of Pergamum, from whose masters the possession of Assus passed to Rome by the bequest of Attains III. (133 B.C.). The great heights of Ida rise in the east. Northward the Touzla is seen winding through its rich valley from a rocky defile in the east to the oak-forests in the western hills. This valley was traversed by the road which St Paul must have followed when he came overland from Alexandria Troas to Assus, leaving his fellow-travellers to proceed by sea. The north-west gateway of Assus, to which this road led, is still flanked by two massive towers, of Hellenic work, and of an age which leaves no doubt that they are the same between which St Paul entered the town. On the shore below, the ancient mole at which he embarked for Mytilene with his companions can still be traced by large blocks under the clear water. Assus affords the only harbour on the 50 miles of coast between Cape Lectum and the east end of the Adramyttian Gulf; hence it must always have been the chief shipping-place for the exports of the southern Troad. Too much off the highways to become a centre of import trade, it was thus destined to be a commercial town, content with a modest provincial prosperity. The great natural strength of the site protected it against petty assailants; but, like other towns in that region, it has known many masters, Lydians, Persians, the kings of Pergamum, Eomans, and Ottoman Turks. From the Persian wars to about 350 B.C. Assus enjoyed at least partial independence. It was about 348-345 B.C. that Aristotle spent three years at Assus with Hermeas, an ex-slave who had succeeded his former master Eubulus as despot of Assus and Atarneus. Aristotle has left some verses from an invocation to Arete (Virtue), commemorating the worth of Hermeas, who had been seized by Persian treachery and put to death. Under its Turkish name of Beihram, Assus[1] is still the commercial port of the southern Troad, being the place to which loads of valonia (acorn-cups for tanning) are con veyed by camels from all parts of the country. The recent excavations at Assus, conducted by explorers repre senting the Archaeological Institute of America, have yielded results far more valuable for the history of Greek art and architecture than any excavations yet undertaken in the Troad. The sculptures form one of the most important links yet discovered between Oriental and early Greek art, especially in respect of the types of animals. The later Hellenic town-walls of Assus also well repay the new study which they have received. With their ramparts, towers, and posterns they form the finest and most instructive extant specimen of Greek military engineering. The director of the exploration, Mr J. T. Clarke, published in 1882 an excellent report on the work so far as it had then been carried.
Alexandria Troas.Alexandria Troas stood on the west coast at nearly its middle point, a little south of Tenedos. It was built by Antigonus, perhaps about 310 B.C., and was called by him Antigonia Troas. Early in the next century the name was changed by Lysimachus to Alexandria Troas, in honour of Alexander's memory. As the chief port of north-west Asia Minor, the place prospered greatly in Roman times, and the existing remains sufficiently attest its former importance. The site is now covered with valonia oaks; but the circuit of the old walls can be traced, and in several places they are fairly well preserved. They had a circumference of about 6 English miles, and were fortified with towers at regular intervals. Remains of some ancient buildings, including a bath and gymnasium, can be traced within this area. The harbour had two large basins, now almost choked with sand. A Roman colony was sent to the place, as Strabo mentions, in the reign of Augustus. The abridged name " Troas " (Acts xvi. 8) was probably the current one in later Roman times. The site is now called Eski Stambul.
Other ancient sites.Many classical sites of less note in the Troad have been identified with more or less certainty. Neandria seems to be rightly fixed by Mr F. Calvert at Mount Chigri, a hill not far from Alexandria Troas, remarkable for the fine view of the whole Troad which it commands. Cebrene has been conjecturally placed in the eastern part of the plain of Bairamitch, Palsescepsis being further east on the slopes of Ida, while the new Scepsis was near the site of Bairamitch itself. The evidence for this, however, is ambiguous. At the village of Kulaklee, a little south of the mouth of the Touzla, some Corinthian columns and other fragments mark the temple of Apollo Smintheus and (approximately) the site of the Homeric Chryse. Colonae was also on the west coast, opposite Tenedos. Scamandria occupied the site of Eneh, in the middle of the plain of Bairamitch, and Cenchreae was probably some distance north of it. The shrine of Palamedes, mentioned by ancient writers as existing at a town called Poly medium, has been discovered by Mr J. T. Clarke on a site hitherto unvisited by any modern traveller, between Assus and Cape Lectum. It proves to have been a sacred enclosure (temenos) on the acropolis of the town; the statue of Palamedes stood on a rock at the middle of its southern edge. Another interesting discovery has been made by Mr Clarke, viz., the existence of very ancient town walls on Gargarus, the highest peak of Ida.
Site of Homeric Troy.The modern discussion as to the site of Homeric Troy Site of may be considered as dating from Lechevalier's visits to Homeric the Troad in 1785-86. Homer describes Troy as "a great town," "with broad streets," and with a high acropolis, or "Pergamus," rising above it, from which precipitous rocks descend abruptly to the plain beneath. These are the precipices over which the Trojans proposed to hurl the wooden horse, "when they had dragged it to the summit." Homer marks the character of the acropolis by the epithets "lofty," " windy," and more forcibly still by "beetling." One site in the Trojan plain, and one only, satisfies this most essential condition. It is the hill at its southern edge called the Bali Dagh, above the village of Bunarbashi. It has a height of about 400 feet, with sheer precipices descending on the south and south-west to the valley of the Scamander (Mendere). Remains found upon it though it has never yet been thoroughly explored show it to have been the site of an ancient city. Homer describes two natural springs as rising a little to the north-west of Homeric Troy. A little to the north-west of Bunarbashi these springs still exist. " This pair of rivu lets are the immutable mark of nature by which the height towering above is recognized as the citadel of Ilium " (E. Curtius).
Rejection of Ilian claims.The low mound of Hissarlik—the site of the Greek Ilium—stands only 112 feet above the level of the open plain in which it is situated. To call it "beetling" (o</Dwecr(ra) would have been a travesty of poetical licence on which no poet could have ventured, and to describe it as "lofty" or "windy" would have been not less strange. There are no natural springs near it, such as Homer mentions. The yEolic settlers, having called the place Ilion, naturally persisted in maintaining its identity with Troy. Polemon, a native of the Greek Ilium, who lived about 200 B.C., declared that his fellowtownsmen could show the very stone on which Palamedes
- ↑ The name Assus probably means "dwelling," "town," being connected with the Sanskrit vas, "to dwell," which appears in the Greek astu, and also in the ending of such names as Mylasa and Larissa, where in Greek the's is alternatively single or double an ending which, as Fligier has shown, is found in old town names from India to Dacia. Homer supplies an example in his " steep Pedasus " on the Satniois, and it has been suggested by Mr J. T. Clarke that Pedasus may have been identical in site with the later Assus.
