THE HELLESPONT AND HOMER’S TROY
_Now let_
_Us fly to Asia’s cities of renown!_
_Already through each nerve a flutter runs_
_Of eager hope, that longs to be away;_
_Already ’neath the light of other suns_
_My feet, new-winged for travel, yearn to stray._
CATULLUS, XLVI.
After awaking from a protracted reverie on the summit of Galata’s
lofty tower I found, to my surprise, that I had spent much more
time there than I had originally intended. Twilight, delicate and
ethereal, was beginning to fall and to veil the mosques and minarets
and cypress-crowned heights of solemn, crafty, mysterious Stamboul.
An animated pageant was slowly wending its way through the Grand Rue
de Pera--part of it on its way to popular resorts of amusement and
relaxation; part returning from the cares of office and counting-room
to the repose of homes on the tranquil banks of the palace-fringed
Bosphorus.
But I could linger no longer in the contemplation of such fascinating
scenes. The previous day I had made arrangements with a friend to take
the steamer that very evening for Chanak Kalesi, on the Dardanelles.
One of my long unrealized dreams had been to visit the site of ancient
Troy. Several times I had been near it, but pressing engagements had
always prevented me from gazing on the spot
_Where stood old Troy, a venerable name,_
_Forever consecrated to deathless fame._
A few moments after our steamer left her moorings in the Golden Horn,
she began to round Seraglio Point. Galata and Pera twinkle in the
gathering gloom. The domes and minarets of Stamboul rise like dark,
shadowy monsters above the somber groups of low, wooden houses by which
they are surrounded. Broken stars quiver in the swift-flowing waters
of the Bosphorus and, while we are still gazing at the venerable,
ivy-mantled walls and towers that so long guarded the City of
Constantine, we enter the Sea of Marmora--known to the ancients as the
Propontis--the sea before the Pontus or the Euxine of which Herodotus
says “there is not in the world any other sea so wonderful.”
Early the following morning we were in the storied channel of the
Thracian Hellespont--now more familiarly known as the Dardanelles.
Like the Bosphorus, the Hellespont is replete with human and historic
interest, and, as I contemplated its rugged cliffs, I recalled Lucan’s
words that here
_Each rock and every tree recording tales adorn._
This is particularly true of that section of the channel at Fort
Nagara, formerly known as the Strait of Abydos. For it was
_Here young Leander perished in the flood,_
_And here the tower of mournful Hero stood._
It was here that the venture-loving Byron swam across the Hellespont.
And it was here that Xerxes spanned the Straits with the famous double
bridge that enabled his vast army to cross over to the Thracian shore
on his way to Greece, where “the barbarian despot sought to repress in
the deadly bonds of Persian thralldom the intellect and the freedom
of the world.” But the epoch-making victory of Salamis frustrated all
his plans of conquest. Accompanied by his counted myriads the Persian
invader, sure of his prey, entered Greece with all the wantonness and
deadly hostility of barbaric pride; after his defeat by Themistocles,
when army, fleet, and treasure were gone, he was forced to flee like
the meanest fugitive. The Italian poet, Luigi Alemanni, tells in a
single line the fate of the proud organizer of this widely heralded
campaign when he writes:
_More than a god he came, less than a man he fled._
A century and a half after the flight of Xerxes, Alexander’s army,
under Parmenio, crossed the Hellespont at the place where it had been
bridged by the ambitious and vainglorious Persian despot. It was at,
or near, this spot that Frederick Barbarossa crossed at the head of
the Third Crusade. And it was at this same spot that Solyman Pasha,
the warlike son of Orkhan, passed from Asia to Europe, where, in 1354,
he planted the Osmanli standard and where it has ever since flown as a
sign of Moslem faith and of Moslem victory over the hated Giaour.
We disembarked at the town of Chanak Kalesi, which Europeans usually
call the Dardanelles. It is noted as being at the narrowest point
of the Hellespont--the channel here is about fourteen hundred yards
in width--and was until recently the headquarters of the general in
command of the Turkish troops in the many forts which defended the
Strait.
In the long-discussed plans of Napoleon and Alexander I of Russia,
for joint dominion of the world, the Russian monarch always insisted
on securing possession not only of the Bosphorus and Constantinople
but also of the Strait of the Dardanelles. But the French emperor
just as persistently refused to acquiesce in the Czar’s demands. For
a while Napoleon seemed disposed to yield the Bosphorus and even
Constantinople, but nothing could induce him to consider for a moment
the granting to his ally of control of the Dardanelles--the key to the
Mediterranean.
Alexander insisted that, owing to its geographical position, the
Dardanelles should belong to Russia; that, having Constantinople, he
should also hold the key to the Ægean. But Napoleon retorted that, if
Russia possessed this important waterway, she would at once become
mistress not only of the commerce of the Levant and of India, but
she would also be a constant menace to Toulon, to Corfu, and to the
commerce of the world.
But the Czar and his advisers would not take a refusal. They realized
that they would never again have so good an opportunity of gaining
possession of the long-coveted capital on the Bosphorus and of the
channel connecting the Euxine with the Mediterranean as when Napoleon
was counting on their coöperation with him in his great schemes of
conquest in Asia. Negotiations continued without interruption from the
conference of Tilsit to that of Erfurt, and nothing stood in the way of
their successful issue except the possession by Russia of the narrow
strait between the Marmora and the Ægean. In return for this Alexander
was prepared to accede to Napoleon’s every wish.
In a letter of Caulaincourt, the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg,
written to Napoleon in 1808, the envoy declares that Russia, “once
mistress of Constantinople and its geographical dependencies, will go
with us not only to India, but to Syria, to Egypt, wherever we may
judge it useful to employ her fleets and draw her armies. Besides
this, she will leave the French Emperor free to organize the south and
the middle of Europe as he may elect. Reserving for herself only the
affairs of the north, she will abandon to him the direction of all the
others, will not interfere with his gigantic operations, will renounce
all jealousy and will consent that the partition of the Orient shall in
fact become the partition of the world.”
Concluding his letter to Napoleon, Caulaincourt writes:
Let your majesty reunite Italy, perhaps even Spain to France;
change dynasties, found kingdoms; demand the coöperation
of the Black Sea fleet and a land army for the conquest of
Egypt; demand any guarantees whatsoever; make with Austria
any exchanges that may be expedient; in one word, let the
world change place, if Russia obtains Constantinople and the
Dardanelles, we shall, I believe, be able to have her consider
everything without uneasiness.[64]
Could anything evince more clearly than this remarkable statement the
supreme value which Alexander placed on the Dardanelles as a Russian
outlet to the Mediterranean? And could a more tempting offer have
been made to Napoleon, who was then the arbiter of Europe and seemed
on the point of becoming the dictator of the world, than that which
was dangled before his eyes by his ambitious ally? But the compact
that Russia so eagerly desired was not to be made. For when both
the Czar and the Emperor appeared to be near an agreement on their
long-discussed plans of world domination, Spanish valor and patriotism
and Austrian diplomacy were concerting to check the Corsican’s vaulting
ambition and to prepare for his ultimate downfall at Waterloo.
In a preceding page reference has been made to the Arab name--_El
Farruch_--Earth-Divider--of Constantinople. The same can with equal
reason be applied to the Dardanelles. For during long centuries it,
with the Bosphorus, has been an effective barrier between the East and
the West and has constantly held in check Russia’s aspirations towards
the Mediterranean. How much longer will _El Farruch_ continue
to keep apart the nations of the earth, and how long will it prove
to be the paramount _crux_ of the Near Eastern Question and the
occasion of long and sanguinary wars? This is a question that only the
future--and, apparently, the very distant future--can answer.
After inspecting the fortifications of Chanak Kalesi and Kilid Bahr
and making a visit to the site of ancient Abydos, whence Xerxes is
supposed to have surveyed his vast army as it crossed the Hellespont,
and whence one has a splendid view of the narrowest part of the Strait,
we prepared to continue our journey to the site of ancient Troy.
Our first objective was Eren Keui, a flourishing Greek village, where
we purposed stopping over night. This short trip of about three hours
we made on horseback. Our road lay along the edge of the Strait over
wooded hills, well-cultivated valleys, and picturesque villages
surrounded by numerous vineyards and olive groves. From the hills we
had splendid views of the Dardanelles, the Thracian Chersonese, the
distant Ægean, and “many-fountained Ida” beyond the Trojan plain.
On our way we passed the site of Dardanus--a town also known as
Teucris--from which the Dardanelles takes its name. The epithet
Hellespont, Sea of Helle--which has also been given to the Strait--is
derived from the mythical Helle, who is said to have been drowned near
the southern entrance of the channel that bears her name.
From an eminence near Eren Keui, which we reached under an overclouded
sky, we were captivated by the fascinating prospect that burst upon our
view. For some miles ahead of us, lying in a tremulous azure haze,
_We saw the dark outline of the Trojan plain,_
_Misty and dim, as things at distance seem_
_Through the fast waning light of summer eve._
We lost no time in reaching the spot which, for me at least, had been
one of peculiar and ever-growing interest since, as a youth, I had
fallen under the magic spell of the immortal author of the _Iliad_
and _Odyssey_. And I was not long on the plain of Troy when I
realized the full force of Byron’s words when he declares:
It is one thing to read the _Iliad_ at Sigeum and on the
tumuli, or by the springs with Mount Ida above and the plain
and the rivers of the Archipelago around you, and another
thing to trim your taper over it in a snug library--_this I
know_.[65]
But there is nothing in this historic region that will appeal to the
ordinary tourist. It is a circumscribed plain about eight miles long
by four broad, on which he will see little beyond a few bare hillocks
and tumuli and occasional hunts or villages of the poor people who here
have their home,[66] and hear little as he treads his way through the
scattered brakes that cover much of the ground except the voice of a
solitary bird which at intervals bursts into song and then is still.
Nor is there anything here to attract those self-satisfied iconoclasts
who not only deny that Homer wrote the _Iliad_ but also deny his very
existence. Neither is there anything here to impress the followers of
Wolf and other so-called atomists who insist that the _Iliad_ is but a
collection of ballads composed by a number of rhapsodists.[67] Still
less is there here aught to interest those who not only maintain that
Homer and his authorship of the _Iliad_ are myths but who also contend
that there is no evidence whatever for believing that there was such a
place as Troy or for supposing that the traditional Troy was located in
this place, or that there ever was such a conflict as the Trojan War,
which is so graphically described in the _Iliad_.
No. To be thrilled by a visit to the well-fought field of Ilium, one
must share the sentiments which animated Byron when he contemplated
what Catullus so well denominated:
_Troia (nefas) commune sepulchrum Asiæ Europæque,_
_Troia virum et virtutum omnium acerba cinis._[68]
He must share the sentiments of thousands of others---poets, artists,
historians, kings, statesmen, commanders of vast armies---who, during
the past twenty-five centuries, have found on the site of Ilium, once
the
_City of unconquered men_
an inspiration in their work and an incentive to high achievement which
they could not find in the same degree in any other place in the wide
world.
When Xerxes, with his army, was on the way from Sardis to Greece he
stopped at Troy, and “when he had seen everything and inquired into all
particulars, he made an offering of ten thousand oxen to the Trojan
Minerva, while the Magians poured libations to the heroes who were
slain at Troy.”[69]
And the first thing Alexander the Great did on arriving in Asia,
previously to beginning his stupendous campaign against the Persians,
was to make a pilgrimage to what was once the city of Priam. The famous
Macedonian was a credit to his master, Aristotle, both as a scholar
and as a philosopher. He was, moreover, a great admirer of Homer and
slept with a copy of the _Iliad_ under his pillow. Ascending the
acropolis of New Ilium, he, like Xerxes, sacrificed to Minerva and also
to the shade of Priam, which he wished to propitiate before starting on
his expedition into the heart of Asia. And, as an assumed descendant,
through his mother, of Achilles, he offered an oblation on the tumulus
of Achilles, beneath which, it was believed, the ashes of the hero,
together with those of his friend Patroclus, were preserved in a golden
urn. After this he made a careful topographical survey of the Trojan
plain. And so convinced was he of all that tradition claimed for it
that he promised to enrich and fortify the New Ilium,[70] but was
prevented by premature death from carrying his project into execution.
Similarly Julius Cæsar, of the _gens Julia_, which traced its
origin to Iulus, son of Æneas, and was proud of its legendary descent
from Trojan stock, lavished honors on Troy,[71] as did also the Consul
Livius, who offered sacrifice on the acropolis of Ilium, in the
name of Rome, and not only exempted it from tribute but also gave it
jurisdiction over that part of the surrounding country known as the
Troad.
If then, one would come under the spell of Troy, if one would
experience the magic influence of its _spiritus loci_, one must visit
it as did Byron and Cæsar and Alexander--free from the withering doubts
raised by modern atomistic criticism and with a reasonable belief not
only in the existence of Priam’s city but also in the personality of
Homer and in his authorship of the marvelous epic on the Trojan war.
And we must remember that for nearly three thousand years there was no
question regarding the identity of that Greek whom Dante calls _poeta
sovrano_, the one, he tells us, who was
_Of mortals the most cherished by the nine_.[72]
We must recall the estimation in which he was held by the ancients, who
never wavered respecting the identity of
_The blind old man who dwelt on Scio’s rocky isle_.
So paramount, indeed, were the reputation and influence of the immortal
poet “whose genius had breathed inspiration into the national life
of Greece” that it was said, when tradition respecting his sublime
achievements was still fresh,
_Seven cities now contend for Homer dead_
_Through which the living Homer begged his bread._
The genius of Homer [declares a recent writer] was worshiped
as god-like and temples were erected to his honor at Chios,
Alexandria, Smyrna, and elsewhere; games were also instituted in
his memory; Apollo and Homer were actually worshiped together at
Argos, the one as the god of song, the other of minstrelsy.[73]
Filled with these thoughts and with a life-long love of the poet’s
masterpieces, I visited every nook and corner of the Trojan plain and
with unrestrained rapture contemplated the places which had so haunted
my youthful imagination when I first became acquainted with the sublime
pages of the _Iliad_. For the time being I forgot all about
Wolf, Lachman, Hermann, and other advocates of the atomistic theory
respecting Homer’s matchless epic and, like a child reading a fairy
tale, I loved to picture before my eyes the wonderful events which
Homer so vividly describes and which seemed to me almost as real as
they were to the actual spectators three thousand years ago.
_Still in our ears Andromache complains,_
_And still in sight the fate of Troy remains;_
_Still Ajax fights, still Hector’s dragged along,--_
_Such strange enchantment dwells in Homer’s song._
Fancy was animated as I strolled along the storied Simois, which
“sprouted ambrosia-like pasture” for the horses of Hera and Athena,
and the serpentine Scamander--“fair-flowing with silver eddies”--which
formerly entered a bay upon the shores of which the Greeks hauled up
their ships, and as I stood before the reputed tumuli of Achilles and
Patroclus, Ajax and Antilochus. But it was more vivacious far when I
ascended the hill of Hissarlik, which Schliemann has identified as
the site of Homer’s Troy. From the highest point of this elevation
one has a view that is truly entrancing. On the north is the
Hellespont--the road, as the ancients conceived, to the Cimmerians
and the Hyperboreans--with all its myth and legend. To the west are
the murmurous waters of the island-studded Ægean. Near the coast line
is vine-clad Tenedos, whither the Greek fleet withdrew while the
wooden horse was being taken into Troy. Further beyond is Lemnos,
where Hephæstus is said to have fallen when he was hurled from
Olympus. To the northwest is rock-ribbed Imbros, and further afield
is Samothrace, from the towering peak of which Poseidon looked down
upon Troy during its investment by the Greeks. To the northeast is
the eminence of Callicolone, whence Apollo and Mars, the protectors
of Ilium, watched the operations of the contending Greek and Trojan
armies. To the eastward is snow-crested Ida--whence Zeus observed the
combatants--whose lofty pines and valonas
_Wave aloft_
_Their tuneful, scented, dove-embowering shade,_
_And ’neath twilight broods as gray and soft_
_As when of yore the shepherd Paris strayed_
_With glad Œnone; while their bleating flocks_
_Grazed the wild thyme bright with ambrosial dew;_
_And lovers piping ’neath the o’ershadowing rocks_
_Laded with love the breezes as they flew._
It was on such panoramas that Helen was wont to fix her wistful
gaze--fair Helen, who
_Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars_
* * * * *
_... launched a thousand ships_
_And burnt the topless towers of Ilium._
Yes, I dreamed as I had previously dreamed in Sparta, the famed
abode of Menelaus and his faithless Helen; as I had dreamed in
“gold-abounding” Mycenæ, the home of Agamemnon, “King of men”; as I had
dreamed when contemplating desolate Delphi, Corinth, and Olympia, their
glory gone and their temples in ruins; as I had dreamed on the summit
of cloud-capped Parnassus, haunt of the Muses, and on the banks of the
rippling Cephisus, where Plato taught and where
_Girls and boys, women and bearded men_
_Crowded to hear and treasure in their hearts_
_Matter to make their lives a happiness._
At all these places, as on the site of Troy’s citadel, I loved to
recall the Greeks’ love of beauty and the marvelous mythopœic faculty
of their poets, and it required no spur to fancy to imagine that I was,
for the moment, in actual communion with the thoughts and feelings of
the world’s masters of beauty in art and literature.
The plain of Troy [it has been said] has been a battlefield not
only of heroes, but of scholars and geographers, and the works
which have been written on the subject form a literature to
themselves.[74]
This is true. But, however much students of the _Iliad_ may have
disagreed about the location of the city of Priam, about the courses
of the Simois and Scamander and certain minor details, all have been
compelled to recognize the accuracy of the poet’s topographical
descriptions and the appropriateness of the epithets which he applies
to the most striking features of the enchanting landscape which he
so graphically depicts. He does not, of course, give the numbers and
distances, as some of his critics would seem to demand, that a civil
engineer would require for a contour-line map. This would violate
entirely the most elementary canons of poetical treatment. But he does
use numbers and distances so far as they are necessary to give reality
to the action of the poem. And though his realities are in the highest
degree idealized, nevertheless, so fully do they meet the general
exigencies of time and place that they prove almost to demonstration
that Homer was thoroughly familiar not only with Troy but also with
all the surrounding region.[75]
The epithets applied by the poet to the mountains, islands, rivers,
and other natural features described in his matchless work show that
he must have been intimately acquainted with them, not by hearsay but
by personal inspection. Thus when he speaks of the “rapid current” of
the Hellespont, of the “broad-flowing” and “eddying” Scamander, of
“the peak of lofty Samothrace appearing over the intervening mass of
Imbros,” thus enabling Poseidon to look down from its summit on the
plain of Troy, we are convinced that the author of the _Iliad_
had carefully examined on the spot the objects he so vividly brings
before our view. And so it is in his graphic delineations of “lofty,”
“many-fountained” Ida, of “many-crested,” “dazzling”
_Olympus, the reputed seat_
_Eternal of the gods, which never storms_
_Disturb, rains drench, or snow invades, but calm._
So graphic and exact indeed are the epithets and descriptions of Homer
that they far surpass those of the later poets of Greece. In this
respect he constantly reminds one of Dante, that consummate master
of epithet and of brief but most exact description, who had the rare
faculty of expressing the import of a whole sentence in a single word.
I was then more than ever before impressed with the truth of Gœthe’s
words:
_Wer den Dichter will verstehen_
_Muss in Dichter’s Lande gehen._[76]
As we wandered along the willow-lined Mendere--the “divine” and
“flower-fringed” Scamander--and threaded our way through clumps of
tamarisk, agnus castus, and odoriferous Artemisia, frequently stopping
in our course to admire a beautiful lotus or asphodel and to gaze on
“spring-abounding” Ida’s heights, whence swift-footed Iris sped to
sacred Ilium at the command of ægis-bearing Jove, the question arose as
to the location of the Olympus, whence the “king of gods and men”
_Surveyed the walls of Troy, the ships of Greece,_
_The flash of arms, the slayers and the slain._[77]
The doubt was raised by the fact there are in Greece the islands of the
Ægean and in Asia Minor nearly a score of peaks and mountain ranges
that bear the name of Olympus, and the further fact that Olympus is
almost a generic name in this part of the world for a lofty mountain or
chain of mountains. On the confines of Mysia and Bithynia and visible
from the summit of Ida, which overlooks the Trojan plain, there is a
high mountain which is called Olympus, which many writers have declared
to be the one on whose summit mythology placed the home of the gods,
_Where Jove convened the senate of the skies._[78]
But a single quotation produced by the Hellenist of our party sufficed
to prove that the Olympus which Homer had in view was that located in
northern Thessaly--the Olympus on which Hesiod placed the battle of the
gods and Titans and on which mythology from the earliest time located
“the residence of the dynasty of the gods of which Zeus was the head.”
The quotation in question refers to the visit of Here to Zeus, who was
then on Mt. Ida observing the belligerents on the Trojan plain, and
reads:
_But Juno down from high Olympus sped;_
_O’er sweet Emathia and Pieria’s range,_
_O’er snowy mountains of horse-breeding Thrace,_
_Their topmost heights she soared, nor touch’d the earth._
_From Athos then she cross’d the swelling sea,_
_Until to Lemnos, God-like Thoas’ seat_
_She came._[79]
From Lemnos and Imbros, veiled in cloud,[80] skimming her airy way she
passes, to “spring-abounding Ida.” Could anything indicate more clearly
than this the relative positions of Olympus and Troy and fix more
definitely the position of the home of the Olympian gods as conceived
by the sovereign poet of Greece?
Although I had always been specially interested in Greek archæology I
felt no inclination, during my short visit to Troy, to indulge my taste
for archæological pursuits. I was satisfied to accept the conclusions
of Schliemann and Dorpfeld and Virchow respecting the location of
Ilium and the bearing of their discoveries on the reality of Homer
and the Trojan war. And, as I roamed the plain on which the Greek
army was encamped, I could not help hoping that further investigation
would prove that the startling discoveries of Schliemann at Mycenæ
would remove the last vestiges of doubt regarding the actual existence
of Agamemnon and Cassandra.[81] This would be a tangible proof of
the reality of at least one of Homer’s heroes. It would, too, be a
most interesting contribution to the Homeric question and would be
specially gratifying to those who, in spite of certain modern critics,
have unfalteringly clung to the views concerning Homer, Troy, and
the _Iliad_ which have universally prevailed since the days of
Aristarchus and the Homeridæ.
The blind bard of Chios then is to-day, as he always has been, as he
always will be so long as men shall love supreme excellence in letters,
a living personality whose wonderful epics have exercised a wider and
a more potent influence on the intellectual progress of our race than
all other epics combined. No books, except perhaps those of the Bible,
have been more frequently quoted nor have any received more attention
from poets, orators, dramatists, and lovers of the noblest models of
literary style.
Another remarkable fact is the gift of immortality which Homer, with
Jovelike power, has conferred upon his heroes. Although but the
creations of the poet’s genius, they stand forth to-day, men of flesh
and blood, in all the vigor and freshness which characterized them
thirty centuries ago. And there never have been among the children of
men any who are better known, or whose names more frequently occur
in song and story than the undying characters of the _Odyssey_
and the _Iliad_. These facts impress every lover of Homer as he
surveys the plain of Troy from the spot on which stood the Pergamus
and recollects the achievements of the blind bard’s heroes during the
ten long years of the Trojan war.
And, like Achilles and Agamemnon, Priam and Hector, the Troy of Homer
also is immortal. Notwithstanding the efforts of a jealous Demetrius
or an ill-informed Le Chevalier to transfer the glory of Troy to some
other locality, its claims, as Schliemann has shown, still stand on as
firm a basis as ever. Yes, of a truth,
_Thou livest, O Troy, forever unto men._
* * * * *
_All to the magic of that world-sung song,_
_That god-breathed legend dost thou owe thy fame;_
_The golden weft the blind man wove so long,_
_Hath linked to immortality thy name._
_His tale to many another’s lyre hath given_
_Its stirring echoes; and in every age_
_What story more than of thy woes hath riven_
_Their hearts who dream upon the poet’s page._
_And though for long thou in the dust hast lain,_
_Still, still the visions of the mighty past,_
_The memory of thy struggle, and thy pain,_
_Thy god-built turrets,--these forever last._