Whether Æneas did succeed or not, certain it is that this and the
adjacent countries were laid open, at no great distance of time from the
destruction of Troy, an easy and tempting prey to adventurers, Greek as
well as Barbarian. Among these, the best known are the Æolian
colonists, who are supposed to have put a final period not only to the
unfortunate city, but to the name of its people.
The Troia was next invaded by the Ionians and Lydians; then there was a
war between the Æolians and Athenians about Sigéum[284] and
Achilléum[285]. This war was of considerable duration. Several
melancholy circumstances are there related, as arising out of the
possession of the Troia by Darius. Xerxes, too, visited it during his
expedition into Greece, and the Persians lay one night encamped beneath
Mount Ida. A considerable number of them were destroyed by thunder and
lightning; and on their coming to the Scamander, that river was found to
possess no water; a circumstance far from being unusual in a mountainous
country. On his arrival at this river, Xerxes, having a wish to see the
Pergamus of Priam, went thither; and, having listened to the accounts
which were given to him in respect to it, he sacrificed a thousand oxen
to the Ilian Minerva.
Many interesting occurrences are related of Troia during the first and
second Peloponnesian wars. An adventure of Æschines, the famous orator
of Athens, it may not be unamusing to relate. Dr. Chandler has given an
abstract of the epistle, in which the orator relates it. It is
this:—“After leaving Athens, the author says, that he arrived at Ilium,
where he had intended to stay until he should have gone through all the
verses in the ‘Iliad,’ on the very spot to which they severally had
reference, but was prevented by the misconduct of his fellow-traveller,
a young rake, named Cymon. It was the custom, he tells us, for the
maidens who were betrothed, to repair on a certain day to bathe in the
Scamander; among them was at this time a damsel of illustrious family,
called Callirhoe. Æschines, with their relations and the multitude, was
a spectator of as much of the ceremony as was allowed to be seen, at a
due distance; but Cymon, who had conceived a bad design against this
lady, personated the River-God, and wearing a crown of reeds, lay
concealed in the thicket, until she, as was usual, invoked Scamander to
receive the offer which she made of herself to him. He then leaped
forth, saying, ‘I, Scamander, willingly accept of Callirhoe;’ and with
many promises of kindness, imposed on and abused her simplicity and
credulity. Four days after this ceremony, a public festival was held in
honour of Venus, when the females, whose nuptials had been recently
celebrated, appeared in the procession. Æschines was again a spectator,
and Cymon with him; so when Callirhoe respectfully bowed her head as she
passed by, and, casting her eyes on her nurse, said, ‘that is the God
Scamander,’ a discovery followed. The two companions got to their
lodging and quarrelled, a crowd gathered about the gate of the house,
and Æschines with difficulty made his escape by the back-door to a place
of security.”
The reader is requested to observe that on the destruction of old Ilium,
another town or rather village was erected; and that this village was
called New Ilium. This was the place visited by Alexander. It had only
one temple. This temple Alexander visited. He viewed also all the
antiquities which remained. He poured libations on the altar of Jupiter
Hercéus to Priam, and prayed that the vengeance which the gods had
taken of the son of Achilles, for having slain that unfortunate father
and king, might not descend upon him, whose descendant he was. One of
the Ilians offered him a lyre, which he said was the lyre of Paris; but
Alexander refused, saying, “I set but little value on the lyre of Paris;
but it would give me great pleasure to see that of Achilles, to which he
sang the glorious actions of the brave;” alluding to a passage in the
ninth book of the Iliad:
“Amused, at case, the god-like man they found,
Pleased with the solemn harp’s harmonious sound:
With this he soothes his angry soul, and sings
The immortal deeds of heroes and of kings.”
He then desired to be shown the tombs of the heroes.
Quintus Curtius says, that when Alexander arrived at Illium, Menetius
the governor crowned him with a crown of gold; and that Chares the
Athenian did the same,—coming from Sigeum for that purpose. “Alexander
was at length,” says Mr. Mitford, “amidst the scenes, sacred in his
eyes, in which were performed the wondrous deeds that Homer, his
favourite poet, had immortalised. He was treading on the ground which
Achilles, the hero that was the object of his emulation and envy,
fought, and conquered, and fell. Thoughts, emotions, and wishes, of the
most ardent kind, doubtless swelled his heart and fired his brain.” On
the site of Troy there stood only a village. The temple of Minerva,
however, still existed, and thither he proceeded. It contained some
consecrated suits of armour, which were said to have been preserved
there ever since the Trojan war. One of these he took away to be borne
before him on solemn occasions, and in battle; and in the place of it he
dedicated his own. He performed rites and made offerings at the tombs of
the heroes; especially those of Achilles and Ajax Telamon. He adorned
the tumulus of Achilles, whom he regarded as his ancestor, with the
choicest flowers that could be collected in the neighbourhood, anointed
the pillar on it with delicious perfumes, and, with his companions, ran
naked, as the custom was, round its base. He also wept on reflecting,
that he had, as yet, done little to make men associate his name with so
great a hero as Achilles,—thinking that hero beyond all others happy,
not only in having so excellent a friend as Patroclus when living; but
inasmuch that he had so noble a poet as Homer to celebrate him when
dead. “What a number of writers of his actions,” says Cicero, in his
defence of Archias, “is Alexander reported to have had in his retinue;
and yet, when he stood near the tumulus of Achilles at Sigeum he
exclaimed, ‘O fortunate youth! to have found a Homer to be the herald of
thy valour!’” Nor did he ever forget the emotions felt in that, to him,
sacred place. When, therefore, he had conquered the Persians at the
Granicus, he is said to have adorned the temple with offerings, ordered
Curators to repair the buildings, and raised Ilium to the rank of a
city. He also declared it free from tribute; and when he had entirely
conquered Persia, he wrote a letter to the inhabitants, promising to
raise their town to importance, to render their temple famous, and to
hold the sacred games there. In his memorandum-book, also, appeared
after his death, a resolution to erect a temple to Minerva, which should
be in splendour and magnificence, not unequal to any other then existing
in any place. All this was prevented by his death.
After that occurrence, Ilium was chiefly indebted to Lysimachus. He
enlarged its temple, encircled the town with walls to the extent of five
miles, and collected into it the inhabitants of the old cities about it,
which had gone to decay. Games also were subsequently instituted. He
also patronised Alexandria Troas.
Some time after the Troia was invaded by Philip, last king of Macedon,
because Attalus, who had assumed the title of King of Pergamum, had
given himself out as an ally of the Romans. At a subsequent period, the
Gauls marched into Ilium; but soon after deserted it, because part of it
was not defended by a wall.
When Antiochus, commonly called the Great, invaded Europe, he went to
Ilium, in order to sacrifice to Minerva. The year after, the Roman
admiral, Caius Livius, performed the same ceremony; which having done he
gave audience in the kindest manner to ambassadors from the neighbouring
places, which had surrendered to the Romans.
Ilium, when Scipio arrived there, (B. C. 190) was what we should now
call a village-city: and so says Demetrius of Scepsis; who, going
thither about that time, saw it so poor and neglected a place, that most
of the houses had no roofs on them. Such is the account given by Strabo.
The Romans, however, were proud of acknowledging the Ilians as their
progenitors. “An insatiable desire,” says Dr. Chandler, “to contemplate
the household gods of their ancestors, the places of their nativity, the
temples and images, which they had frequented or worshipped, possessed
the Romans; while the Ilians were delighted that their posterity (in the
line of Æneas) already conquerors of the West and Africa, laid claim to
Asia as the kingdom of their forefathers.”
The Romans embellished the city, and conferred many privileges upon it,
on the ground that Ilium was the parent of Rome. “The Romans,” says
Justin, “entering into Asia, came to Troy, where there was great
rejoicing between the Trojans and the Romans; the Trojans declaring how
Æneas came from them, and the Romans vaunting themselves to be
descended from them: and there was as great a rejoicement between both
parties, as there is wont to be at the meeting of parents and children
after a long absence.”
We now pass to the period when Julius Cæsar, after the battle of
Pharsalia, pursuing his rival, landed in the Troia, “full of admiration
of the ancient renown of the place, and desirous to behold the spot from
which he derived his origin;” for Cæsar insisted that his family was of
the true Ænean race. The Ilians had sided with Pompey, and bore no great
affection to Cæsar; “although,” says Lucan,
“The tales of Troy proud Cæsar’s lineage grace,
With great Æneas and the Julian race.”
Notwithstanding this, Cæsar forgave their offences against him, and
enlarged their territory, confirmed their liberties, and granted them
even additional privileges. Not only this; Suetonius relates, that it
was currently reported, that he had contemplated the design of removing
the seat of empire to Ilium, or Alexandria, and leaving Rome to be
governed by lieutenants. Whether Cæsar really entertained such an idea
is not certain; but it is quite certain that Augustus entertained a
similar project; and perhaps he had actually put it in practice, had not
Horace written an ode to dissuade him from it; and his councillors
urgently followed the poet’s example, by the counsel they gave him.
During the reign of Tiberius, Ilium was visited by Germanicus. This
visit is recorded by Tacitus. “On his return from the Euxine, he
intended to visit Samothrace[286], famous for its rites and mysteries;
but the wind springing up from the north, he was obliged to bear away
from the coast. He viewed the ruins of Troy, and the remains of
antiquity in that part of the world; renowned for so many turns of
fortune, the theatre of illustrious actions, and the origin of the Roman
people[287].”
When the Romans were delivered from the flattery that pursued the Julian
line, of their being sprung from Troy, Ilium began to fall to decay; and
in the time of Pliny the Elder, who flourished in the reign of
Vespasian, many cities had perished. These are enumerated by him, and
thence by Dr. Chandler:—“There has been Achilleum, a town near the tomb
of Achilles, built by the Mitylenians, and afterwards by the Athenians.
There has been Æantium, too, built by the Rhodians, near where Ajax was
buried. Palæscepsis, Gergithos, Neandros, and Colone, had perished.
Dardanus is still a small town. There had been a Larissa and a Chrysa.
The Sminthean temple and Hamaxitus remained.” He mentions Troas
Alexandria, a Roman colony; but this city, too, was on the decline; and
as, in another place, he says, “very many mice came forth at Troas,
insomuch that now they have driven the inhabitants away from thence.”
We pass over passages in the works of Lucian and Philostratus; since no
confidence in respect to the real condition of Ilium can be placed in
them. The extravagances of Caracalla are upon more respectable record.
Terrified by several dreams he had had, Caracalla voyaged to Pergamum,
to inquire of the god Æsculapius in what manner he could be relieved
from them; from that city he passed to Ilium. “At Ilium,” says Chandler,
on the authority of Herodian, “Caracalla was seized with a passion to
imitate Achilles, as he had before done Alexander the Great. He wanted a
Patroclus, whose funeral he might solemnize; when, during his stay
there, Festus, his remembrancer and favourite freedman, died of a
distemper; but so opportunely, that others said he was taken off by
poison for the purpose. Caracalla ordered, after the example of
Achilles, a large pile of wood to be collected. The body was carried
forth from the city, and placed on it in the middle. He slew a variety
of animals as victims. He set fire to the pile; and, holding a phial in
his hand, and pouring a libation, as Achilles had done, invoked the
winds to come and consume it. His seeking, for he was nearly bald, a
lock of hair to throw into the flames, excited laughter; but the little
which he had he cut off. He is said to have continued the farce, by
allotting prizes for games; and to have concluded it, by imagining that
he had taken Troy, and distributing money among his soldiers on the
occasion.”
In the age of Gallienus, and in that subsequent, Ilium and the Troas
were twice ravaged by the Goths.
The project of Constantine the Great is now to be referred to. It is
thus related by Sozomenus, translated by Mr. Dalzell:—“Having taken
possession of the plain, which lies before Ilium, near the Hellespont,
beyond the tomb of Ajax, where the Greeks, at the time that they were
engaged in the expedition against Troy, are said to have had a station
for their ships and tents, he there traced the outline and ground-plot
of a city; and he constructed gates in a conspicuous place; which still
at this day are seen at sea by those who sail along the west. While he
was employed in this undertaking, God appeared to him by night, and
warned him to go in quest of another place.” The Deity, also, is said to
have conducted him to Byzantium, and commanded him to establish his
residence there, to enlarge the town into a city, and to call it by his
own name.
From this period, little is related of Ilium, or the Troas, commanding
any peculiar interest, till the period when both became possessed by
another, and, till then, an unknown people. It is related in the annals
of this new and strange people, that Soliman, son of Orchan, taking an
airing on horseback, in the country, lately conquered, came to some fine
ruins of edifices, which had remained there from the time of the
destruction of Troy, and which he beheld with wonder. After viewing
these ruins, he was observed to remain musing and silent. On being asked
the reason, he answered that he was considering how the sea between them
and the opposite coast could be crossed, without the knowledge of the
Christians. Two of his retinue offered to pass over privately at the
strait, which is described as a Greek mile wide. A fleet was provided,
they landed before day-break, and lay concealed among vines; until, a
Greek coming by, they seized, and returned with him to the emperor; who
gave orders that their captive should be kindly treated; and, on his
undertaking to serve as a guide to the castle erected by Justinian,
above Sestos, caused trees to be cut down, and a large raft to be
constructed; on which, with about fourscore men, Soliman crossed the
strait; and arriving, under colour of night, at the fortress, found,
without the entrance—such was the supine negligence and security of the
Greeks,—a dunghill as high as the wall. His soldiers mounted over it,
and easily got possession of the place; the people, a few exempted,
being engaged abroad in the harvest-work. Thus did the Turks obtain
their first footing in Europe, (A. D. 1357.)
“If we reflect,” says Dr. Chandler; to whose pages not only ourselves,
but all the encyclopedias have been so largely indebted on all articles
relating to the Troas; “if we reflect on the ravages, committed on the
borders of the Hellespont, and on the destruction of the cities there,
we shall not be surprised, that the coasts are desolate, and that the
interior country of the Troas, returned nearly to its more ancient
state, is occupied almost entirely by villages, herdsmen, and shepherds;
who are no longer distinguished by the appellation of Ilians,
Dardanians, Cebrenians, and so on; but as Greeks and Turks, or
Turcomans, slaves, the masters and their dependants. The ancient places,
which we have noticed, and of which few remain, or have possessed any
consequence under the Turks, have all of them, especially those by the
sea-side, been ransacked and plundered of their materials, for a long
series of years. Constantinople has been adorned or enlarged from their
stores, as well under the Roman and the Greek as the Mahometan emperors.
Towns and villages, which have risen in their vicinity, public baths,
mosques, castles, and other edifices, have been constructed from their
relics; and the Turkish burying-grounds, which are often very extensive,
are commonly rich in broken pillars and marble fragments, once belonging
to them. The Troia had been left in ruins; and was a desert, in the time
of Strabo. Since, in many instances, the very _ruins have perished_: but
the desert remains; and, as then, still affords much, and that no vulgar
matter for a writer.”
These remarks lead us, naturally, to that part of our subject, which
relates to the present state in which these ruins lie. So much, however,
has been written on the subject of Troy, and so many different opinions
have been started, that the subject has become no little embarrassing;
and the more so, since the compiler of these pages has not been on the
scene of observation himself. In this dilemma, he thinks the wisest and
best course is, to select such passages and descriptions as appear to
him the most probable, and therefore the most characteristic of truth;
leaving all references to the individual authorities to a general
acknowledgment at the end.
It seems hardly to admit of doubt, that the plain of Anatolia, watered
by the Mendar,[288] and backed by a mountainous ridge, of which Kazdaghy
is the summit, is the precise territory, alluded to and described by
Homer. And this is rendered the more probable, since Homer’s description
contained certain prominent and remarkable features, not likely to be
affected by any lapse of time. To increase the probability of this, the
text of Strabo is considered very important; more especially as it
illustrates, to a certain degree, even the position of Troy itself: for
that it was not altogether unknown, in the time of Augustus, is proved
by that celebrated geographer, who, more than once, expressly assigns to
the ancient city the place then occupied by the village of the
Iliensians. “Ilus,” says he, “did not build the city where it now is;
but nearly thirty stadia farther eastward, towards Ida, and Dardania,
where the Iliensian village is now situated.” This locality of Ilium has
been discovered by Dr. Clarke, in the remains of that city. Crossing the
Mendar, over a wooden bridge, that celebrated traveller entered an
immense plain, in which some Turks were hunting wild boars. Proceeding
then towards the east, and round the bay, distinctly pointed out by
Strabo as the harbour in which the Grecian fleet was stationed, he
arrived at the sepulchre of Ajax. Around this tomb Alexander is
described as having performed rites, and made offerings. In former
times, it was surmounted by a shrine, in which was preserved the statue
of the hero. This statue Antony stole and took with him into Egypt; but,
having been recovered by Augustus, it was by him restored to its ancient
shrine; which, with a considerable portion of the structure, still
remains. “It is impossible,” says Dr. Clarke, “to view its sublime and
simple form, without calling to mind the veneration so long paid to it;
without picturing to the imagination a successive series of kings, and
heroes, and mariners, who, from the Hellespont, or by the shores of
Troas and Chersonesus, or on the sepulchre itself, poured forth the
tribute of their homage; and finally, without representing to the mind
the feelings of a native or of a traveller, in those times, who, after
viewing the existing monument, and witnessing the instances of public
and of private regard, so constantly bestowed upon it, should have been
told, the age was to arrive when the existence of Troy, and of the
mighty dead, entombed upon its plain, would be considered as having no
foundation in truth.” The view of the Hellespont, and the plain of Troy,
from the top of this tomb, is one of the finest the country affords;
and, travellers have the pleasure of seeing poppies and mezereons, and
the field-star of Bethlehem, growing upon it.
From this spot the traveller passes over a heathy country to a village
called Habil Elly, where he finds the remains of a temple, which seems
to be those of ten temples rather than one. Doric, Ionic, and
Corinthian capitals, lie dispersed in every direction, and some of them
are of great beauty. On these are many inscriptions; amongst which are
these remarkable words:—“_The Ilians to their country’s God, Æneas._”
From these ruins you proceed through a dilapidated valley, full of
vineyards and almond-trees; and, after a space, you find the remains of
an ancient paved way. You then come to the village of Tchiblack, where
you see many remains of ancient sculpture in a state of disorder and
ruin. The most remarkable are those upon the top of a hill near the
village, in the middle of a grove of oak trees. Here the ruins of a
Doric temple, formed of white marble, lay heaped, mixed with sarcophagi,
cippæ, stelæ, cornices, and capitals of large size, pillars, and
entablatures. The village near which all these are, is supposed to be no
other than ancient Ilium! of “Troy divine.” On these fragments are to be
read various inscriptions.
At no great distance, of a high, conical, and regular shape, a tumulus
stands, insulated. It is of great antiquity. On the southern side of its
base is a long natural mound of limestone. It is, we are told, of such
height, that an army encamped on the eastern side of it would be
concealed from all observation of persons, stationed upon the coast, by
the mouth of the Mendar. On the surface of the tomb itself are found
fragments of the vases of ancient Greece;—a circumstance, attributed to
the veneration paid to the tombs of Troas, in all the ages of history,
until the introduction of Christianity.
At some distance from this tomb is another tumulus, less considerable.
There are ruins, also, on the southern side of the water, called
Callifat[289].
These consist of beautiful Doric pillars, whose capitals and shafts are
of the finest white marble. Among them, also, are entire shafts of
granite. As the temples of Jupiter were always of the Doric order, these
are supposed to have belonged to a temple dedicated to that deity. Among
these ruins was found an inscription, which Dr. Clarke sent to
Cambridge. This is as old as the archonship of Euclid. It was on the
lower part of a plain marble pillar; the interpretation of which sets
forth, that “those partaking of the sacrifice, and of the games, and of
the whole festival, honoured Pytha, daughter of Scamandrotimus, native
of Ilium, who performed the office of Canephoros, in an exemplary and
distinguished manner, for her piety towards the goddess.”
In the village of Callifat there are several capitals of Corinthian
pillars. Medals, too, are sometimes dug up there; not of ancient Troy,
however, but of the Roman emperors. Not far from Callifat are also to be
seen traces of an ancient citadel. These are the remains of a city,
called New Ilium[290]. “We stand,” says Dr. Clarke, “with Strabo, upon
the very spot, whence he deduced his observations, concerning other
objects in the district; looking down upon the Simoisian plain, and
viewing the junction of the two rivers (‘one flowing towards Sigeum, and
the other towards Rhætium,’ precisely as described by him), in front of
the Iliensian city.”