their magna parens, have been found in such a plain, that the compositions of any Bard, however celebrated, should have afforded the sole foundation of a belief that such a people and city did really exist. Among the gems, vases, marbles, and medals, found in other countries representing subjects connected with the Trojan war, yet destitute of any reference to the works of Homer, we meet with documents proving the existence of traditions independent of his writings'; and

CHAP. IV.

Evidence of

the Trojan War independent of Homer.

(1) "That the Antients differed as to the circumstances of the Trojan war, is well known; and that some variations, even in the accounts of those who were actors

CHAP. IV.

and in these we have evidence of the truth of the war,

With re

which cannot be imputed to his invention 2.
gard to other antiquities where coincidence may be discerned
between the representation of the Artist and the circum-
stances of the Poem, it may also be urged, that they could
not all originate in a single fiction, whatever might have
been the degree of popularity that fiction had obtained.
Every sculptured onyx, and pictured patera, derived from
sepulchres of most remote antiquity in distant parts of
all the Isles and Continents of Greece, cannot owe the
subjects they represent to the writings of an individual.
This were to contradict all our knowledge of antient history
and of mankind. It is more rational to conclude, that both
the Artist and the Poet borrowed the incidents they pour-
tray from the traditions of their country; that even the
Bard himself found, in the remains of former ages, many
of the subjects afterwards introduced by him among his
writings. This seems evident from his description of
the Shield of Achilles; and, if it should be remarked,
that works of art cannot be considered as having afforded
representations of this nature in the early period to

which

in that scene, left the Poet at liberty to adopt or reject facts, as it best suited his purpose, is highly probable...

......

Euripides chose a subject for one of his Plays, which supposes that Helen never was at Troy ; yet we cannot suppose that he would have deserted Homer without any authority.. As the first Poets differed with regard to the Trojan war, so their brother Artists adopted variations.... Polygnotus

.......

did not always follow Homer." Wood's Essay on Homer, pp. 183, 184.

(2) When the Persians, laying claim to all Asia, alleged, as the occasion of their enmity to the Greeks, the hostile invasion of Priam, and the destruction of Troy by Agamemnon, it cannot be said they borrowed the charge from the Poems of Homer. Vid. Herodot. lib. i.

which allusion is made, it would be expedient to dwell
upon this particular part of Homer's Poem, and, from the
minuteness of the detail, derive, not only internal evidence
of an exemplar whence the imagery was derived, but also
of the perfection attained by the arts of Greece in the
period when the description was given3.
Later poets,
particularly Virgil and Ovid, evidently borrowed the ma-
chinery of their poems from specimens of antient art, which
even their commentators are allowed to contemplate1;
and in the practice existing at this day among itinerant
bards of Italy, who recite long poems upon the antiquities
of the country, we may observe customs of which Homer
himself afforded the prototypes. These observations are
applicable only to the question of the war of Troy, so far
as the truth of the story is implicated. The identity of the
place where that war was carried on, so many ages ago,
involves argument which can be supported only by practical
observation, and the evidence of our senses. It will
be separately and distinctly determined, either by the

agree

(3) See also the remarkable description of Nestor's Cup, in the eleventh book of the Iliad; and the observations relating to it, in my Grandfather's Work upon Roman and Saxon Coins. Cowper acknowledged himself indebted to the learning and ingenuity of my Ancestor for the new version introduced by him of a long-mistaken passage in Homer's description of that cup.

(4) Witness the discovery of the "caput acris equi" at the building of Carthage, and the death of Laocoön, as described by Virgil; as well as the Metamorphoses of Ovid, whose archetypes are still discernible upon the gems of Greece.

(5) These men, called improvisatori, are seen in the public streets of cities in Italy. A crowd collects around them, when they begin to recite a long poem upon a caméo or an intaglio put into their hands. I saw one, in the principal square at Milan, who thus descanted for an hour upon the loves of Cupid and Psyche.

CHAP. IV.

CHAP. IV.

Identity of the Plain.

agreement of natural phænomena with the locality assigned them by Homer, or of existing artificial monuments with the manners of the people whose history has been by him illustrated. To this part of the inquiry the attention of the Reader is therefore now particularly requested.

It seems hardly to admit of doubt, that the Plain of Anatolia, watered by the Mender, and backed by a mountainous ridge, of which Kazdaghy is the summit, offers the precise territory alluded to by the Poet. The long controversy, excited by Mr. Bryant's publication, and since so vehemently agitated, would probably never have existed, had it not been for the erroneous maps of the country, which, even to this hour, disgrace our geographical knowledge of that part of Asia.

According to Homer's description of the Trojan territory, it combined certain prominent and remarkable features, not likely to be affected by any lapse of time. Of this nature was the Hellespont; the Island of Tenedos; the Plain itself; the River by whose inundations it was occasionally overflowed; and the Mountain whence that river issued. If any one of these be found retaining its original appellation, and all other circumstances of association characterize its vicinity, our knowledge of the country is placed beyond dispute. But the Island of Tenedos, corresponding in all respects with the position assigned to it by Homer, still retains its antient name unaltered; and the Inscriptions, found upon the Dardanelles, prove those straits to have been the Hellespont. The discovery of Ruins, which I shall presently shew to have been those of the