Chapter XV: Legend of Troy (2)

[741] Leschês, Fr. 7, Düntz.; ap. Schol. Lycophr. 1263. Compare
Schol. ad. 1232, for the respectful recollection of Andromachê,
among the traditions of the Molossian kings, as their heroic
mother, and Strabo, xiii. p. 594.

Helen gladly resumed her union with Menelaus: she accompanied him back to Sparta, and lived with him there many years in comfort and dignity,[742] passing afterwards to a happy immortality in the Elysian fields. She was worshipped as a goddess with her brothers the Dioskuri and her husband, having her temple, statue and altar at Therapnæ and elsewhere, and various examples of her miraculous interventions were cited among the Greeks.[743] The lyric poet Stesichorus had ventured to denounce her, conjointly with her sister Klytæmnêstra, in a tone of rude and plain-spoken severity, resembling that of Euripidês and Lycophrôn afterwards, but strikingly opposite to the delicacy and respect with which she is always handled by Homer, who never admits reproaches against her except from her own lips.[744] He was smitten with blindness, and made sensible of his impiety; but having repented and composed a special poem formally retracting the calumny, was permitted to recover his sight. In his poem of recantation (the famous palinode now unfortunately lost) he pointedly contradicted the Homeric narrative, affirming that Helen had never been to Troy at all, and that the Trojans had carried thither nothing but her image or _eidôlon_.[745] It is, probably, to the excited religious feelings of Stesichorus that we owe the first idea of this glaring deviation from the old legend, which could never have been recommended by any considerations of poetical interest.

[742] Such is the story of the old epic (see Odyss. iv. 260,
and the fourth book generally; Argument of Ilias Minor, p. 20.
Düntz.). Polygnôtus, in the paintings above alluded to, followed
the same tale (Pausan. x. 25, 3).

The anger of the Greeks against Helen, and the statement that
Menelaus after the capture of Troy approached her with revengeful
purposes, but was so mollified by her surpassing beauty as
to cast away his uplifted sword, belongs to the age of the
tragedians (Æschyl. Agamem. 685-1455: Eurip. Androm. 600-629;
Helen. 75-120; Troad. 890-1057; compare also the fine lines in
the Æneid, ii. 567-588).

[743] See the description in Herodot. vi. 61, of the prayers
offered to her, and of the miracle which she wrought, to remove
the repulsive ugliness of a little Spartan girl of high family.
Compare also Pindar, Olymp. iii. 2, and the Scholia at the
beginning of the ode; Eurip. Helen. 1662, and Orest. 1652-1706;
Isokrat. Encom. Helen. ii. p. 368, Auger; Dio Chrysost. Or. xi.
p. 311. θεὸς ἐνομίσθη παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησι; Theodectês ap. Aristot.
Pol. i. 2, 19. Θείων ἀπ᾽ ἀμφοῖν ἔκγονον ῥιζωμάτων.

[744] Euripid. Troad. 982 _seq._; Lycophrôn ap. Steph. Byz. v.
Αἰγύς; Stesichorus ap. Schol. Eurip. Orest. 239; Fragm. 9 and 10
of the Ἰλίου Πέρσις, Schneidewin:—

Οὕνεκα Τυνδάρεως ῥέζων ἁπᾶσι θεοῖς μιᾶς λαθετ᾽ ἠπιοδώρου
Κύπριδος· κείνα δὲ Τυνδάρεω κούραισι χολωσαμένα
Διγάμους τριγάμους τίθησι
Καὶ λιπεσάνορας ...

Further

... Ἑλένη ἑκοῦσ᾽ ἄπηρε, etc.

He had probably contrasted her with other females carried away by
force.

Stesichorus also affirmed that Iphigeneia was the daughter
of Helen, by Thêseus, born at Argos before her marriage with
Menelaus and made over to Klytæmnêstra: this tale was perpetuated
by the temple of Eileithyia at Argos, which the Argeians affirmed
to have been erected by Helen (Pausan. ii. 22, 7). The ages
ascribed by Hellanikus and other logographers (Hellan. Fr. 74)
to Thêseus and Helen—he fifty years of age and she a child of
seven—when he carried her off to Aphidnæ, can never have been the
original form of any poetical legend: these ages were probably
imagined in order to make the mythical chronology run smoothly;
for Thêseus belongs to the generation before the Trojan war. But
we ought always to recollect that Helen never grows old (τὴν γὰρ
φάτις ἔμμεν᾽ ἀγήρω—Quint. Smyrn. x. 312), and that her chronology
consists only with an immortal being. Servius observes (ad Æneid.
ii. 601)—“Helenam _immortalem_ fuisse indicat tempus. Nam constat
fratres ejus cum Argonautis fuisse. Argonautarum filii cum
Thebanis (Thebano Eteoclis et Polynicis bello) dimicaverunt. Item
illorum filii contra Trojam bella gesserunt. Ergo, si immortalis
Helena non fuisset, tot sine dubio seculis durare non posset.” So
Xenophon, after enumerating many heroes of different ages, all
pupils of Cheirôn, says that the life of Cheirôn suffices for
all, he being brother of Zeus (De Venatione, c. 1).

The daughters of Tyndareus are Klytæmnêstra, Helen, and Timandra,
all open to the charge advanced by Stesichorus: see about
Timandra, wife of the Tegeate Echemus, the new fragment of the
Hesiodic Catalogue, recently restored by Geel (Göttling, Pref.
Hesiod. p. lxi.).

It is curious to read, in Bayle’s article _Hélène_, his critical
discussion of the adventures ascribed to her—as if they were
genuine matter of history, more or less correctly reported.

[745] Plato, Republic. ix. p. 587. c. 10. ὥσπερ τὸ τῆς Ἑλένης
εἴδωλον Στησίχορός φησι περιμάχητον γενέσθαι ἐν Τροίῃ, ἀγνοίᾳ τοῦ
ἀληθοῦς.

Isokrat. Encom. Helen. t. ii. p. 370, Auger; Plato, Phædr. c. 44.
p. 243-244; Max. Tyr. Diss. xi. p. 320, Davis; Conôn, Narr. 18;
Dio Chrysost. Or. xi. p. 323. Τὸν μὲν Στησίχορον ἐν τῇ ὕστερον
ὠδῇ λέγειν, ὡς ~τὸ παράπαν οὐδὲ πλεύσειεν ἡ Ἑλένη οὐδάμοσε~.
Horace, Od. i. 17, Epod. xvii. 42.—

“Infamis Helenæ Castor offensus vice,
Fraterque magni Castoris, victi prece,
Adempta vati reddidere lumina.”

Pausan. iii. 19, 5. Virgil, surveying the war from the point
of view of the Trojans, had no motive to look upon Helen with
particular tenderness: Deiphobus imputes to her the basest
treachery (Æneid, vi. 511. “_scelus exitiale Lacænæ_;” compare
ii. 567).

Other versions were afterwards started, forming a sort of compromise between Homer and Stesichorus, admitting that Helen had never really been at Troy, without altogether denying her elopement. Such is the story of her having been detained in Egypt during the whole term of the siege. Paris, on his departure from Sparta, had been driven thither by storms, and the Egyptian king Prôteus, hearing of the grievous wrong which he had committed towards Menelaus, had sent him away from the country with severe menaces, detaining Helen until her lawful husband should come to seek her. When the Greeks reclaimed Helen from Troy, the Trojans assured them solemnly, that she neither was, nor ever had been, in the town; but the Greeks, treating this allegation as fraudulent, prosecuted the siege until their ultimate success confirmed the correctness of the statement, nor did Menelaus recover Helen until, on his return from Troy, he visited Egypt.[746] Such was the story told by the Egyptian priests to Herodotus, and it appeared satisfactory to his historicizing mind. “For if Helen had really been at Troy (he argues) she would certainly have been given up, even had she been mistress of Priam himself instead of Paris: the Trojan king, with all his family and all his subjects, would never knowingly have incurred utter and irretrievable destruction for the purpose of retaining her: their misfortune was, that while they did not possess, and therefore could not restore her, they yet found it impossible to convince the Greeks that such was the fact.” Assuming the historical character of the war of Troy, the remark of Herodotus admits of no reply; nor can we greatly wonder that he acquiesced in the tale of Helen’s Egyptian detention, as a substitute for the “incredible insanity” which the genuine legend imputes to Priam and the Trojans. Pausanias, upon the same ground and by the same mode of reasoning, pronounces that the Trojan horse must have been in point of fact a battering-engine, because to admit the literal narrative would be to impute utter childishness to the defenders of the city. And Mr. Payne Knight rejects Helen altogether as the real cause of the Trojan war, though she may have been the pretext of it; for he thinks that neither the Greeks nor the Trojans could have been so mad and silly as to endure calamities of such magnitude “for one little woman.”[747] Mr. Knight suggests various political causes as substitutes; these might deserve consideration, either if any evidence could be produced to countenance them, or if the subject on which they are brought to bear could be shown to belong to the domain of history.

[746] Herodot. ii. 120. οὐ γὰρ δὴ οὕτω γε φρενοβλαβὴς ἦν ὁ
Πρίαμος, οὐδ᾽ οἱ ἄλλοι οἱ προσήκοντες αὐτῷ, etc. The passage is
too long to cite, but is highly curious: not the least remarkable
part is the religious coloring which he gives to the new version
of the story which he is adopting,—“the Trojans, though they
had not got Helen, yet could not persuade the Greeks that this
was the fact; for it was the divine will that they should be
destroyed root and branch, in order to make it plain to mankind
that upon great crimes the gods inflict great punishments.”

Dio Chrysostom (Or. xi. p. 333) reasons in the same way as
Herodotus against the credibility of the received narrative. On
the other hand, Isokratês, in extolling Helen, dwells on the
calamities of the Trojan war as a test of the peerless value
of the prize (Encom. Hel. p. 360, Aug.): in the view of Pindar
(Olymp. xiii. 56), as well as in that of Hesiod (Opp. Di. 165),
Helen is the one prize contended for.

Euripidês, in his tragedy of Helen, recognizes the detention of
Helen in Egypt and the presence of her εἴδωλον at Troy, but he
follows Stesichorus in denying her elopement altogether,—Hermês
had carried her to Egypt in a cloud (Helen. 35-45, 706): compare
Von Hoff, De Mytho Helenæ Euripideæ, cap. 2. p. 35 (Leyden, 1843).

[747] Pausan. i. 23, 8; Payne Knight, Prolegg. ad Homer. c. 53.
Euphorion construed the wooden horse into a Grecian ship called
Ἵππος, “_The Horse_” (Euphorion, Fragm. 34. ap. Düntzer, Fragm.
Epicc. Græc. p. 55).

See Thucyd. i. 12; vi. 2.

The return of the Grecian chiefs from Troy furnished matter to the ancient epic hardly less copious than the siege itself, and the more susceptible of indefinite diversity, inasmuch as those who had before acted in concert were now dispersed and isolated. Moreover the stormy voyages and compulsory wanderings of the heroes exactly fell in with the common aspirations after an heroic founder, and enabled even the most remote Hellenic settlers to connect the origin of their town with this prominent event of their ante-historical and semi-divine world. And an absence of ten years afforded room for the supposition of many domestic changes in their native abode, and many family misfortunes and misdeeds during the interval. One of these heroic “Returns,” that of Odysseus, has been immortalized by the verse of Homer. The hero, after a series of long-protracted suffering and expatriation, inflicted on him by the anger of Poseidôn, at last reaches his native island, but finds his wife beset, his youthful son insulted, and his substance plundered, by a troop of insolent suitors; he is forced to appear as a wretched beggar, and to endure in his own person their scornful treatment; but finally, by the interference of Athênê coming in aid of his own courage and stratagem, he is enabled to overwhelm his enemies, to resume his family position, and to recover his property. The return of several other Grecian chiefs was the subject of an epic poem by Hagias, which is now lost, but of which a brief abstract or argument still remains: there were in antiquity various other poems of similar title and analogous matter.[748]

[748] Suidas, v. Νόστος. Wüllner, De Cyclo Epico, p. 93. Also a
poem Ἀτρειδῶν κάθοδος (Athenæ. vii. p. 281).

As usual with the ancient epic, the multiplied sufferings of this back-voyage are traced to divine wrath, justly provoked by the sins of the Greeks; who, in the fierce exultation of a victory purchased by so many hardships, had neither respected nor even[749] spared the altars of the gods in Troy; and Athênê, who had been their most zealous ally during the siege, was so incensed by their final recklessness, more especially by the outrage of Ajax, son of Oïleus, that she actively harassed and embittered their return, in spite of every effort to appease her. The chiefs began to quarrel among themselves; their formal assembly became a scene of drunkenness; even Agamemnôn and Menelaus lost their fraternal harmony, and each man acted on his own separate resolution.[750] Nevertheless, according to the Odyssey, Nestôr, Diomêdês, Neoptolemus, Idomeneus and Philoktêtês reached home speedily and safely: Agamemnôn also arrived in Peloponnêsus, to perish by the hand of a treacherous wife; but Menelaus was condemned to long wanderings and to the severest privations in Egypt, Cyprus and elsewhere, before he could set foot in his native land. The Lokrian Ajax perished on the Gyræan rock.[751] Though exposed to a terrible storm, he had already reached this place of safety, when he indulged in the rash boast of having escaped in defiance of the gods: no sooner did Poseidôn hear this language, than he struck with his trident the rock which Ajax was grasping and precipitated both into the sea.[752] Kalchas the soothsayer, together with Leonteus and Polypœtês, proceeded by land from Troy to Kolophôn.[753]

[749] Upon this the turn of fortune in Grecian affairs depends
(Æschyl. Agamemn. 338; Odyss. iii. 130; Eurip. Troad. 69-95).

[750] Odyss. iii. 130-161; Æschyl. Agamemn. 650-662.

[751] Odyss. iii. 188-196; iv. 5-87. The Egyptian city of
Kanopus, at the mouth of the Nile, was believed to have taken
its name from the pilot of Menelaus, who had died and was buried
there (Strabo, xvii. p. 801; Tacit. Ann. ii. 60). Μενελάϊος
νόμος, so called after Menelaus (Dio Chrysost. xi p. 361).

[752] Odyss. iv. 500. The epic Νόστοι of Hagias placed this
adventure of Ajax on the rocks of Kaphareus, a southern
promontory of Eubœa (Argum. Νόστοι, p. 23, Düntzer). Deceptive
lights were kindled on the dangerous rocks by Nauplius, the
father of Palamêdês, in revenge for the death of his son
(Sophoklês, Ναύπιος Πυρκαεὺς, a lost tragedy; Hygin. f. 116;
Senec. Agamemn. 567).

[753] Argument. Νόστοι _ut sup._ There were monuments of Kalchas
near Sipontum in Italy also (Strabo, vi. p. 284), as well as at
Selgê in Pisidia (Strabo, xii. p. 570).

In respect however to these and other Grecian heroes, tales were told different from those in the Odyssey, assigning to them a long expatriation and a distant home. Nestôr went to Italy, where he founded Metapontum, Pisa and Hêrakleia:[754] Philoktêtês[755] also went to Italy, founded Petilia and Krimisa, and sent settlers to Egesta in Sicily. Neoptolemus, under the advice of Thetis, marched by land across Thrace, met with Odysseus, who had come by sea, at Maroneia, and then pursued his journey to Epirus, where he became king of the Molossians.[756] Idomeneus came to Italy, and founded Uria in the Salentine peninsula. Diomêdês, after wandering far and wide, went along the Italian coast into the innermost Adriatic gulf, and finally settled in Daunia, founding the cities of Argyrippa, Beneventum, Atria and Diomêdeia: by the favor of Athênê he became immortal, and was worshipped as a god in many different places.[757] The Lokrian followers of Ajax founded the Epizephyrian Lokri on the southernmost corner of Italy,[758] besides another settlement in Libya. I have spoken in another place of the compulsory exile of Teukros, who, besides founding the city of Salamis in Cyprus, is said to have established some settlements in the Iberian peninsula.[759] Menestheus the Athenian did the like, and also founded both Elæa in Mysia and Skylletium in Italy.[760] The Arcadian chief Agapenôr founded Paphus in Cyprus.[761] Epeius, of Panopeus in Phôkis, the constructor of the Trojan horse with the aid of the goddess Athênê, settled at Lagaria near Sybaris on the coast of Italy; and the very tools which he had employed in that remarkable fabric were shown down to a late date in the temple of Athênê at Metapontum.[762] Temples, altars and towns were also pointed out in Asia Minor, in Samos and in Krête, the foundation of Agamemnôn or of his followers.[763] The inhabitants of the Grecian town of Skionê, in the Thracian peninsula called Pallênê or Pellênê, accounted themselves the offspring of the Pellênians from Achæa in Peloponnêsus, who had served under Agamemnôn before Troy, and who on their return from the siege had been driven on the spot by a storm and there settled.[764] The Pamphylians, on the southern coast of Asia Minor, deduced their origin from the wanderings of Amphilochus and Kalchas after the siege of Troy: the inhabitants of the Amphilochian Argos on the Gulf of Ambrakia revered the same Amphilochus as their founder.[765] The Orchomenians under Ialmenus, on quitting the conquered city, wandered or were driven to the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea; and the barbarous Achæans under Mount Caucasus were supposed to have derived their first establishment from this source.[766] Merionês with his Krêtan followers settled at Engyion in Sicily, along with the preceding Krêtans who had remained there after the invasion of Minôs. The Elyminians in Sicily also were composed of Trojans and Greeks separately driven to the spot, who, forgetting their previous differences, united in the joint settlements of Eryx and Egesta.[767] We hear of Podaleirius both in Italy and on the coast of Karia;[768] of Akamas son of Thêseus, at Amphipolis in Thrace, at Soli in Cyprus, and at Synnada in Phrygia;[769] of Guneus, Prothous and Eurypylus, in Krête as well as in Libya.[770] The obscure poem of Lycophrôn enumerates many of these dispersed and expatriated heroes, whose conquest of Troy was indeed a Kadmeian victory (according to the proverbial phrase of the Greeks), wherein the sufferings of the victor were little inferior to those of the vanquished.[771] It was particularly among the Italian Greeks, where they were worshipped with very special solemnity, that their presence as wanderers from Troy was reported and believed.[772]

[754] Strabo, v. p. 222; vi. p. 264. Vellei. Paterc. i. 1;
Servius ad Æn. x. 179. He had built a temple to Athênê in the
island of Keôs (Strabo, x. p. 487).

[755] Strabo, vi. pp. 254, 272; Virgil, Æn. iii. 401, and Servius
_ad loc._; Lycophrôn, 912.

Both the tomb of Philoktêtês and the arrows of Hêraklês which
he had used against Troy, were for a long time shown at Thurium
(Justin, xx. 1).

[756] Argument. Νόστοι, p. 23, Düntz.; Pindar, Nem. iv. 51.
According to Pindar, however, Neoptolemus comes from Troy by sea,
misses the island of Skyrus, and sails round to the Epeirotic
Ephyra (Nem. vii. 37).

[757] Pindar, Nem. x. 7, with the Scholia. Strabo, iii. p. 150;
v. p. 214-215; vi, p. 284. Stephan. Byz. Ἀργύριππα, Διομηδεία.
Aristotle recognizes him as buried in the Diomedean islands in
the Adriatic (Anthol. Gr. Brunck. i. p. 178).

The identical tripod which had been gained by Diomêdês, as victor
in the chariot-race at the funeral games of Patroclus, was shown
at Delphi in the time of Phanias, attested by an inscription,
as well as the dagger which had been worn by Helikaôn, son of
Antenôr (Athenæ. vi. p. 232).

[758] Virgil, Æneid, iii. 399.; xi. 265; and Servius, _ibid._
Ajax, the son of Oïleus, was worshipped there as a hero (Conôn,
Narr. 18).

[759] Strabo, iii. p. 257; Isokratês, Evagor. Encom. p. 192;
Justin, xliv. 3. Ajax, the son of Teukros, established a temple
of Zeus, and an hereditary priesthood always held by his
descendants (who mostly bore the name of Ajax or Teukros), at
Olbê in Kilikia (Strabo, xiv. p. 672). Teukros carried with him
his Trojan captives to Cyprus (Athenæ. vi. p. 256).

[760] Strabo, iii. p. 140-150; vi. p. 261; xiii. p. 622. See the
epitaphs on Teukros and Agapenôr by Aristotle (Antholog. Gr. ed.
Brunck. i. p. 179-180).

[761] Strabo, xiv. p. 683; Pausan. viii. 5, 2.

[762] Strabo, vi. p. 263; Justin, xx. 2; Aristot. Mirab. Ausc.
c. 108. Also the epigram of the Rhodian Simmias called Πελεκύς
(Antholog. Gr. Brunck. i. p. 210).

[763] Vellei. Patercul. i. 1. Stephan. Byz. v. Λάμπη. Strabo,
xiii. p. 605; xiv p. 639. Theopompus (Fragm. III, Didot)
recounted that Agamemnôn and his followers had possessed
themselves of the larger portion of Cyprus.

[764] Thucydid. iv. 120.

[765] Herodot. vii. 91; Thucyd. ii. 68. According to the old
elegiac poet Kallinos, Kalchas himself had died at Klarus near
Kolophôn after his march from Troy, but Mopsus, his rival in the
prophetic function, had conducted his followers into Pamphylia
and Kilikia (Strabo, xii. p. 570; xiv.p. 668). The oracle of
Amphilochus at Mallus in Kilikia bore the highest character for
exactness and truth-telling in the time of Pausanias, μαντεῖον
ἀψευδέστατον τῶν ἐπ᾽ ἐμοῦ. (Paus. i. 34, 2). Another story
recognized Leonteus and Polypætês as the founders of Aspendus in
Kilikia (Eustath. ad Iliad. ii. 138).

[766] Strabo, ix. p. 416.

[767] Diodôr. iv. 79; Thucyd. vi. 2.

[768] Stephan, Byz. v. Σύρνα; Lycophrôn, 1047.

[769] Æschines, De Falsâ Legat. c. 14; Strabo, xiv. p. 683;
Stephan. Byz. v. Σύνναδα.

[770] Lycophrôn, 877-902, with Scholia; Apollodôr. Fragm. p.
386, Heyne. There is also a long enumeration of these returning
wanderers and founders of new settlements in Solinus (Polyhist.
c. 2).

[771] Strabo, iii. p. 150.

[772] Aristot. Mirabil. Auscult. 79, 106, 107, 109, 111.

I pass over the numerous other tales which circulated among the ancients, illustrating the ubiquity of the Grecian and Trojan heroes as well as that of the Argonauts,—one of the most striking features in the Hellenic legendary world.[773] Amongst them all, the most interesting, individually, is Odysseus, whose romantic adventures in fabulous places and among fabulous persons have been made familiarly known by Homer. The goddesses Kalypso and Circê; the semi-divine mariners of Phæacia, whose ships are endowed with consciousness and obey without a steersman; the one-eyed Cyclôpes, the gigantic Læstrygones, and the wind-ruler Æolus; the Sirens who ensnare by their song, as the Lotophagi fascinate by their food—all these pictures formed integral and interesting portions of the old epic. Homer leaves Odysseus reëstablished in his house and family; but so marked a personage could never be permitted to remain in the tameness of domestic life: the epic poem called the Telegonia ascribed to him a subsequent series of adventures. After the suitors had been buried by their relatives, he offered sacrifice to the Nymphs, and then went to Elis to inspect his herds of cattle there pasturing: the Eleian Polyxenus welcomed him hospitably, and made him a present of a bowl: Odysseus then returned to Ithaka, and fulfilled the rites and sacrifices prescribed to him by Teiresias in his visit to the under-world. This obligation discharged, he went to the country of the Thesprotians, and there married the queen Kallidikê: he headed the Thesprotians in a war against the Brygians, the latter being conducted by Arês himself, who fiercely assailed Odysseus; but the goddess Athênê stood by him, and he was enabled to make head against Arês until Apollo came and parted them. Odysseus then returned to Ithaka, leaving the Thesprotian kingdom to Polypœtês, his son by Kallidikê. Telegonus, his son by Circê, coming to Ithaka in search of his father, ravaged the island and killed Odysseus without knowing who he was. Bitter repentance overtook the son for his undesigned parricide: at his prayer and by the intervention of his mother Circê, both Penelopê and Têlemachus were made immortal: Telegonus married Penelopê, and Têlemachus married Circê.[774]

[773] Strabo, i. p. 48. After dwelling emphatically on the long
voyages of Dionysus, Hêraklês, Jasôn, Odysseus, and Menelaus,
he says, Αἰνείαν δὲ καὶ Ἀντήνορα καὶ Ἐνετοὺς, καὶ ἁπλῶς τοὺς
ἐκ τοῦ Τρωϊκοῦ πολέμου πλανηθέντας εἰς ~πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην~,
ἄξιον μὴ τῶν παλαιῶν ἀνθρώπων νομίσαι; Συνέβη γὰρ δὴ τοῖς τότε
Ἕλλησιν, ὁμοίως καὶ τοῖς βαρβάροις, διὰ τὸν τῆς στρατείας
χρόνον, ἀποβαλεῖν τά τε ἐν οἴκῳ καὶ τῇ στρατείᾳ πορισθέντα· ὥστε
μετὰ τὴν τοῦ Ἰλίου καταστροφὴν τούς τε νικήσαντας ἐπὶ λῄστειαν
τραπέσθαι διὰ τὰς ἀπορίας, καὶ πολλῷ μᾶλλον τοὺς ἡττηθέντας καὶ
περιγενομένους ἐκ τοῦ πολέμου. Καὶ δὴ καὶ πόλεις ὑπὸ ~τούτων
κτισθῆναι~ λέγονται ~κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν ἔξω τῆς Ἑλλάδος παραλίαν~,
ἔστι δ᾽ ὅπου καὶ τὴν μεσόγαιαν.

[774] The Telegonia, composed by Eugammôn of Kyrênê, is lost, but
the Argument of it has been preserved by Proclus (p. 25, Düntzer;
Dictys, vi. 15).

Pausanias quotes a statement from the poem called _Thesprôtis_,
respecting a son of Odysseus and Penelopê, called Ptoliporthus,
born after his return from Troy (viii. 12, 3). Nitzsch (Hist.
Homer. p. 97) as well as Lobeck seem to imagine that this is the
same poem as the Telegonia, under another title.

Aristotle notices an oracle of Odysseus among the Eurytanes, a
branch of the Ætôlian nation: there were also places in Epirus
which boasted of Odysseus as their founder (Schol. ad Lycophrôn.
800; Stephan. Byz. v. Βούνειμα; Etymolog. Mag. Ἀρκείσιος;
Plutarch, Quæst. Gr. c. 14).

We see by this poem that Odysseus was represented as the mythical ancestor of the Thesprotian kings, just as Neoptolemus was of the Molossian.

It has already been mentioned that Antenôr and Æneas stand distinguished from the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam and a sympathy with the Greeks, which is by Sophoklês and others construed as treacherous collusion,[775]—a suspicion indirectly glanced, though emphatically repelled, by the Æneas of Virgil.[776] In the old epic of Arktinus, next in age to the Iliad and Odyssey, Æneas abandons Troy and retires to Mount Ida, in terror at the miraculous death of Laocoôn, before the entry of the Greeks into the town and the last night-battle: yet Leschês, in another of the ancient epic poems, represented him as having been carried away captive by Neoptolemus.[777] In a remarkable passage of the Iliad, Poseidôn describes the family of Priam as having incurred the hatred of Zeus, and predicts that Æneas and his descendants shall reign over the Trojans: the race of Dardanus, beloved by Zeus more than all his other sons, would thus be preserved, since Æneas belonged to it. Accordingly, when Æneas is in imminent peril from the hands of Achilles, Poseidôn specially interferes to rescue him, and even the implacable miso-Trojan goddess Hêrê assents to the proceeding.[778] These passages have been construed by various able critics to refer to a family of philo-Hellenic or semi-Hellenic Æneadæ, known even in the time of the early singers of the Iliad as masters of some territory in or near the Troad, and professing to be descended from, as well as worshipping, Æneas. In the town of Skêpsis, situated in the mountainous range of Ida, about thirty miles eastward of Ilium, there existed two noble and priestly families who professed to be descended, the one from Hectôr, the other from Æneas. The Skêpsian critic Dêmêtrius (in whose time both these families were still to be found) informs us that Skamandrius son of Hectôr, and Ascanius son of Æneas, were the archegets or heroic founders of his native city, which had been originally situated on one of the highest ranges of Ida, and was subsequently transferred by them to the less lofty spot on which it stood in his time.[779] In Arisbê and Gentinus there seem to have been families professing the same descent, since the same archegets were acknowledged.[780] In Ophrynium, Hectôr had his consecrated edifice, and in Ilium both he and Æneas were worshipped as gods:[781] and it was the remarkable statement of the Lesbian Menekratês, that Æneas, “having been wronged by Paris and stripped of the sacred privileges which belonged to him, avenged himself by betraying the city, and then became one of the Greeks.”[782]

[775] Dionys. Hal. i. 46-48; Sophokl. ap. Strab. xiii. p. 608;
Livy, i. 1; Xenophon, Venat. i. 15.

[776] Æn. ii. 433.

[777] Argument of Ἰλίου Πέρσις; Fragm. 7. of Leschês, in
Düntzer’s Collection, p. 19-21.

Hellanikus seems to have adopted this retirement of Æneas to the
strongest parts of Mount Ida, but to have reconciled it with
the stories of the migration of Æneas, by saying that he only
remained in Ida a little time, and then quitted the country
altogether by virtue of a convention concluded with the Greeks
(Dionys. Hal. i. 47-48). Among the infinite variety of stories
respecting this hero, one was, that after having effected his
settlement in Italy, he had returned to Troy and resumed the
sceptre, bequeathing it at his death to Ascanius (Dionys. Hal. i.
53): this was a comprehensive scheme for apparently reconciling
_all_ the legends.

[778] Iliad, xx. 300. Poseidôn speaks, respecting Æneas—

Ἀλλ᾽ ἄγεθ᾽ ἡμεῖς πέρ μιν ὑπ᾽ ἐκ θανάτου ἀγάγωμεν,
Μήπως καὶ Κρονίδης κεχολώσεται, αἴκεν Ἀχιλλεὺς
Τόνδε κατακτείνῃ· μόριμον δέ οἱ ἐστ᾽ ἀλέασθαι,
Ὄφρα μὴ ἄσπερμος γενεὴ καὶ ἄφαντος ὄληται
Δαρδάνου, ὃν Κρονίδης περὶ πάντων φίλατο παίδων,
Οἱ ἕθεν ἐξεγένοντο, γυναικῶν τε θνητάων.
Ἤδη γὰρ Πριάμου γενεὴν ἤχθῃρε Κρονίων·
Νῦν δὲ δὴ Αἰνείαο βίη Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξει,
Καὶ παίδων παῖδες, τοί κεν μετόπισθε γένωνται.

Again, v. 339, Poseidôn tells Æneas that he has nothing to dread
from any other Greek than Achilles.

[779] See O. Müller, on the causes of the mythe of Æneas and
his voyage to Italy, in Classical Journal, vol. xxvi. p. 308;
Klausen, Æneas und die Penaten, vol. i. p. 43-52.

Dêmêtrius Skêps. ab. Strab. xiii. p. 607; Nicolaus ap. Steph.
Byz. v. Ἀσκανία. Dêmêtrius conjectured that Skêpsis had been the
regal seat of Æneas: there was a village called Æneia near to it
(Strabo, xiii. p. 603).

[780] Steph. Byz. v. Ἀρίσβη, Γεντῖνος. Ascanius is king of Ida
after the departure of the Greeks (Conôn, Narr. 41; Mela, i. 18).
_Ascanius portus_ between Phokæ and Kymê.

[781] Strabo, xiii. p. 595; Lycophrôn, 1208, and Sch.;
Athenagoras, Legat. 1. Inscription in Clarke’s Travels, vol. ii.
p. 86, Οἱ Ἰλιεῖς τὸν πάτριον θεὸν Αἰνείαν. Lucian, Deor. Concil.
c. 12. i. 111. p. 534, Hemst.

[782] Menekrat. ap. Dionys. Hal. i. 48. Ἀχαιοὺς δὲ ἀνίη εἶχε
(after the burial) καὶ ἐδόκεον τῆς στρατιῆς τὴν κεφαλὴν
ἀπηράχθαι. Ὅμως δὲ τάφον αὐτῷ δαίσαντες, ἐπολέμεον γῇ πάσῃ,
ἄχρις Ἴλιος ἑάλω Αἰνείεω ἐνδόντος. Αἰνείης γὰρ ἄτιτος ἐὼν ὑπὸ
Ἀλεξάνδρου, καὶ ἀπὸ γερέων ἱερῶν ἐξειργόμενος, ἀνέτρεψε Πρίαμον,
ἐργασάμενος δὲ ταῦτα, εἷς Ἀχαιῶν ἐγεγόνει.

Abas, in his _Troica_, gave a narrative different from any
other preserved: “Quidam ab Abante, qui _Troica_ scripsit,
relatum ferunt, post discessum a Trojâ Græcorum Astyanacti ibi
datum regnum, hunc ab Antenore expulsum sociatis sibi finitimis
civitatibus, inter quas et Arisba fuit: Ænean hoc ægre tulisse,
et pro Astyanacte arma cepisse ac prospere gestâ re Astyanact
restituisse regnum” (Servius ad Virg. Æneid. ix. 264). According
to Diktys, Antenôr remains king and Æneas goes away (Dikt. v.
17): Antenôr brings the Palladium to the Greeks (Dikt. v. 8).
Syncellus, on the contrary, tells us that the sons of Hectôr
recovered Ilium by the suggestions of Helenus, expelling the
Atenorids (Syncell. p. 322, ed. Bonn).

One tale thus among many respecting Æneas, and that too the most ancient of all, preserved among the natives of the Troad, who worshipped him as their heroic ancestor, was, that after the capture of Troy he continued in the country as king of the remaining Trojans, on friendly terms with the Greeks. But there were other tales respecting him, alike numerous and irreconcilable: the hand of destiny marked him as a wanderer (_fato profugus_), and his ubiquity is not exceeded even by that of Odysseus. We hear of him at Ænus in Thrace, in Pallênê, at Æneia in the Thermaic Gulf, in Delus, at Orchomenos and Mantineia in Arcadia, in the islands of Kythêra and Zakynthus, in Leukas and Ambrakia, at Buthrotum in Epirus, on the Salentine peninsula and various other places in the southern region of Italy; at Drepana and Segesta in Sicily, at Carthage, at Cape Palinurus, Cumæ, Misenum, Caieta, and finally in Latium, where he lays the first humble foundation of the mighty Rome and her empire.[783] And the reason why his wanderings were not continued still further was, that the oracles and the pronounced will of the gods directed him to settle in Latium.[784] In each of these numerous places his visit was commemorated and certified by local monuments or special legends, particularly by temples and permanent ceremonies in honor of his mother Aphroditê, whose worship accompanied him everywhere: there were also many temples and many different tombs of Æneas himself.[785] The vast ascendency acquired by Rome, the ardor with which all the literary Romans espoused the idea of a Trojan origin, and the fact that the Julian family recognized Æneas as their gentile primary ancestor,—all contributed to give to the Roman version of his legend the preponderance over every other. The various other places in which monuments of Æneas were found came thus to be represented as places where he had halted for a time on his way from Troy to Latium. But though the legendary pretensions of these places were thus eclipsed in the eyes of those who constituted the literary public, the local belief was not extinguished: they claimed the hero as their permanent property, and his tomb was to them a proof that he had lived and died among them.

[783] Dionys. Halic. A. R. i. 48-54; Heyne, Excurs. 1 ad Æneid.
iii.; De Æneæ Erroribus, and Excurs. 1 ad Æn. v.; Conôn. Narr.
46; Livy, xl. 4; Stephan. Byz. Αἴνεια. The inhabitants of Æneia
in the Thermaic Gulf worshipped him with great solemnity as their
heroic founder (Pausan. iii. 22, 4; viii. 12, 4). The tomb of
Anchisês was shown on the confines of the Arcadian Orchomenus and
Mantineia (compare Steph. Byz. v. Κάφυαι), under the mountain
called Anchisia, near a temple of Aphroditê: on the discrepancies
respecting the death of Anchisês (Heyne. Excurs. 17 ad Æn. iii.):
Segesta in Sicily founded by Æneas (Cicero, Verr. iv. 33).

[784] Τοῦ δὲ μηκέτι προσωτέρω τῆς Εὐρώπης πλεῦσαι τὸν Τρωϊκὸν
στόλον, οἵ τε χρησμοὶ ἐγένοντο αἴτιοι, etc. (Dionys. Hal. i. 55).

[785] Dionys. Hal. i. 54. Among other places, his tomb was shown
at Berecynthia, in Phrygia (Festus, v. _Romam_, p. 224, ed.
Müller): a curious article, which contains an assemblage of the
most contradictory statements respecting both Æneas and Latinus.

Antenôr, who shares with Æneas the favorable sympathy of the Greeks, is said by Pindar to have gone from Troy along with Menelaus and Helen into the region of Kyrênê in Libya.[786] But according to the more current narrative, he placed himself at the head of a body of Eneti or Veneti from Paphlagonia, who had come as allies of Troy, and went by sea into the inner part of the Adriatic Gulf, where he conquered the neighboring barbarians and founded the town of Patavium (the modern Padua); the Veneti in this region were said to owe their origin to his immigration.[787] We learn further from Strabo, that Opsikellas, one of the companions of Antenôr, had continued his wanderings even into Ibêria, and that he had there established a settlement bearing his name.[788]

[786] Pindar, Pyth. v., and the citation from the Νόστοι of
Lysimachus in the Scholia; given still more fully in the Scholia
ad Lycophrôn. 875. There was a λόφος Ἀντηνορίδων at Kyrênê.

[787] Livy, i. 1. Servius ad Æneid. i. 242. Strabo, i. 48; v.
212. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 75.

[788] Strabo, iii. p. 157.

Thus endeth the Trojan war; together with its sequel, the dispersion of the heroes, victors as well as vanquished. The account here given of it has been unavoidably brief and imperfect; for in a work intended to follow consecutively the real history of the Greeks, no greater space can be allotted even to the most splendid gem of their legendary period. Indeed, although it would be easy to fill a large volume with the separate incidents which have been introduced into the “Trojan cycle,” the misfortune is that they are for the most part so contradictory as to exclude all possibility of weaving them into one connected narrative. We are compelled to select one out of the number, generally without any solid ground of preference, and then to note the variations of the rest. No one who has not studied the original documents can imagine the extent to which this discrepancy proceeds; it covers almost every portion and fragment of the tale.[789]

[789] These diversities are well set forth in the useful
Dissertation of Fuchs De Varietate Fabularum Troicarum (Cologne,
1830).

Of the number of romantic statements put forth respecting Helen
and Achilles especially, some idea may be formed from the fourth,
fifth and sixth chapters of Ptolemy Hêphæstion (apud Westermann,
Scriptt. Mythograph. p. 188, etc.).

But though much may have been thus omitted of what the reader might expect to find in an account of the Trojan war, its genuine character has been studiously preserved, without either exaggeration or abatement. The real Trojan war is that which was recounted by Homer and the old epic poets, and continued by all the lyric and tragic composers. For the latter, though they took great liberties with the particular incidents, and introduced to some extent a new moral tone, yet worked more or less faithfully on the Homeric scale: and even Euripidês, who departed the most widely from the feeling of the old legend, never lowered down his matter to the analogy of contemporary life. They preserved its well-defined object, at once righteous and romantic, the recovery of the daughter of Zeus and sister of the Dioskuri—its mixed agencies, divine, heroic and human—the colossal force and deeds of its chief actors—its vast magnitude and long duration, as well as the toils which the conquerors underwent, and the Nemesis which followed upon their success. And these were the circumstances which, set forth in the full blaze of epic and tragic poetry, bestowed upon the legend its powerful and imperishable influence over the Hellenic mind. The enterprise was one comprehending all the members of the Hellenic body, of which each individually might be proud, and in which, nevertheless, those feelings of jealous and narrow patriotism, so lamentably prevalent in many of the towns, were as much as possible excluded. It supplied them with a grand and inexhaustible object of common sympathy, common faith, and common admiration; and when occasions arose for bringing together a Pan-Hellenic force against the barbarians, the precedent of the Homeric expedition was one upon which the elevated minds of Greece could dwell with the certainty of rousing an unanimous impulse, if not always of counterworking sinister by-motives, among their audience. And the incidents comprised in the Trojan cycle were familiarized, not only to the public mind but also to the public eye, by innumerable representations both of the sculptor and the painter,—those which were romantic and chivalrous being better adapted for this purpose, and therefore more constantly employed, than any other.

Of such events the genuine Trojan war of the old epic was for the most part composed. Though literally believed, reverentially cherished, and numbered among the gigantic phænomena of the past, by the Grecian public, it is in the eyes of modern inquiry essentially a legend and nothing more. If we are asked whether it be not a legend embodying portions of historical matter, and raised upon a basis of truth,—whether there may not really have occurred at the foot of the hill of Ilium a war purely human and political, without gods, without heroes, without Helen, without Amazons, without Ethiopians under the beautiful son of Eôs, without the wooden horse, without the characteristic and expressive features of the old epical war,—like the mutilated trunk of Deïphobus in the under-world; if we are asked whether there was not really some such historical Trojan war as this, our answer must be, that as the possibility of it cannot be denied, so neither can the reality of it be affirmed. We possess nothing but the ancient epic itself without any independent evidence: had it been an age of records indeed, the Homeric epic in its exquisite and unsuspecting simplicity would probably never have come into existence. Whoever therefore ventures to dissect Homer, Arktinus and Leschês, and to pick out certain portions as matters of fact, while he sets aside the rest as fiction, must do so in full reliance on his own powers of historical divination, without any means either of proving or verifying his conclusions. Among many attempts, ancient as well as modern, to identify real objects in this historical darkness, that of Dio Chrysostom deserves attention for its extraordinary boldness. In his oration addressed to the inhabitants of Ilium, and intended to demonstrate that the Trojans were not only blameless as to the origin of the war, but victorious in its issue—he overthrows all the leading points of the Homeric narrative, and re-writes nearly the whole from beginning to end: Paris is the lawful husband of Helen, Achilles is slain by Hectôr, and the Greeks retire without taking Troy, disgraced as well as baffled. Having shown without difficulty that the Iliad, if it be looked at as a history, is full of gaps, incongruities and absurdities, he proceeds to compose a more plausible narrative of his own, which he tenders as so much authentic matter of fact. The most important point, however, which his Oration brings to view is, the literal and confiding belief with which the Homeric narrative was regarded, as if it were actual history, not only by the inhabitants of Ilium, but also by the general Grecian public.[790]

[790] Dio Chrysost. Or. xi. p. 310-322.

The small town of Ilium, inhabited by Æolic Greeks,[791] and raised into importance only by the legendary reverence attached to it, stood upon an elevated ridge forming a spur from Mount Ida, rather more than three miles from the town and promontory of Sigeium, and about twelve stadia, or less than two miles, from the sea at its nearest point. From Sigeium and the neighboring town of Achilleium (with its monument and temple of Achilles), to the town of Rhœteium on a hill higher up the Hellespont (with its monument and chapel of Ajax called the Aianteium[792]), was a distance of sixty stadia, or seven miles and a half in the straight course by sea: in the intermediate space was a bay and an adjoining plain, comprehending the embouchure of the Scamander, and extending to the base of the ridge on which Ilium stood. This plain was the celebrated plain of Troy, in which the great Homeric battles were believed to have taken place: the portion of the bay near to Sigeium went by the name of the Naustathmon of the Achæans (_i. e._ the spot where they dragged their ships ashore), and was accounted to have been the camp of Agamemnôn and his vast army.[793]

[791] Herodot. v. 122. Pausan. v. 8, 3: viii. 12, 4. Αἰολεὺς ἐκ
πόλεως Τρῴαδος, the title proclaimed at the Olympic games; like
Αἰολεὺς ἀπὸ Μουρίνας, from Myrina in the more southerly region of
Æolis, as we find in the list of visitors at the Charitêsia, at
Orchomenos in Bϙtia (Corp. Inscrip. Boeckh. No. 1583).

[792] See Pausanias, i. 35, 3, for the legends current at Ilium
respecting the vast size of the bones of Ajax in his tomb. The
inhabitants affirmed that after the shipwreck of Odysseus, the
arms of Achilles, which he was carrying away with him, were
washed up by the sea against the tomb of Ajax. Pliny gives the
distance at thirty stadia: modern travellers make it some thing
more than Pliny, but considerably less than Strabo.

[793] Strabo, xiii. p. 596-598. Strabo distinguishes the Ἀχαιῶν
Ναύσταθμον, which was near to Sigeium, from the Ἀχαιῶν λιμήν,
which was more towards the middle of the bay between Sigeium and
Rhœteium; but we gather from his language that this distinction
was not universally recognized. Alexander landed at the Ἀχαιῶν
λιμήν (Arrian, i. 11).

Historical Ilium was founded, according to the questionable statement of Strabo, during the last dynasty of the Lydian kings,[794] that is, at some period later than 720 B. C. Until after the days of Alexander the Great—indeed until the period of Roman preponderance—it always remained a place of inconsiderable power and importance, as we learn not only from the assertion of the geographer, but also from the fact that Achilleium, Sigeium and Rhœteium were all independent of it.[795] But inconsiderable as it might be, it was the only place which ever bore the venerable name immortalized by Homer. Like the Homeric Ilium, it had its temple of Athênê,[796] wherein she was worshipped as the presiding goddess of the town: the inhabitants affirmed that Agamemnôn had not altogether destroyed the town, but that it had been reoccupied after his departure, and had never ceased to exist.[797] Their acropolis was called Pergamum, and in it was shown the house of Priam and the altar of Zeus Herkeius where that unhappy old man had been slain: moreover there were exhibited, in the temples, panoplies which had been worn by the Homeric heroes,[798] and doubtless many other relics appreciated by admirers of the Iliad.

[794] Strabo, xiii. p. 593.

[795] Herodot. v. 95 (his account of the war between the
Athenians and Mitylenæans about Sigeium and Achilleium); Strabo,
xiii. p. 593. Τὴν δὲ τῶν Ἰλιέων πόλιν τὴν νῦν τέως μὲν κωμόπολιν
εἶναί φασι, τὸ ἱερὸν ἔχουσαν τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς μικρὸν καὶ εὐτελές.
Ἀλέξανδρον δὲ ἀναβάντα μετὰ τὴν ἐπὶ Γρανίκῳ νίκην, ἀναθήμασι τε
κοσμῆσαι τὸ ἱερὸν καὶ προσαγορεῦσαι πόλιν, etc.

Again, Καὶ τὸ Ἴλιον, ὃ νῦν ἐστὶ, κωμόπολίς τις ἦν ὅτε πρῶτον
Ῥωμαῖοι τῆς Ἀσίας ἐπέβησαν.

[796] Besides Athênê, the Inscriptions authenticate Ζεὺς Πολιεὺς
at Ilium (Corp. Inscrip. Bœckh. No. 3599).

[797] Strabo, xiii. p. 600. Λέγουσι δ᾽ οἱ νῦν Ἰλιεῖς καὶ τοῦτο,
ὡς οὐδὲ τέλεως συνέβαινεν ἠφανίσθαι τὴν πόλιν κατὰ τὴν ἅλωσιν ὑπὸ
τῶν Ἀχαιῶν, οὐδ᾽ ἐξηλείφθη οὐδέποτε.

The situation of Ilium (or as it is commonly, but erroneously,
termed, _New Ilium_) appears to be pretty well ascertained, about
two miles from the sea (Rennell, On the Topography of Troy, p.
41-71; Dr. Clarke’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 102).

[798] Xerxês passing by Adramyttium, and leaving the range of
Mount Ida on his left hand, ἤϊε ἐς τὴν Ἰλιάδα γῆν.... Ἀπικομένου
δὲ τοῦ στρατοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν Σκάμανδρον ... ἐς τὸ Πριάμου Πέργαμον
ἀνέβη, ἵμερον ἔχων θεήσασθαι. Θεησάμενος δὲ, καὶ ~πυθόμενος
κείνων ἕκαστα~, τῇ Ἀθηναίῃ τῇ Ἰλιάδι ἔθυσε βοῦς χιλίας· χοὰς δὲ
οἱ μάγοι τοῖσιν ἥρωσιν ἐχέαντο.... Ἅμα ἡμέρῃ δὲ ἐπορεύετο, ἐν
ἀριστερῇ μὲν ἀπέργων Ῥοιτεῖον πόλιν καὶ Ὀφρυνεῖον καὶ Δάρδανον,
ἥπερ δὴ Ἀβύδῳ ὅμουρος ἐστιν· ἐν δεξιῇ δὲ, Γέργιθας Τευκρούς
(Herod. vii. 43).

Respecting Alexander (Arrian, i. 11), Ἀνελθόντα δὲ ἐς Ἴλιον, τῇ
Ἀθηνᾷ θῦσαι τῇ Ἰλιάδι, καὶ τὴν πανοπλίαν τὴν αὑτοῦ ἀναθεῖναι ἐς
τὸν ναὸν, καὶ καθελεῖν ἀντὶ ταύτης τῶν ἱερῶν τινα ὅπλων ἔτι ἐκ
τοῦ Τρωϊκοῦ ἔργου σωζόμενα· καὶ ταῦτα λέγουσιν ὅτι οἱ ὑπασπισταὶ
ἔφερον πρὸ αὐτοῦ ἐς τὰς μάχας. Θῦσαι δὲ αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ τοῦ
Διὸς τοῦ Ἑρκείου λόγος κατέχει, μῆνιν Πριάμου παραιτούμενον τῷ
Νεοπτολέμου γένει, ὃ δὴ ἐς αὐτὸν καθῆκε.

The inhabitants of Ilium also showed the lyre which had belonged
to Paris (Plutarch, Alexand. c. 15).

Chandler, in his History of Ilium, chap. xxii. p. 89, seems to
think that the place called by Herodotus the Pergamum of Priam
is different from the historical Ilium. But the mention of the
Iliean Athênê identifies them as the same.

These were testimonies which few persons in those ages were inclined to question, when combined with the identity of name and general locality; nor does it seem that any one did question them until the time of Dêmêtrius of Skêpsis. Hellanikus expressly described this Ilium as being the Ilium of Homer, for which assertion Strabo (or probably Dêmêtrius, from whom the narrative seems to be copied) imputes to him very gratuitously an undue partiality towards the inhabitants of the town.[799] Herodotus relates, that Xerxês in his march into Greece visited the place, went up to the Pergamum of Priam, inquired with much interest into the details of the Homeric siege, made libations to the fallen heroes, and offered to the Athênê of Ilium his magnificent sacrifice of a thousand oxen: he probably represented and believed himself to be attacking Greece as the avenger of the Priamid family. The Lacedæmonian admiral Mindarus, while his fleet lay at Abydus, went personally to Ilium to offer sacrifice to Athênê, and saw from that elevated spot the battle fought between the squadron of Dorieus and the Athenians, on the shore near Rhœteium.[800] During the interval between the Peloponnesian war and the Macedonian invasion of Persia, Ilium was always garrisoned as a strong position; but its domain was still narrow, and did not extend even to the sea which was so near to it.[801] Alexander, on crossing the Hellespont, sent his army from Sestus to Abydus, under Parmenio, and sailed personally from Elæeus in the Chersonese, after having solemnly sacrificed at the Elæuntian shrine of Prôtesilaus, to the harbor of the Achæans between Sigeium and Rhœteium. He then ascended to Ilium, sacrificed to the Iliean Athênê, and consecrated in her temple his own panoply, in exchange for which he took some of the sacred arms there suspended, which were said to have been preserved from the time of the Trojan war. These arms were carried before him when he went to battle by his armor-bearers. It is a fact still more curious, and illustrative of the strong working of the old legend on an impressible and eminently religious mind, that he also sacrificed to Priam himself, on the very altar of Zeus Herkeius from which the old king was believed to have been torn by Neoptolemus. As that fierce warrior was his heroic ancestor by the maternal side, he desired to avert from himself the anger of Priam against the Achilleid race.[802]

[799] Strabo, xiii. p. 602. Ἑλλάνικος δὲ χαριζόμενος τοῖς
Ἰλιεῦσιν, οἷος ὁ ἐκείνου μῦθος, συνηγορεῖ τῷ τὴν αὐτὴν εἶναι
πόλιν τὴν νῦν τῇ τότε. Hellanikus had written a work called
Τρωϊκά.

[800] Xenoph. Hellen. i. 1, 10. Skylax places Ilium twenty-five
stadia, or about three miles, from the sea (c. 94). But I do not
understand how he can call Skêpsis and Kebrên πόλεις ἐπὶ θαλάσσῃ.

[801] See Xenoph. Hellen. iii. i. 16; and the description of the
seizure of Ilium, along with Skêpsis and Kebrên, by the chief of
mercenaries, Charidêmus, in Demosthen. cont. Aristocrat. c. 38.
p. 671: compare Æneas Poliorcetic. c. 24, and Polyæn. iii. 14.

[802] Arrian, _l. c._ Dikæarchus composed a separate work
respecting this sacrifice of Alexander, περὶ τῆς ἐν Ἰλίῳ θυσίας
(Athenæ. xiii. p. 603; Dikæarch. Fragm. p. 114, ed. Fuhr).

Theophrastus, in noticing old and venerable trees, mentions the
φηγοὶ (_Quercus æsculus_) on the tomb of Ilus at Ilium, without
any doubt of the authenticity of the place (De Plant. iv. 14);
and his contemporary, the harper Stratonikos, intimates the same
feeling, in his jest on the visit of a bad sophist to Ilium
during the festival of the Ilieia (Athenæ. viii. p. 351). The
same may be said respecting the author of the tenth epistle
ascribed to the orator Æschinês (p. 737), in which his visit of
curiosity to Ilium is described—as well as about Apollônius of
Tyana, or the writer who describes his life and his visit to the
Trôad; it is evident that he did not distrust the ἀρχαιολογία
of the Ilieans, who affirmed their town to be the real Troy
(Philostrat. Vit. Apollôn. Tyan. iv. 11).

The goddess Athênê of Ilium was reported to have rendered
valuable assistance to the inhabitants of Kyzikus, when they were
besieged by Mithridatês, commemorated by inscriptions set up in
Ilium (Plutarch, Lucull. 10).

Alexander made to the inhabitants of Ilium many munificent promises, which he probably would have executed, had he not been prevented by untimely death: for the Trojan war was amongst all the Grecian legends the most thoroughly Pan-Hellenic, and the young king of Macedôn, besides his own sincere legendary faith, was anxious to merge the local patriotism of the separate Greek towns in one general Hellenic sentiment under himself as chief. One of his successors, Antigonus,[803] founded the city of Alexandreia in the Trôad, between Sigeium and the more southerly promontory of Lektum; compressing into it the inhabitants of many of the neighboring Æolic towns in the region of Ida,—Skêpsis, Kebrên, Hamaxitus, Kolônæ, and Neandria, though the inhabitants of Skêpsis were subsequently permitted by Lysimachus to resume their own city and autonomous government. Ilium however remained without any special mark of favor until the arrival of the Romans in Asia and their triumph over Antiochus (about 190 B. C.). Though it retained its walls and its defensible position, Dêmêtrius of Skêpsis, who visited it shortly before that event, described it as being then in a state of neglect and poverty, many of the houses not even having tiled roofs.[804] In this dilapidated condition, however, it was still mythically recognized both by Antiochus and by the Roman consul Livius, who went up thither to sacrifice to the Iliean Athênê. The Romans, proud of their origin from Troy and Æneas, treated Ilium with signal munificence; not only granting to it immunity from tribute, but also adding to its domain the neighboring territories of Gergis, Rhœteium and Sigeium—and making the Ilieans masters of the whole coast[805] from the Peræa (or continental possessions) of Tenedos (southward of Sigeium) to the boundaries of Dardanus, which had its own title to legendary reverence as the special sovereignty of Æneas. The inhabitants of Sigeium could not peaceably acquiesce in this loss of their autonomy, and their city was destroyed by the Ilieans.

[803] Strabo, xiii. p. 603-607.