Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/246

Troy. 223 By following the course of the Mendere, in a south-eastern direction, a good hour's walk will take the visitor to M. Calvert's beautiful farm in the district of Akshi Kioi, where travellers from all parts of the world have at one time or another enjoyed the hospitality of its owner. The ridge bearing Akshi Kioi has its foot washed by the Kemar-su, an affluent of the Mendere ; this village has been identified by some both as Homeric Troy and the village of the Ilians, 'IXigaiv xwfxrj, of which Demetrius Scepsis wrote that it had superseded the town sacked by the Greeks.^ The objection which might be raised as to its dis- tance from the Hellespont being far greater than what may be conceded for it, is rendered nugatory by the late excavations, which have definitely settled the question. The hypothesis suggested by the character of the buildings and other ancient remains found on the farm and another ancient site at Hanai Tepeh,^ about five hundred yards distant, has been fully con- firmed by inscriptions discovered on these same sites. The stream which here falls into the Scamander is not the Simois, but the Thimbrius, mentioned by several ancient writers in connection with the town of Thymbra and the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus, as having stood near the point of junction of these two rivers.^ Strabo places Ilium fifty stadia from Thymbra ; this distance, equivalent to 9,250 metres, does not coincide with that of the map measured in a straight line, but is very nearly that of the road, which follows the sinuosities of the hills. making it difficult to fix upon the precise spot meant by AVebb for the site of Troy. Assuredly the city had an acropolis ; now this, in the Homeric age, was the essential part, when not the whole of the town. Again, frequent mention is made in the I/iad to the Trojan fortress, to which the poet applies the peculiar name of Peigamusj Hector and the Trojan women are said to ascend to the citadel. But he would be clever indeed who could point out on this wide and even platform, I will not say a hill, but an eminence of any sort, whereon to put the Homeric Pergamus." 1 Among the upholders of this theory cited by Schliemann are Rennell {Observations on the Topography of the Plain of Troy, London 18 14) and H. N. Ulrichs {Rheinisches Museum), On the 'Wiiiav Ku>firi, see Strabo. 2 Schliemann, ///£75, pp. 106, 107, Appendix VIII., Thymbra, JIanai Tepeh, by F. Calvert. Two fragments of inscription appear to have belonged, one to an inventory of the property owned by the temple, and the other to a list of the winners in the sacred games celebrated around the sanctuary (Lebas-Waddington, Voyage archioiogique. Part 5, 1743 d, 1743 /). ® Homer; Strabo.