L. L. D. travelled through Europe at his uncle's expense, in order to collate all the MSS. of the Greek Testament, to which access could be obtained. The Vatican library could not have been overlooked by him on an occasion like this; and hence it is that we may satisfactorily account for the clause, «Vidi ipse, cum Romæ essem," &c. Taking all this into consideration, we flatter ourselves that all such, as will give the question a fair and deliberate discussion, will readily incline to our way of thinking; and that henceforth bibliographers will not desist from calling the London Callimachus Bentley's edition, although they may desist from calling it Dr. Richard Bentley's. 1812. S. S. I. ON THE EXISTENCE OF TROY. OPI PINIONS which infancy has imbibed, and years have strengthened, it requires no moderate effort to shake off. This can only be effected by the fullest and clearest conviction of their futility.-Nature herself imperiously calls upon us, to repel an attempt to overthrow, what we have been long accustomed to believe, and which, whatever other claims it may want, time at least has rendered sacred. A feeling of this sort, excited by lately perusing a paper, "On the existence of Troy," which appeared in the ninth number of the Classical Journal, has prompted me to offer a few remarks on that interesting subject, which you may perhaps think worthy of insertion. Your correspondent begins, by urging the "strong improbability, that the states of Greece in that rude and helpless state of society, should have been able to collect, equip, transport, and maintain abroad, an armament exceeding in force any that they could draw together several centuries afterwards on far more momentous occasions."-Now, I maintain, that a barbarous state can always bring into the field a greater number of men, than the same state advanced to a higher degree of civilization. In a barbarous state, every man, more or less, acquires a livelihood by dint of arms, and by dint of arms maintains possession of what he has thus acquired; hence, every one is, in some measure, a soldier. That such was the early condition of the Greeks, Thucydides asserts, πᾶσα γὰρ ἡ Ἑλλὰς ἐσιδηροφόρει, διὰ τὰς ἀφράκτους τε οἰκήσεις, καὶ οὐκ ἀσφαλεῖς παρ' ἀλλήλους ἐφόδους. But when a nation has arrived at a higher degree of refinement; when industry, instead of violence, procures wealth, and the laws, instead of arms, secure the possession of it; when wants are multiplied; when what were formerly luxuries, become necessaries; then the martial spirit evaporates, and the majority of the population is occupied in supplying the wants, or gratifying the inclinations of the remainder. Arguing on these general principles, I should say, that Greece not only might furnish the army mentioned by Homer, but might have poured forth one much greater, had she found it necessary or convenient. For we find it expressly mentioned by Thucydides, that the Grecian armies in his times, (which were immediately succeeding the expedition of Xerxes, brought forward by your correspondent) were more numerous than that which Homer describesεἰκὸς δὲ νομίζειν τὴν στρατιὰν ἐκείνην, μεγίστην μὲν γενέσθαι τῶν πρὸ αὐτῆς, λειπομένην δὲ τῶν νῦν· τῇ Ομήρου αὖ ποιήσει εἴ τι χρὴ κανταῦθα πιστεύειν, ἣν εἰκὸς ἐπὶ τὸ μεῖζον μὲν ποιητὴν ὄντα κοσμῆσαι, ὅμως δὲ φαίνεται καὶ οὕτως ἐνδεεστέρα. Nay, he further asserts that the Homeric armament was by no means great, when considered as a national force: πρὸς τὰς μεγίστας γοῦν καὶ ἐλαχίστας ναῦς τὸ μέσον σκοποῦντι, οὐ πολλοὶ φαίνονται ξυνελθόντες, ὡς ἀπὸ πάσης τῆς Ἑλλάδος κοινῇ πεμπόμενοι. But your Correspondent thinks it next to impossible, that the little states of which Greece was composed could have been brought to co-operate in the execution of a plan, concerted, not for their own defence, not to avert impending ruin, but merely for the destruction of an inoffensive neighbouring city, and that too, "under the command of a leader not much superior to themselves in either rank or power." I confess, it would seem somewhat improbable, that a whole nation should voluntarily take up arms, solely for the recovery of the run-away wife of one of their princes; but Thucydides considers this not to have been the case, but that the power and influence of Agamemnon, whose empire he shows to have been by no means inconsiderable, compelled his countrymen to assemble and engage in the expedition. ̓Αγαμέμνων τέ μοι δοκεῖ, τῶν τότε δυνάμει προύχων, καὶ οὐ τοσοῦτον τοῖς Τυνδάρεω ὅρκοις κατειλημμένους τοὺς Ελένης μνηστῆρας ἄγων, τὸν στόλον ¿ɣrigas. And again, την στρατιὰν οὐ χάριτι τὸ πλεῖον ἢ φόβῳ ξυναγαγὼν ποιήσασθαι. And probably the states of Greece would find little reluctance in complying with such a command, since they would be doing nothing more than their daily habits of life accustomed them to do; they would be engaging in a free-booting enterprise, with the prospect of greater profits than they usually acquired, and without much greater risk than they frequently underwent: for we seldom see Troy mentioned without some epithet to distinguish the magnitude of its wealth, or the magnificence of its ornaments; and the Greeks seem to have been in the habit of invading, in insignificant numbers, the very country they were now to invade in a more formidable body; οἱ γὰς Ἕλληνες τὸ πάλαι, καὶ τῶν βαρβάρων οἴτε ἐν τῇ ἠπείρῳ παραθαλάσσιοι, καὶ ὅσοι νήσους εἶχον, ἐπειδὴ ἤρξαντο μᾶλλον περαιούσθαι ναυσὶν ἐπ ̓ ἀλλήλους, ἐτράποντο πρὸς ληστείαν. The army therefore in general, I should conceive, cared little about the ostensible object of their invasion, the recovery of Helen; but like Penelope's suitors, were "Non tantum Veneris, quantum studiosa culinæ." But next, where "are we told that the army remained nine years inactive in an enemy's country, where they could procure subsistence only by plundering the whole of that part of Asia Minor ?" On the contrary, Homer himself asserts expressly, at the end of the seventh book, that many ships came from Lemnos laden with wine, in part a present to the Atride, but in part purchased by the army; Νέες δ ̓ ἐκ Λήμνοιο παρέστασαν, οἶνον ἄγουσαι, From what other places they might receive supplies, we cannot determine, but this is sufficient to prove, that they did not subsist "only by plundering the whole of that part of Asia Minor" Still, however, more decisive than this is Thucydides, who says, that a considerable part of the army was employed in cultivating the Chersonesus ; φαίνονται δ ̓ οὐδ ̓ ἐνταῦθα πάσῃ τῇ δυνάμει χρησ ̓ ἕνοι, ἀλλὰ πρὸς γεωρ γίαν τῆς Χερρονήσου τραπόμενοι, καὶ ληστείαν, τῆς τροφῆς ἀπορία. ch how is it to be proved that "Helen and most of the had attained an extreme old age before the commencement of the siege?" Euripides introduces Tyndarus the husband of Leda, as yet alive even after the Trojan war was ended; and Hermione, the daughter of Helen, was but in her childhood, if not in her infancy, when the expedition took place; for Electra says in the Orestes, that, upon the departure of Menelaus, she was left with Clytemnestra to be brought up: ἣν γὰρ κατ' οἴκους ἔλιφ ̓, ὅτ' εἰς Τροίαν ἔπλει, παρθένον, ἐμῇ τε μητρὶ παρέδωκεν τρέφειν Μενέλαος, ἀγαγὼν Ερμιόνην Σπάρτης ἄπο,κ. τ. λ. Orest. 63. Or, if this be thought indecisive, it may be inferred from her marrying Orestes that their ages were not very dissimilar. Now Orestes was an infant in the arms, when Menelaus set sail for Troy, as we learn from the 371st line of the same play : Βρέφος γὰρ ἦν τότ' ἐν Κλυταιμνήστρας χεροῖν, And with respect to "the incredible duration of the ships, and still more surprising duration of the chieftains ;" I confess I see nothing marvellous in either; I should imagine the ships might remain sea-worthy for ten years, particularly when the Greeks were always careful to draw them ashore after disembarking, nor suffered them to be buffeted by the force, or decayed by the moisture, of the waves and for the chieftains, I think our own army would furnish instances of as many chiefs, living as many years, under as many perilous circumstances, as the heroes of the Iliad. Another argument to prove that Troy never existed is, that there remain at present no decided vestiges of its site. But may not this be accounted for from Homer himself? No sooner, says the poet, were the Greeks returned home victorious from Troy, than Neptune and Apollo conspired to overturn every stone of the wall which the Greeks had so laboriously constructed, by bringing in one torrent all the rivers, Ὅσσοι ἀπ ̓ Ἰδαίων ὀρέων ἅλαδε προρέουσι, 'Ρῆσός θ', 'Επτάπορος τε, Τῶν πάντων ὁμόσε στόματ ̓ ἔτραπε Φοίβος Απόλλων, Συνεχές, ὄφρα κι θάσσον ἁλίπλοα τείχεα θείη. And this magnificent passage concludes with saying that the object had been completely effected, and every vestige of the wall washed away, Λεῖα δ ̓ ἐποίησεν παρ' ἀγάρξουν Ἑλλήσποντον. This seems nothing less than the description of some immense deluge, which had visited the plains of Troas; and it would have been scarcely possible for such a resistless body of waters to have completely swept away every vestige of the wall, without, at the same time, inundating the whole country, clearing away a great part, if not the whole, of those remains of Troy which the Greeks had left in ruins; and in short, changing the appearance of the surrounding plains. Your correspondent may here perhaps object, that Homer probably wrote this, the better to conceal his imposture, and by demolishing the remains of Ilium, prevent investigation into the truth of his narrative; but this, I must say, would be taking for granted the question to be proved; it would be built upon the very supposition that the Iliad was a fiction. Having stated, unobjectionably I hope, the observations which occurred to me in reading the paper in question, I shall conclude with another argument, which appears to me to speak loudly in avor of the existence of Troy, viz. that the ancients believed it to have existed. This I would prove from the circumstance that upon a dispute between Athens and Megara respecting the possession of Salamis, the contest was decided in favor of the former, because it was brought forward, that Homer in his catalogue of the ships arranges the Salaminian by the side of the Athenian vessels; such was the argument brought forward by Athens, and such was the argument submitted to by Megara-Some of the authorities on which this fact rests are noticed by Clarke on the 558th line of the 2d book--Demosthenes neither asserts, nor contradicts it; he only says that Solon iheysta iwoinse, and by that means preserved Salamis to the Athenians; this is neither proof nor contradiction, for in these compositions of Solon the verses of Homer might have been introduced.--Aristotle speaks in a less questionable shape, Αθηναίοι Ὁμήρῳ μάρτυρι ἐχρήσαντο περὶ Σαλαμῖνος" Laertius is rather more doubtful, o de Qari, x. 5. λ. Strabo seems to have believed the fact, but says some attribute the quotation to Pisistratus, others to Solon, and he adds another circumstance, which proves still more of what great consequence this authority of Homer was esteemed, viz. that the Megareans altered the verse, and read it as though Ajax had drawn up the Salaminian vessels by the side of those from the cities around Megara.-The only authority against the fact is Plutarch, who writes that the generality asserted it, but αὐτοὶ ̓Αθηναῖοι ταῦτα μὲν οἴονται φλυαρίαν εἶναι. Whether the authority of Aristotle be not to be preferred to that of Plutarch, respecting the opinion of the Athenians, I think no candid person who will consider their respective ages, and places of abode, can hesitate.Such then being the fact, there cannot, I think, remain a doubt upon the minds of any, that the ancients considered the Iliad as a history of unquestionable veracity, for it is not possible that an appeal to a fictitious poem could have decided the possession of an important island. Sept. 1812. A JOHNIAN. Answer to the Defence of Sir W. Drummond, concerning TO THE EDITOR OF THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL. Ir is but too true, that writers sometimes differ in opinion, because they misrepresent one another's words; yet it is equally true, that they more often differ, because they really misunderstand one another. Thus Sir W. D. alleges, that I have misrepresented his words from beginning to end; yet on examining my own words, and even the very passage quoted by him, I cannot find that I have either misrepresented or misunderstood any thing said by him, although he has done both with respect to myself. I will not take up your paper with any recapitulations of former words by either of us, as I have always found argumentations about what he said and I said to be very tiresome to readers: but I affirm, that I never asserted that "his substitution of He for Heth was only because it is the reading in the Samaritan text," but that such substitution was a reason which he gave for it. So again, I never affirmed," that he considered aaneah to be only Hebrew," but that he did derive it from Hebrew, and his own words were, "what is Paaneah and how is it gotten from the Hebrew," p. 172. -I never affirmed, "that he said some Scribe translated the Egyptian words," but that it was my own opinion, and only my own-I never affirmed it to be his statement, "that the Scribe inserted those words in the Hebrew text in place of the Egyptian," but that it was again my own opinion only, and I am not now able to conceive what words of mine could be so much misunderstood by him; certainly that paragraph of mine, which he has quoted, could give no real cause for such mistakes; but as it is of more importance to know what I meant to say, than what I did say, I will explain my former opinion in other words, lest my former ones should not be sufficiently perspicuous. |