Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/251

528 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. fighting and speechifying, found time to walk more than twelve leagues. We shall receive the same impression by subjecting the rest of the narrative to the like analysis. After the Greeks have taken refuge in their ships, which came so near to being burnt, Hector orders oxen, sheep, and wine to be forthwith brought from the city for his victorious bands, entrenched in the positions which they had just carried.^ These must have been close to the Greek tents, since the Achaeans could overhear the sound of flutes and pipes, and the hum of voices of the Trojan warriors.^ Now, had Troy been at Bunarbashi, the distance which separated it from the Trojan encampment would have been about ten kilometres, and the victuals could not have reached their destination before day-break on the following day; whereas we read of their prompt {xapiraTiifjLtos) arrival, and that the remainder of the night was spent in banqueting and high junketing.^ Then, too, when Priam undertakes to soften the anger of Peleide, he leaves Troy by night. Hermes ushers him into the tent of Achylles, with whom he shares his evening repast ; and having obtained the body of Hector, he snatches a few hours' sleep and rises to depart, reaching the town before sunrise.* Many other instances might be adduced in proof of the short distance implied by the thread of the narrative, between Pergamus and the Greek bivouacs.^ Minute and precise calculations are of course out of the question here. A poet may be permitted certain licences, and in crowding more events than could possibly take place in one day, however full we may suppose it to have been, he was not transgressing beyond his legitimate province ; but he could not take the same liberties with space as he had done with time. Wilful offence in this direction would have brought about his discomfiture, for his hearers would not have tolerated errors bearing on topography which they knew so well. When, as frequently happens, he throws out a graphic epithet, indicating by a single word where this or that encounter had taken place, his auditors immediately perceive with their mind's eye, one or other of the peculiar spots on the long coast on which they had stranded their ships, or some of the countless mounds which dot the plain, or maybe some bend or opening of the river, or perhaps the foot or the 1 I/iad. 2 /did. a /^/^. 4 /j/^, ^ SCHLIEMANN.