TROIA, or ILLUM, an ancient city in Asia Minor, on the south side of the Hellespont, and near the Ægean Sea. It was the capital of a small kingdom which flourished about 3000 years ago, and the fame of whose real or legendary history has been spread over the civilized world by the poems of Homer. A city bearing the name existed here in the times of Alexander the Great and the Roman emperors, the site of which is now as well ascertained as that of Athens or Rome. But doubts were raised by Demetrius of Skepsis, a learned native of the country, as to its identity with the poet's Ilion; and these doubts, which continue to the present day, have produced much controversy, and given birth to sundry theories, or explanations of the topography, intended to ascertain the position of the different objects and localities mentioned in the poems of Homer. An outline of these theories is all that can be offered here. To give the rationale of them, a volume would be necessary. The annexed topographical sketch includes what is usually termed the "Plain of Troy," consisting of the level land on the sides of two streams, now named the Menderé and the Dombrek, with the ridges of low hills enclosing them. It is copied from the carefully executed map published by the Admiralty in 1840.
A A.—The Ægean Sea.
II II.—The Hellespont at its south-west extremity, where it joins the Ægean Sea.
S.—The Sigean promontory, 182 feet in height. It is the termination of a ridge of tertiary limestone facing the west, and about 6 miles in length.
Rh.—The Rhætean promontory; and DG the Rhætean ridge, which rises from the east side of the plain, and increases in height in its continuation eastward. At Ren Keul (which is beyond the limits of the map), it attains an elevation of 700 or 800 feet above the Hellespont.
M D.—The elevation of this ridge above the plain is about 100 feet at M, its west end; and it rises very gradually eastward.
The river Menderé is the only large river in the Troas. In the plain it is from 200 to 300 feet in breadth, and when full is from 8 to 12 feet in depth. The river has its head-spring near the summit of Mount Ida, about 40 miles south-east from its estuary on the Hellespont. The name is evidently the ancient name Skamander, slightly altered; and it was identified with the Homeric river so called, by all geographers ancient and modern, previous to the publication of Lechevalier's theory in 1791.
The Dombrek, the next river in importance, is comparatively very small, being about 12 miles in length, and from 20 to 30 feet in breadth in the lower part of its course. It was the Simois of the Greek and Roman geographers, and derives its modern name from the village of Dombrek, which stands in the higher part of the valley, and very probably occupies the site of the ancient Gergis or Gorgithus.
P.—An older channel of the Dombrek, still open in winter. The Dombrek and Menderé, or Simois and Skamander of the Greeks and Romans, probably united about y, in the time of Homer.
The Kirk Ios, or rivulet of Bumarbashli, the Skamander of Lechevalier, 10 miles in length, and, according to him, 12 feet broad and 3 deep. It rises from numerous springs; and hence its Turkish name, Kirk Ios, meaning "forty eyes." (The word "forty" expresses an indefinite number among the Turks and Arabs, and did so among the ancient Hebrews, being equivalent to the English word "many.") There are eight distinct springs near the village of Bumarbashli (B), and probably many smaller ones concealed by the marshes, which skirt its course down to its old junction with the Menderé by two mouths near w.
m m m.—Marshes formed by water which escapes from the channel of the Kirk Ios.
z z z.—A canal cut about the beginning of the last century, which conveys most of the water of the Kirk Ios to the Ægean Sea.
T.—The termination of the River Thymbria, where it joins the Skamander.
t.—Two earthen tumuli, believed to be those erected in honour of Achilles and Patroclus.
X.—A stone monument, believed to occupy the site of the tomb of Ajax.
k k k, k l, k 3.—Asmakis,' a Turkish name, applied to streams which are little rivers in winter, but in summer are chains of pools and mud.
b.—A large salt-water inlet, upon the coast, resembling an ancient estuary, supposed by Mr Maclean to have been the estuary of the Menderé in the time of Strabo.
d.—A deep inlet called En Tepe Asmak, which conveys the water of the Dombrek to the Hellespont. It is supposed by Mr Maclean to have been the joint estuary of the Menderé and Dombrek in the time of Homer.
u n d.—The supposed ancient course of the Menderé in the time of Homer, according to Mr Maclean.
u o b.—Its supposed course in Strabo's time.
c c.—The Greek camp, according to Mr Maclean, about 10 stadia or a mile and a quarter in length. Lechevalier places the camp in the same position, but extends it eastward to the Asmak at X, giving it a length of 20 stadia.
m m m.—Lechevalier's plain of Skamander, the scene of the battles.
The open space between the present channel of the Menderé on the west, and the eastern line of the Asmakis, k, y, X, d, is Mr Maclean's Skamandrian Plain, or Homeric battlefield. The dotted line g marks what he thinks was the ancient course of the Asmakis, k l, k 2, to the Menderé or Skamander.
J.—A lake or marsh, called Judan, fed by permanent springs, the water of which flows off north-westward by the two Asmakis, k l, k 2. These uniting, pursue their course by k l, and terminate in two small stagnant pools near the estuary of the Menderé.
The scale attached is in stadia, of which 3f are equal to an English mile. The stadium is nearly equal to the English furlong.
M.—The disputed site of the Ilion or Troia, which was patronised by Alexander the Great and the Romans, and believed by them, and by nearly all the geographers of Greece and Rome, to be the Ilion of Homer. The most level part of the hill-top (which is covered with fragments of tile and pottery), is about 54 feet above the surface of the plain; but the south-west portion of it is 20 feet higher. The ancient city stood upon here, the New Ilion of Demetrius and Strabo, the Homeric Ilion of Mr Maclean, of Mr Groote the historian, and of Dr Smith in his Dictionary of Ancient Geography. The hill forms the west end of a ridge.
D.—The Homeric Ilion of Demetrius and Strabo. An Æolian village (so named), stood here in the time of the Romans, 30 stadia eastward from New Ilion, according to Strabo; and at the present day some stones and broken pottery, the usual vestiges of an ancient town or village, mark the site.
R.—The Homeric Ilion of Major Rennell. A grove of oaks with a cemetery, broken pottery, and some fragments of columns, exist at the locality. His reasons for placing the city here are explained in his Observations on the Topography of the Plain of Troy, Lond. 1814. I.—The Homeric Ilium of Lechevalier, consisting of an uneven sloping surface, rising southward from the village of Bunarbashl, B, and bounded on the east by the ravine which forms the bed of the Menderé. Fragments of an ancient wall were found at the place, with some few remains of pottery, and three tumuli stand on the higher part of the ground, and overlook the ravine. His speculations on the topography were read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1791, and printed in its Transactions in French. They were republished in Paris under the title of Voyage de la Troade; and the third and last edition, which bears the date of 1802, was in three volumes.
W.—The Homeric Ilium of Mr Barker Webb. This gentleman spent two or three weeks in the Troade in 1819. The fruits of his researches were originally published in an Italian journal, and afterwards republished in Paris, under the title of Topographie de la Troade, Ancienne et Moderne (1844). In the latter he embodied a large portion of Mr Maclaren's argument to show that Homer's Ilium was within a short distance of the sea. The position, W, assigned to it by Mr Webb, is a little eastward of a Turkish village named Chibak.
These very different opinions respecting the site of the famous city have been developed in lengthy arguments or theories, grounded on a comparison of the present topography with the local details and allusions scattered through the Iliad and Odyssey, and supplemented by the comments of the ancient geographers, and the occasional statements of the historians. Only two of the theories, so far as we know, have found any supporters in recent times—the old Graeco-Roman theory, revived by Mr Maclaren, and that of Lechevalier.
After the failure of Mr Wood's attempt to find the site of Troy in 1750, the inquiry seems to have been abandoned as hopeless, till M. Lechevalier, who was an attaché of the French embassy at Constantinople, visited the plain in 1785. Arriving at the village of Bunarbashl (B), in the end of September, he observed a group of springs, one of which had a cloud of smoke over it, while its water felt warm to the hand. A hot and a cold spring in juxtaposition are mentioned by Homer (Iliad, xxii. v. 147), as existing close to the walls of Ilium externally; but the former had disappeared two thousand years ago, as we learn from Strabo. It occurred to Lechevalier that the spring with the smoke over it might possibly be the lost hot spring of the poet. Adopting this idea as a basis, he sought amidst the topographical features of the plain for evidence in its support, and constructed a theory remarkable for originality and boldness. This theory, though completely at variance with the works of the Greek and Roman geographers, was well received by many distinguished scholars at first, and has still some able supporters, among others the esteemed British consul at the Dardanelles, Mr Calvert, who owns or farms a portion of Priam's territories.
Respecting the springs, then, the sole root of the theory, the poet's words, confronted with the physical facts, stand thus:—Homer's springs were "two" in number; "one hot with a cloud of smoke over it, as from a fire;" the other "cold as snow or ice in summer." The known springs at Bunarbashl are eight in number (as laid down in Mauduit's plan), all cold, and of exactly the same temperature, namely 63° of Fahr., which is the mean temperature of the 40th parallel (see Professor Leslie's article Climate, in the sixth volume of this work, table, p. 769). They are of unequal magnitude, four of five of them are pretty copious, the water gushing out with force from openings in the conglomerate rock; they are scattered over a space 3000 feet in length; and their united water suffices to turn a mill.
The most easterly spring, which is the most copious, and will exhibit most smoke, was selected by Lechevalier for his "hot" spring. In lieu of the one cold spring, he adopted "six small rills gushing from the foot of the hills, and constantly preserving the same cold temperature" (such are his words); the simple truth being, that two or three of the small rills are copious springs, and that all of them, instead of "constantly maintaining a cold temperature," have exactly the same temperature with his hot spring! In all his three visits to the plain, he never carried a thermometer with him, but judged of the temperature by plunging his hand into the water; and a hot and a cold spring at Bunarbashl continued to be talked and written about as realities, for sixteen years, till the delusion was dispelled, in 1801, by the celebrated English traveller, Dr E. D. Clarke, who, testing each of the springs in succession with a thermometer, demonstrated that they were all of precisely the same temperature. It was then alleged that the inhabitants of the district believed one spring to be hotter than the others, and that this justified the poet's description. If such was the popular opinion at Bunarbashl fifty years ago, it is not so now. When the writer of this article was at the village in May 1847, and inquired, "which was the spring that smoked in winter?" the answer he received was, that "they all smoked in winter." Mauduit, a French architect, who visited the springs in November 1811, saw them all smoking ("toutes les bouches chaudes et même fumantes." Découvertes dans la Troade, p. 62); and the circumstance must be familiarly known. Lechevalier saw one spring smoking, and was "told it was much warmer at mid-winter," and asked no further questions. Was it not odd, that being destitute of a thermometer, he did not avail himself of the means of information thus opened up, and ask "whether the other springs did not also smoke in winter?" If he had done so, he would assuredly have got the same reply in 1785 which we get half a century later, that all the springs smoked. Tried by this test they are all hot springs, while technically they are cold springs, since they have merely the mean temperature of the 40th parallel. The case then stands literally thus,—Homer describes two springs, one very hot and one very cold, and Lechevalier desires to persuade us, that they are identical with eight cold springs, all of one temperature! Assuming the springs at Bunarbashl to be the head springs of Skamander, he legitimately inferred, that the little stream of the Kirk Ios, flowing from them, is that renowned river. But Homer characterizes the Skamander as "great," "wide-flowing," "deep-flowing," and "abounding in whirlpools;" terms very inapplicable to the little Kirk Ios, which, by Lechevalier's own account, is only 12 feet broad and 3 feet deep; and, where we crossed it, merited the terms of "slow and sluggish," applied to it by the Edinburgh Reviewer (vol. vi. p. 272). Asserting without any authority, that the fighting in the river described in the twenty-first book, which the poet says, was "in the Skamander," was below the junction of the two streams, Lechevalier is forced to maintain, that the great river, the Menderé, 40 miles long, and nearly 300 feet broad, gave up its name to the little brook the Kirk Ios, 10 miles long and 12 feet broad. This is precisely such a change as would take place, if the Tweed for the last two miles of its course borrowed the name of the Whiteadder, or the Clyde below Glasgow took the name of the Kelvin. Farther, to cover the inconsistency, he asserts that while the Kirk Ios is an unfilling stream, the Menderé is a mere occasional torrent, dry all the year, except at the melting of the snows in spring, and after accidental rains. The latter statement is utterly untrue, and is one of the gross misrepresentations employed to buttress his theory. The Menderé is never without a considerable body of water, and according to Professor Forchhammer of Kiel, an excellent authority, is a larger river than the Alpheus or Eurotas, the largest rivers in the Peloponnesus.
Converting the little Kirk Ios into Homer's great Skamander, Lechevalier is forced to maintain that Strabo, Pliny, and all the ancient geographers, including Demetrius, who lived in the district, mistook the names of the rivers! He admits that the Menderé was their Skamander, and his followers now admit that the Dombrek was their Simois. Herodotus, Livy, Plutarch, he holds, were all equally in error; in short, the whole ancient world, two thousand years nearer to Homer than we are, was ignorant of the true names of the principal rivers in Priam's kingdom, till the ingenious Frenchman revealed them! One would have thought that no two rivers in the ancient world had such a guarantee for the preservation of their genuine names, as the poems of Homer afforded to the Skamander and Simois.
Since the poet's hot and cold springs were close to the walls, their site determines the site of the city. Lechevalier accordingly places Troy at L, on the sloping ground above Bunarbash, nine miles from the south shore of the Hellespont a, b, d, on which the Greeks were encamped. The account of the first battle shows, that in one day, indeed less than an entire day, the Greeks passed four times over the space between the city and camp, fighting nearly all the time. Lechevalier therefore assumes that the Greeks performed a march of more than 30 miles in one day, amidst the toil of actual conflict, while Major Rennell shows that the march of an army unopposed, in ancient and modern times, does not exceed 15 miles in a day. It is obvious, therefore, that Lechevalier's Troy is at twice or thrice the distance from the sea required by the poet's narrative. Lechevalier pleads the poet's right to exaggerate, which Homer himself may be said to repudiate, for he is circumstantial and literal in a remarkable degree in relating facts. Major Leake felt the weight of the objection, and shortens the distance two miles, by assuming that a bay of the Hellespont extended as far south as the dotted line n, n, a physical change purely gratuitous, and resting on no other foundation than the necessities of an unsound theory.
Homer tells that Achilles chased Hector three times round the walls of Troy (Iliad xxii. 165). Lechevalier's Troy at L does not admit of a course round it, in consequence of its proximity to a deep ravine which forms the channel of the Menderé. Here again his theory is in conflict with the topography, and he seeks an exit from his difficulties by proposing that the words τρις ἐπανοδεύσατο, "they ran thrice round," should be translated "they ran thrice before or near" the city—a plain perversion of the poet's words. These are only a specimen of the inconsistencies which the theory involves.
THE GRECO-ROMAN THEORY.
For many centuries the city called New Ilium by Strabo was visited by the poets, historians, statesmen, and warriors of Greece and Rome, from motives of curiosity, and was always recognised as the Ilium of Homer. In all antiquity only three persons, as Mr Grote observes, seem to have opposed its title to this distinction—Demetrius of Skepsis and Hestiaea of Troas, both adjacent towns, and Strabo. The opposition of the first two may be accounted for by the jealousy which the gifts and honours bestowed upon New Ilium by the Romans could not fail to excite in the neighbouring towns; and as for Strabo, he admits having followed Demetrius implicitly, and does not seem to have made any original inquiries. Now Skepsis claimed the honour of being the royal seat of Æneas, and this claim had been treated with neglect or contempt by the Romans; for it is not recorded that Skepsis ever participated in the many benefits conferred on New Ilium. Troas having risen to importance by commercial industry, probably envied the immunity from taxation which New Ilium owed to its legendary titles. What was more natural than that the validity of these titles should be objected to in Skepsis and Troas, and that citizens of these towns should shape the objections into a theory? When only two such dissentients from the opinions of the Greek and Roman writers are upon record, may we not say that the pretensions of New Ilium to be the Ilium of Homer were acquiesced in by the ancient Greek and Roman world?
In Strabo's day, Ilium was 20 stadia from the mouth of the Skamander, which probably then joined the Hellespont through the lagoon at b. It was only 12 stadia from another opening, falsely called the Portus Achaeorum, or "harbour of the Greeks," which has generally been identified with d, the estuary of the Dombrek, on which boats probably sailed up as far as X, or a little farther. The northern part of Ilium must then have been placed about e to bring it within the distances named—viz., 20 stadia from b, and 12 from X. But almost 400 years before Strabo's time, Ilium, according to the Periplus of Skylax, was 25 stadia from the sea; that is, the beach at b or d, to which trading-vessels resorted. How is this statement to be reconciled with Strabo's? Very easily. Skylax speaks of the "hill-crowning Ilium," ὁλοκληρον ὄρος ἰλίου (II. xxii. 411), seated on the rock of Hisarlik, M; while Strabo speaks of the city after it had been enriched by the patronage of the Romans for a century and a half, the effect of which would be greatly to enlarge its boundaries, spreading the population over the plain, probably northwards as far as e, and westwards to g, as indicated by a dotted line. A change followed, exemplified in Athens and many other Greek towns; the hill-top M, which originally lodged the whole population, now became the citadel or acropolis. Such it was in Strabo's time, as he informs us. A comparison, therefore, of the distance of Ilium from the sea, as given by Strabo, and by Skylax at least 350 years earlier, clearly proves the extension of Ilium over the plain northward in the interval. The statement of Skylax as clearly disproves the existence of any deep bay of the Hellespont (reaching southward to n n), such as Major Leake imagined, in order to shorten the distance between Lechevalier's Troy (L) and the Greek camp. The disappearance of this imaginary bay annihilates a physical speculation of Demetrius; who argued that the portion of land between Ilium and the Hellespont was rapidly receiving accessions from the soil brought down by the Skamander (the Menderé), and hence that the so-called Portus Achaeorum, then 12 stadia from the city, would be within 6 stadia of it at the time of the Trojan war. The words of Skylax demonstrate that this notion of Demetrius as to the growth of the land is baseless. The Skean gate, or principal entrance to the Homeric city (M), must have been on the W. or S.W. side of the hill, the N. and N.W. sides being too steep to permit chariots to ascend. Now the distance of the Rhodian bay at d (or Rh), from the middle of the W. side of the hill M, is just 25 stadia at this day in the Admiralty map, the very distance named by Skylax at the date of the Peloponnesian war. Mr Maclaren admits that when the Skamander abandoned its estuary at b for that which it now occupies, the point of land at a would be a little extended, and he has on this ground placed the Greek camp c, c, 3 stadia S. from the present estuary; but in former times, as at this day, by far the greater part of the matter brought down by the Skamander must have been swept into the Aegean Sea by the rapid current of the Hellespont. The depositing agent was always held in check, less or more, by the denuding agent; when they balanced each other, the enlargement of the land would cease, and this point of rest may have been reached 2000 years ago.
The Greeks did not fortify their camp till after the defection of Achilles, in the tenth year of the war. Demetrius argues, that if Troy was so near the sea as the city then existing, it was exceedingly foolish in the Greeks to leave their camp so long unprotected, and very pusillanimous in the Trojans to abstain from attacking it. The argument is plausible, but loses its cogency if we place the ancient Troy nearly twice as far from the sea as the city Demetrius had before him. And if we seek a site for Troy, the city so distant as to secure the camp against a surprise, neither Demetrius' site D, 6 miles from the camp, nor Lechevalier's L, 8 miles from it, nor any site within a distance which armed men could march over in one night, would satisfy the conditions of the problem. A leading object in the Epic narrative, as Colonel Mure observes, was to exalt the glory of Achilles. As long as he was in the field, the camp needed no other defence than his prowess and renown.
The art of besieging towns was not then understood, and the Greeks seem never to have attempted to invest Ilium; but with their camp only 3 miles from it, they subjected it to a species of loose blockade. Thus Hector asks Polydamas in the eighteenth book, if he was not tired of being "shut up within the walls," and seeing the city impoverished. Priam, in the twenty-fourth book, requests permission from Achilles to bring wood from Ida for Hector's funeral. The Trojan women, peaceful times, washed their robes at the hot and cold fountains without the gates, but just under the city walls; and this practice was abandoned from the moment the Greeks took up their position at the shore. These incidents (and there are others of similar import) imply that the Trojans were closely exposed to observation, and very much straitened in their external communications. They are consistent with the position of an Ilium standing at M, 3 miles from the camp; but they cannot easily be reconciled with that of an Ilium at D, 6 miles, or at L, 8 miles from it.
Homer lays it down very distinctly that the Greeks, in marching to and from Troy, crossed the Skamander. It is necessary, therefore, to give that river a bend eastward in some such line as n.n. or n.o. But, apart from any inferences drawn from the text of the Iliad, there is good physical evidence to show that the Menderé did join the Hellespont at ancient periods through the openings at b and d. This evidence is furnished by the soundings given in the Admiralty map, which it is impossible to insert in our sketch.
It is as clearly laid down, that the "Skamandrian plain" of the poet, the field in which the battles were fought, was the level ground between Simois and Skamander. Now in Lechevalier's theory the Kirk Ios being the Skamander, and the Menderé the Simois, it follows that the narrow stripe of ground w e g, only half a mile in breadth in the Admiralty map, and hedged with deep marshes on its western side, is Homer's field of battle! And in this narrow space the reader is expected to believe that the two "wide armies" (Iliad iv. 209), of 50,000 men each (there are data for their strength), manoeuvred in front of each other, and fought battles! After this, it does not astonish one to find, that in Lechevalier's map, even in his third edition, the breadth of the ground, w e r, is magnified threefold! The field of battle, in the estimation of all the Greek and Roman writers, except Demetrius and the Lady Hestia, was undoubtedly the whole plain between the present course of the Menderé and the eastern line of Asmak k, y, X, d, which has a breadth of very nearly 2 miles.
Though many of Homer's local details may be held to be fictitious, we are justified in reasoning respecting them as facts on two grounds: first, that he had an intimate knowledge of the ground which was the scene of the war, so that all its leading features were present to his thoughts; and secondly, that he intended his narrative to pass for a true history, and would not ascribe to the Greeks or Trojans acts physically impossible.
(c.m.)
a town of the United States of North America, capital of the Rensselaer county, New York, stands on both sides of the Hudson River, 6 miles above Albany, and 151 miles N. from New York. The principal portion of the town is on the E. bank of the river, and communication between the two parts is kept up by means of a bridge and ferry-boats. It extends for about 3 miles along the river, and is regularly laid out and well built. The streets are generally 60 feet wide, well paved, lighted with gas, and shaded with trees. Many of the public buildings are handsome, among which are the court-house, a fine marble building in the Doric style, and St Paul's Episcopal church, a costly Gothic edifice. There are about twenty other churches in the town, a lyceum with a valuable collection of natural history, the Rensselaer Institute affording a scientific and practical education to young men, the Troy female institute, and two substantial brick market-houses. The town is abundantly supplied with water by means of the Hudson, and two small streams which join that river within the town. Troy contains numerous flour and paper mills, cotton and woollen factories, tanneries, breweries, iron-foundries, machine-shops, rolling-mills, and forges. It is very favourably situated for commerce; four railways meet at this place, and steamers ply daily between it and New York. Pop. (1850) 36,349, of which West Troy contained 7564.