No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Homeric and Hellenic Ilium
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
Dr. Schliemann has proved that Hissarlik was a seat of human habitation from a prehistoric age. This has not been proved for any other place which could claim to be the site of Homeric Troy. Assuming that ‘the tale of Troy’ is founded on a central fact—i.e., that a very old town, placed as the Iliad roughly indicates, was once besieged and taken—the claim of Hissarlik to be the site of that town is now both definite and unique. Thus far, Dr. Schliemann's argument is unanswerable. It is not my purpose to discuss here the further questions which arise as to the relation of his discoveries to places or objects described in the Iliad. The subject of which I would speak is historical rather than strictly archæological, yet one which, within certain limits, has a distinct bearing on Dr. Schliemann's results.
What was the belief of the ancient Greeks as to the site of Homeric Troy? And, in particular, how did they generally regard the claim of the Greek Ilium (at Hissarlik) to be considered as occupying the Homeric site?
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1881
References
page 8 note 1 Arrian I. 11; Plutarch, , Alex. 15Google Scholar; Polemon Iliensis in Müller, , Frag. Hist. II. 124Google Scholar.
page 9 note 1 Il. IX. 593, where it should be observed that πέλει‥ἁλῴη describe the usual, the normal consequences of capture by storm.
page 10 note 1 XIII. § 38; 
page 10 note 2 This is Bentley's illustration, and (quoting perhaps from memory) he gives the phrase of Laertius as λέγεται It is, in fact, λόγος Pythag. § 11; 
In this context, however, that does not affect his argument, for the statement is in close dependence on a preceding one, introduced by 
And presently Timaeus is named in reference to a particular detail which he alone (it would seem) recorded (ib. § 11).
page 11 note 1 Strabo XIII. § 39.
page 11 note 2 Herod. v. 95. Diog. Laertius, quoting the Χρονικά of Apollodorus, terms the arbitration a δίκη, over which Periander presided (I. IV. 74).
page 12 note 1 Strabo XIII. §§ 41, 42.
page 12 note 2 Pausan. x. 33 § 2: 
page 13 note 1 Od. IX. 112.
page 14 note 1 Il. xx. 216:
Strabo (with Demetrius of Scepsis) placed the site of Troy at the Ἰλιέων κώμη (Akshi-Kioi), which is some three or four miles nearer Ida than Hissarlik, and does not so obviously answer to ἐν πεδίψ as distinguished from the ὑπωρεῖαι He remarks, accordingly, that the σῆμα Ἴλον was probably erected in the middle of the Trojan plain to commemorate the boldness of Ilus in first taking such a site for a town; but that, in point of fact, Ilus had not been so very courageous after all
but had shown a lingering tendency to cling to the skirts of the hills. This is certainly a good point in favour of Hissarlik; and we can see that Strabo felt it (XIII. § 25).
page 14 note 2 Plato, , Laws 682Google Scholar B.: 
page 14 note 3 l.c. 682 D.: 
Cp. 683 A. 
(the primitive 
) 
(Dardania) 
(Troy), 
(‘succeeding each other, in order of foundation, as we believe, at vast, though indeterminate, intervals’). 
(Sparta). This serves to bring out the idea of the passage—that the capture of Troy closes a chapter.
page 15 note 1 Panegyr. § 181. 
page 16 note 1 In Leocratem, §§ 61 f. 
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to remark that the particular bearing of this passage on the question of Troy remains the same, whether we admit or dispute the speaker's general proposition, that no city, once made ἀνάστατος had recovered its former prosperity. We have seen that ἀνάστατος could be rhetorically applied to Athens when temporarily abandoned by its citizens to tbe Persians (Isoer. Panegyr. § 98). Mantineia, made ἀνάστατος in 383 B.C. (ib. § 126), more than regained its former strength when rebuilt after the battle of Lenotra. But the context is decisive. Lycurgus intends the utter destruction of a very powerful city, such as he conceives Troy; Nineveh would be another example in his sense. And, in all cases, ἀνάστατος implies a definite breach of continuity in political existence.
page 18 note 1 Strabo XIII. § 26: 
page 18 note 2 l.c. § 27.
page 19 note 1 
[Plut.] Vitt. X. Oratt. p. 841 F.
page 20 note 1 Strabo XIII. § 25. 
Cp. § 42, 
page 20 note 2 
l.c. § 22.
page 20 note 3 l.c. § 28, 
page 20 note 4 l.c. § 52.
page 21 note 1 This distinct Lydian settlement was not supposed by Dr. Schliemann in his earlier work, Troy and its Remains, but has heen introduced for the first time in Ilios.
page 22 note 1 Ilios. p. 517.
page 22 note 2 
page 23 note 1 Earlier in the very same year (399 B.C.) Xenophon had led the remnant of the Ten Thousand through the Troad, from Lampsaeus, over Mount Ida, to Antandrus; but he does not notice Ilium: Anab. VII. 8 § 7. In a writer whose Homeric sympathies were so keen, the silence is significant.
page 23 note 2 Dem. In Aristocr. § 154 (spoken in 352 B.C.). Cp. Plut. Sert. 1.
page 23 note 3 Arrian, I. 12 § 7. From a later passage of Arrian (VI. 9 § 3) it appears that Peucestas, son of Alexander of Mieza in Macedonia, had the honour of bearing before the King 
Cp. Plut. Alex. 15.
page 24 note 1 Erythraean inscription in Monatsberichte of Berlin Academy (1875), p. 554. 
Droysen, , Geschichte des Hellenismus, I. 233Google Scholar.
page 24 note 2 
Strabo XIII. § 26.
page 24 note 3 l.c. 
page 25 note 1 I do not observe any reference in Ilios (p. 633) to Droysen's interesting discussion of this inscription (first published by Hirschfeld, G. in the Archaeologische Zeitung, new series, VII. (1875, p. 153)Google Scholar; see Geschichte des Hellenismus, II. 2, 382.
page 25 note 2 The inscription is a decree by which Antiochus (perhaps the Great, 222–186 B.C.) grants to one Aristodicides of Assus an extensive tract of arable land, which he is directed 
This is rendered in Dr.Schliemann's, Ilios (p. 629)Google Scholar, ‘for him to confer on the city of Ilium or on the city of Scepsis.’
But the meaning evidently is—‘for him to attach to Ilium or Scepsis,’ i.e. to hold under one of those cities. Antiochus wished to avoid establishing Aristodicides as independent proprietor on so large a portion of the βασιλικὴ χώρα in the Troad as 2000 plethra. This would have given him a position intermediate between that of the royal suzerain and of the autonomous towns like Ilium, and might have become the first step to a δυναστεία. The king therefore directs that the tenure of Aristodicides shall be civic, subject to the authorities of one or another of the larger free municipalities.
page 25 note 3 While the other leader, Leonnorius, returns to Byzantium; Liv. XXXVIII. 16. Strabo, on the other hand, mentions Leonnorius as 
(XII. 566), and Memnon (XIX. 3) names both.
page 25 note 4 
Strab. XIII. § 27. Hegesianax, a friend of Antiochus the Great, for whom he once discharged an embassy, was both a poet and a historian; the statement in the text is referred to his work entitled Τρωῖκά. Müller, Frag. Hist. III. 68.
page 26 note 1 Polyb. V. 111. 
page 26 note 2 
Strabo XIII. § 27.
page 26 note 3 ‘Priusquam solveret naves, Ilium a mari ascendit, ut Minervae sacrificaret.’ Liv. XXXV. 43.
page 26 note 4 ‘Inde Ilium processit, castrisque in campo, qui est subiectus moenibus, positis, in urbem arcemque [the ‘Πέργαμον’] cum escendisset, sacrifi-cavit Minervae praesidi arcis; et Iliensibus in omni rerum verborumque honore ab se oriundos Romanos praeferentibus, et Romanis laetis origine sua’: ‘While the Ilians, with every mark of honour which act or word could express, vaunted the Ilian descent of the Romans, and the Romans exulted in that lineage.’ (Liv. XXXVII. 37.) I fail to find in these terms the justification of Ihne's comment:—‘If we may judge from the style of Livy's narrative, the whole affair was a mere empty formality, in which neither the heart nor the imagination of the persons concerned was engaged’ (vol. III. 153); though it may be conceded that, in these mutual protestations, the Ilians were probably more effusive than their warlike offspring. Caius Livius, the colleague of Lucius Scipio in the consulship of 190 B.C., had also visited Ilium and offered sacrifice there (Liv. XXXVIII. 9).
page 27 note 1 ‘Iliensibus Rhoeteum et Gergithum addiderunt, non tam ob recentia ulla merita, quam originum memoria.’ Liv. XXXVIII. 39.
page 27 note 2 Appian I. 364 f. describes the destruction by Fimbria as complete: 
Strabo XIII. § 27 says that Sulla 
page 27 note 3 
l.c.
page 27 note 4 Dio Cassius, LXXVII. 16; Herodian, IV. 8 § 4 f.
page 27 note 5 The Greek text of the letter is given at length in Ilios, p. 180.
page 28 note 1 
page 29 note 1 The passage has been quoted above. Remark in it also how the writer is careful to mention the anointing of Hector's image 
a detail of pagan worship loathed by Christians. Regarding the honours paid to the martyrs at this period, see the testimonies in Gibbon (c. xxviii vol. III. p. 427, ed. Smith) from the sophist Eunapius, Caius apud Euseb. II. 25; Chrysostom; and Jerome advers. Vigilantium.
page 29 note 2 Meyer, , Troas p. 97Google Scholar; Ilios p. 183.
page 30 note 1 
When this letter was written, then, the trade of the local περιηγηταί at Ilium was still flourishing; and many traits of language (as the use of μή) indicate a date later than Lucian, perhaps circ. 250—400 A.D.
page 31 note 1 Strabo XIII. § 1.
page 32 note 1 Ib. § 4.
page 33 note 1 Ib. § 25. 
(at Akshi-Kioi). 
page 33 note 2 Ib. § 35.
page 34 note 1 Ib. § 38. 
page 34 note 2 Ib. § 40.
page 34 note 3 Ib. § 41.
page 34 note 4 Ib. § 42.
page 34 note 5 Ib. § 55. 
He was a 
(§ 27) 
and would have been in middle life about 160–150 B.C.
page 35 note 1 Cod. 190.
page 35 note 2 A list of references to very many quotations from Demetrius is given by Müller, , in the 4th volume of the Fragmenta Historicorum, p. 382Google Scholar. Even in a voluminous special work it would have been impracticable to transcribe a fourth part of them.
page 36 note 1 Straho I. iii. § 17.
page 36 note 2 Id. VIII. vi. § 15.
page 36 note 3 Id. VIII. iii. § 15. From another place, X. iii. § 20, where he is quoted regarding the worship of Crete, it appears that he had made a collection of the Cretan μῦθοι: and many other passages incidentally attest his possession of accurate knowledge founded on laborious researches.
page 36 note 4 Troy and its Remains (1874), p. 41 of English ed. (1875); Ilios, p. 168.
page 37 note 1 Strabo XIII. § 53. Aeneas, pursued by Achilles, flies to Lyrnessus. Iliad xx. 189 f.
page 37 note 2 Strabo XIII. § 35. The arguments, which are given merely as samples, not in any wise as a complete statement of the case, are all of the class which assume the absolute topographical precision of the Iliad, and have no value on any other view. They turn on these points:—1. Position of Callicolonè relatively to Troy: Iliad xx. 53. 2. Post of the Lycians at Thymbra—too far from the Greek Ilium: Il. X. 430. 3. Position of the ἐρινεός: Il. VI. 433. 4. The φηγός: Il. IX. 354. 5. The ναύσταθμον near Sigeum: if the distance from Ilium was not greater, why did not the Achaeans build a τεῖχος sooner? 6. Why did Polites, the σκοπός, station himself on the top of the mound of Aesyetes—which is but five stades from Ilium—when the acropolis of Ilium itself would have afforded a better view?—Il. II. 792.
I must remark one very interesting point in this passage of Strabo—the parenthetical reference to a hint thrown out by Aristotle, 
‘for Homer says that the wall (at the ships) was made only at a late point in the siege (or perhaps it was never made at all, but the poet who created destroyed it, as Aristotle says’).
These words are not now extant in Aristotle, but are conjecturally referred to his 
see the Berlin edition, p. 1506 b. 44, frag. 173.
The conception implied here—that the details of the Iliad may have been fancy-born, without any corresponding objective realities—is of peculiar interest if it was entertained by such a man, in an age of which the Homeric creed set so decidedly in an opposite sense.
page 38 note 1 Of Hestiaea, Fabricius says (after noticing this passage): ‘Citatur etiam in scholiis minoribus 
64, et ab Eustathio ad Iliad. 
Neuter autem ex his, ac ne Strabo quidem, Histiaeae [sic] ipse scripta inspexit’: Biblioth. ii. 5.
Harles adds (vol. i. p. 516): ‘In schol. Marcianis [the Venetian scholia] cod. B. et in cod. Lips, adducitur Hestiaeae interpretatio Iliad, 
64, cur Homerus Venerem vocarit auream: 
[read 
] 
additurque Cleanthis expositio, 
Conf. Olearii diss. de poetriis gr. nr. 38.’
page 39 note 1 No one who wishes to appreciate the real weight of Strabo's adhesion to Demetrius about Ilium ought to overlook this point. Strabo shows, in fact, the keenest feeling for the ludicrous side of Homeric name-hunting in the Troad. In Iliad n. 857 we read, 
To account for this, the topographers invented a place called Ἀργυρία between Polichna and Palaiscepsis. Nay, says Strabo, but where then is Ἀλύβη? ‘They ought to haw rubbed their foreheads, and made out that too, and not left their work to go halting and open to reproof, when they had once hardened their hearts’: 
If Demetrius sometimes errs on this side, that cannot (Strabo justly remarks) affect the weight of his main conclusions. 
XIII. § 45.
page 39 note 2 His age is discussed in Müller's Frag. Hist. I. xxiv. f.
page 40 note 1 Dionys. de Thuc. c. 5, 
page 40 note 2 
Thuc. I. 21.
page 40 note 3 Schol. on Iliad v. 64.
page 40 note 4 Schol. on Iliad ui. 250.
page 40 note 5 Schol. on Apoll. Rhod. I. 916: 
The second book is quoted by Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἀγάμεια
page 40 note 6 Strabo XIII. § 38; Her. v. 94.
page 41 note 1 Strabo l.c. § 39.
page 41 note 2 Strabo X. ii. § 6. 
Cp. XI. 9vii. § 3. Sopater mentions the Ἀἰγυπτιακά of Hellanicus as full of μυθικα καὶ πλασματικά. ‘fables and fictions,’ Phot. cod. 161.
page 42 note 1 Polemon of Ilium (Πολέμων Ἰλιεύς), who lived about 200 B.C., espoused the local tradition of his fellow townsmen in their completeness. It was in his 
that honourable mention was made of the still extant stone on which Palamedes had given lessons in the game of draughts. See the fragment (preserved by Eustathius on Iliad II. 228) in Müller, Frag. Hist. III. 125, 32.
page 43 note 1 One, at least, of Dr. Schliemann's prehistoric cities—that which he now denominates the ‘Second’—has in this respect an advantage over the ‘burnt city’ which he identifies with Troy.