Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/179

158 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. mend itself to early settlers. Its defensive position was first- class, and was further strengthened by two rivers that covered its front, enclosing it as they did within the angle of their confluence. It offered moreover an excellent post of observation. . From it the eye can take in the whole plain, right away to the broad entrance of the Hellespont, on to the European coast and the elongated mass of Imbros, above which rises the lofty pyramid of distant Samothrace, which fences it in at the horizon (Fig. 35). The distance from the sea was just enough to secure its inhabitants from the night attacks of traders, who easily became pirates ; near enough to enable them to steal quietly down to the shore where the boat was moored, and push out to sea. Even though knowing nothing of the past history of this district, we should nevertheless be inclined to seek here rather than anywhere else the site of a very early fortress, in that it rules at once a fertile plain and the approaches to the strait ; whilst it rejoiced in an unfailing supply of water. The advantages offered in this respect by the fortress-hill would be vainly sought among the heights bounding in the plain to the westward : two rivers wash its foot, and a fountain rises on its slope. Its course was traced for some distance by Schliemann a few years ago, by following a channel which was cut inside the wall of limestone for the purpose of collecting every thread of water trickling through the clefts of the rock ; above it grew a fine fig tree reverently spared by the explorer. At a depth of thirty-six metres or thereabouts from the external orifice, the gallery divides itself into three diverging channels, which carry their waters to reservoirs that have been frequently rebuilt (Fig. 36). As soon as the subterraneous conduits were cleared, the spring again ran out clear and fresh. It was the water from this spring which was placed on Schliemann's table, and which along with other guests I drank in 1890. Starting without preconceived ideas, but solely guided by history and the indications which crop up at almost every point of the ground, the explorer was likely to be led by the hand, as it were, to the hill of Hissarlik. Besides Scylax, who says that the town of Ilium ^ is twenty-five stadia from the sea (4,625 metres), we have other evidences, too numerous for quotation, which all tend to prove that from Xerxes, 480 B.C., down to the Emperor Julian, 363 a.d., the town claimed to 1 SCYLAX.