TRACT X.

OF TROAS, WHAT PLACE IS MEANT BY THAT NAME. ALSO, OF THE SITUATIONS OF SODOM, GOMORRAH, ADMAH, ZEBOIM, IN THE DEAD SEA.

SIR,-To your geographical queries, I answer as follows:In sundry passages of the New Testament, in the Acts of the Apostles, and Epistles of St. Paul, we meet with the word Troas; how he went from Troas to Philippi, in Macedonia, from thence unto Troas again: how he remained seven days in that place: from thence on foot to Assos, whither the disciples had sailed from Troas, and, there taking him in, made their voyage unto Cæsarea.

Now, whether this Troas be the name of a city or a certain region of Phrygia seems no groundless doubt of yours: for that it was sometimes taken in the signification of some country, is acknowledged by Ortellius, Stephanus, and Grotius; and it is plainly set down by Strabo, that a region of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was so taken in ancient times; and that at the Trojan war, all the territory which comprehended the nine principalities subject unto the king of Ilium Tooin Xeyovμévn, was called by the name of Troja. And this might seem sufficiently to solve the intention of the description, when he came or went from Troas, that is some part of that region; and will otherwise seem strange unto many how he should be said to go or come from that city which all writers had laid in the ashes about a thousand years before.

Troas.] Troas was a small country lying to the west of Mysia, upon the sea. It took this name from its principal city, Troas, a seaport, and built, as is said, about some four miles from the situation of old Troy, by Lysimachus, one of Alexander the Great's captains, who peopled it from neighbouring cities, and called it Alexandria, or Troas Alexandri, in honour of his master Alexander; who began the work, but lived not to bring it to any perfection. But in following times it came to be called simply Troas. The name may be understood as taken by the sacred writers to denote the country as well as city so called, but chiefly the latter.

All which notwithstanding, since we read in the text a particular abode of seven days, and such particulars as leaving of his cloak, books, and parchments at Troas, and that St. Luke seems to have been taken in to the travels of St. Paul at this place, where he begins in the Acts to write in the first person-this may rather seem to have been some city or special habitation, than any province or region without such limitation.

Now, that such a city there was, and that of no mean note, is easily verified from historical observation. For though old Ilium was anciently destroyed, yet was there another raised by the relicts of that people, not in the same place, but about thirty furlongs westward, as is to be learned from Strabo.

Of this place Alexander, in his expedition against Darius, took especial notice, endowing it with sundry immunities, with promise of greater matters, at his return from Persia; inclined hereunto from the honour he bore unto Homer,

whose earnest reader he was, and upon whose poems, by the help of Anaxarchus and Callisthenes, he made some observations as also much moved hereto upon the account of his cognation with the acides, and kings of Molossus, whereof Andromache, the wife of Hector, was queen. After the death of Alexander, Lysimachus surrounded it with a wall, and brought the inhabitants of the neighbour towns unto it; and so it bore the name of Alexandria; which, from Antigonus, was also called Antigonia, according to the inscription of that famous medal in Goltsius, Colonia Troas Antigonia Alexandrea, legio vicesima prima.

When the Romans first went into Asia against Antiochus, it was but a kwμóoλis, and no great city; but, upon the peace concluded, the Romans much advanced the same. Fimbria, the rebellious Roman, spoiled it in the Mithridatick wars, boasting that he had subdued Troy in eleven days, which the Grecians could not take in almost as many years. But it was again rebuilt and countenanced by the Romans, and became a Roman colony, with great immunities conferred on it; and accordingly it is so set down by Ptolemy. For the Romans, deriving themselves from the Trojans, thought no favour too great for it; especially Julius Cæsar, who, both in imitation of Alexander, and for his own descent

from Julus, of the posterity of Eneas, with much passion affected it, and in a discontented humour,* was once in mind to translate the Roman wealth unto it; so that it became a very remarkable place, and was, in Strabo's time,† one of the noble cities of Asia.

And, if they understood the prediction of Homer in reference unto the Romans, as some expound it in Strabo, it might much promote their affection unto that place; which being a remarkable prophecy, and scarce to be paralleled in Pagan story, made before Rome was built, and concerning the lasting reign of the progeny of Eneas, they could not but take especial notice of it. For thus is Neptune made to speak, when he saved Æneas from the fury of Achilles.

Verum agite hunc subito præsenti à morte trahamus
Ne Cronides ira flammet si fortis Achilles
Hunc mactet, fati quem lex evadere jussit.
Ne genus intereat de læto semine totum
Dardani ab excelso præ cunctis prolibus olim,
Dilecti quos è mortali stirpe creavit,

Nunc etiam Priami stirpem Saturnius odit,
Trojugenum post hæc Æneas sceptra tenebit
Et nati natorum et qui nascentur ab illis.

The Roman favours were also continued unto St. Paul's days; for Claudius, producing an ancient letter of the Romans unto King Seleucus concerning the Trojan privileges, made a release of their tributes; and Nero elegantly pleaded for their immunities, and remitted all tributes unto them.§

And, therefore, there being so remarkable a city in this territory, it may seem too hard to lose the same in the general name of the country; and since it was so eminently favoured by emperors, enjoying so many immunities, and full of Roman privileges, it was probably very populous, and a fit abode for St. Paul, who, being a Roman citizen, might live more quietly himself, and have no small number of faithful well-wishers in it.

Yet must we not conceive that this was the old Troy, or re-built in the same place with it: for Troas was placed about thirty furlongs west, and upon the sea shore: so that, to hold a clearer apprehension hereof than is commonly + Sueton.

* Sueton.

† ἐλλογίμων πόλεων.

§ Tacit. Ann. 1. 13.

delivered in the discourses of Troy, we may consider one inland Troy, or old Ilium, which was built farther within the land, and so was removed from the port where the Grecian fleet lay in Homer; and another maritime Troy, which was upon the sea coast, placed in the maps of Ptolemy, between Lectum and Sigæum or Port Janizam southwest from the old city, which was this of St. Paul, and whereunto are appliable the particular accounts of Bellonius, when, not an hundred years ago, he described the ruins of Troy with their baths, aqueducts, walls, and towers, to be seen from the sea as he sailed between it and Tenedos; and where, upon nearer view, he observed some signs and impressions of his conversion in the ruins of churches, crosses, and inscriptions upon stones.

Nor was this only a famous city in the days of St. Paul, but considerable long after. For, upon the letter of Adrianus, Herodes, Atticus,* at a great charge, repaired their baths, contrived aqueducts and noble water courses in it. As is also collectible from the medals of Caracalla, of Severus, and Crispina; with inscriptions, Colonia Alexandria Troas, bearing on the reverse either an horse, a temple, or a woman; denoting their destruction by an horse, their prayers for the emperor's safety, and as some conjecture, the memory of Sibylla Phrygia, or Hellespontica.

Nor wanted this city the favour of Christian princes, but was made a bishop's see under the archbishop of Cyzicum; but in succeeding discords was destroyed and ruined, and the nobler stones translated to Constantinople by the Turks to beautify their mosques and other buildings.

Concerning the Dead Sea, accept of these few remarks.

In the map of the Dead Sea we meet with the figure of the cities which were destroyed: of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim; but with no uniformity; men placing them variously, and from the uncertainty of their situation, taking a fair liberty to set them where they please.

For Admah, Zeboim, and Gomorrah, there is no light from the text to define their situation. But, that Sodom could not be far from Segor, which was seated under the mountains near the lake, seems inferrible from the sudden arrival of

* Philostrat. in Vita Herodis Attici.

Lot, who coming from Sodom at day-break, attained to Segor at sun-rising; and therefore Sodom is to be placed not many miles from it, not in the middle of the lake, which against that place is about eighteen miles over, and so will leave nine miles to be gone in so small a space of time.

The valley being large, the lake now in length about seventy English miles, the river Jordan and divers others running over the plain, 'tis probable the best cities were seated upon those streams; but how the Jordan passed or winded, or where it took in the other streams, is a point too old for geography to determine.

For, that the river gave the fruitfulness unto this valley by over-watering that low region, seems plain from that expression in the text,* that it was watered, sicut Paradisus et Egyptus, like Eden and the plains of Mesopotamia, where Euphrates yearly overfloweth; or like Egypt where Nilus doth the like; and seems probable also from the same course of the river not far above this valley where the Israelites passed Jordan, where 'tis said that "Jordan overfloweth its banks in the time of harvest."

That it must have had some passage under ground in the compass of this valley before the creation of this lake, seems necessary from the great current of Jordan, and from the rivers Arnon, Cedron, Zaeth, which empty into this valley; but where to place that concurrence of waters or place of its absorbition, there is no authentic decision.

The probablest place may be set somewhat southward, below the rivers that run into it on the east or western shore; and somewhat agreeable unto the account which Brocardus received from the Saracens which lived near it, Jordanem ingredi mare mortuum et rursum egredi, sed post exiguum intervallum a terra absorberi.

Strabo speaks naturally of this lake, that it was first caused by earthquakes, by sulphureous and bituminous eruptions, arising from the earth. But the Scripture makes it plain to have been from a miraculous hand, and by a remarkable expression, pluit dominus ignem et sulphur à domino.2 See also Deut. xxix. in ardore salis: burning the

* Gen. xiii. 10.

2 But the Scripture, &c.] Dr. Wells supports this opinion at con