STANFORD LIBRARY

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. 448.-JULY, 1916.

Art. 1.-THE TROJAN WAR.

1. Troy, a Study in Homeric Geography.

Leaf. Macmillan, 1912.

By Walter

2. Homer and History. By Walter Leaf. Macmillan, 1915.

THOSE Who first read their Homer and learned Greek history more than forty years ago will remember how exclusively literary and philological the questions connected with Homer then appeared to be. The Trojan War was regarded as much on the same footing as the legends of Heracles and the Argonauts. Agamemnon and Achilles were at best as real as Lear and Cymbeline; at worst they were degraded deities. Homer's picture of political and social life possessed indeed historical value, but it was supposed to reflect the conditions of his own time, not earlier than the ninth or possibly the tenth century B.C. But the purely philological phase of Homeric criticism, which was inaugurated by Wolf's memorable Prolegomena in 1795 and lasted for about eighty years, came to an end when archæology at last appeared on the scene of debate.

The excavations of Dr Schliemann opened a period in the investigation of the Homeric poems and prehistoric Greece. The new facts which he revealed in swift succession at Troy, Mycenæ, Orchomenus, and Tiryns placed Homer in a new light and raised unexpected problems. It was established that a prehistoric civilisation existed on the Greek mainland which corresponded in general to the Homeric background. But there were certain differences; and the question which immediately Vol. 226.-No. 448.

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attracted most attention was the exact relation between the Mycenaean and the Homeric civilisations. It may be said that, so far as the background was concerned, Homer's truth received a remarkable confirmation; but the results of Schliemann's excavations at Troy itself were calculated to encourage the scepticism which had generally

prevailed as to the reality of the Trojan War. He dis

covered an important brick fortress at Hissarlik, the traditional site of Troy, with unmistakable marks that it had been destroyed by fire; but it belonged to a period long previous to the Mycenæan. Above its ruins he found the traces of four prehistoric settlements, but all, so far as his excavations told him, quite insignificant. It seemed that there was no Homeric Troy, and therefore there could have been no Trojan War, unless indeed tradition were wholly wrong, and the city of Priam was to be sought at some other place, at Bally Dagh, for instance, as some held. But Schliemann was not long in his grave when new excavations at Hissarlik, carried out by Dr Dörpfeld, justified his faith by revealing that the latest of the prehistoric settlements (the sixth in order) was a great castle with a larger circuit than any of its predecessors, and with walls architecturally superior to those of Tiryns and Mycenæ but belonging to the same age. Little was found in it; it had been thoroughly ransacked by those who razed it to the ground; but its massive circuit of fortifications attested the might and wealth of its lords. Here at last was Homeric Troy. Tradition had so far been vindicated; and the Trojan War was well within the realm of probability. For it was reasonable to argue thus: the destruction of the mighty fortress is an archæological fact for which we have to account; and the only evidence bearing on the matter is the Homeric epic and the consistent tradition of the Greeks that Troy was destroyed by an expedition from the Greek mainland. Accept the main fact of the Trojan War, and it explains both the archæological problem and the origin of the Homeric tale.

The existence of Homeric Troy and its bearings had not been fully digested when, at the close of the last century, the sensational discoveries of Sir Arthur Evans at Cnossus diverted attention to larger issues. The wonderful remains uncovered in Crete widened the

problem of Mycenaæan into the problem of Ægean' civilisation. But they were a new proof that Greek tradition could not be lightly set aside as devoid of historical foundation. Thucydides, in his brief and masterly survey of early Greek history, had spoken of a Cretan thalassocracy as a well-known fact. The Cretan discoveries showed that he was right.

Thus the work of archæologists corroborated in three capital points the tradition of the Greeks. The Argolid -Mycena and Tiryns-had been the seat of a strong and rich civilisation in prehistoric times; contemporaneously there had been a great fortress at Troy; and the ancient sea-power of Crete was not a mere legend. Moreover, successive explorations in various parts of Greece were accumulating evidence that the range of Mycenæan civilisation closely corresponded to the extent of the Greek world as it was represented in the Homeric poems. Further, the prehistoric chronology which it was possible to construct, partly with the help of objects which had been imported from Egypt to the Egean, indicated that Mycena and Mycenæan Troy flourished at a time which could not be very far from the dates which Greek chronologists had assigned to the Trojan War.

It is much to know that Troy existed and that Troy was razed to the ground; but a problem which interests the historian as much as the literary student now imposes itself with more insistency than before. Are there reasons for supposing that Homer's general picture of the war rested on genuine tradition? May it not be that, although a historical fact-the destruction of Troy in a war with the Achæans-was the motif of the epic, yet all the circumstances were imaginary, the creation partly of the mythopoeic instinct of the Greeks, partly of the genius of the poet? Is it a tenable view that the fundamental groundwork of the story was myth, and that legends about gods had been woven round the bare fact of a war for Troy, when the causes and circumstances of the war had long been entirely forgotten? Or can we prove that the groundwork was history, and that, however embellished by myth and transformed by the art of minstrels, there is in the epic story a real core of fact which we may reasonably endeavour to discover? Mr Leaf has addressed himself to the solution of this problem,

which is as fascinating as it is important, and in two brilliant volumes he has, in our opinion, successfully vindicated the view that the theme of the Iliad had its basis in history and not in myth.

There is one available test of what may be called the actuality of a poem like the Iliad. Does it conform to the fixed facts of nature? Is the poet generally accurate in his topography and geography? If we find that the natural features of the Trojan plain and the geography of the Troad correspond with remarkable completeness to the details of the poet's picture, this affords a strong presumption that he was concerned with things, not with fancies. Had his story been a purely imaginative invention or an artistic combination of baseless legends, we should have to assume that, in order to create an illusion of realism, he made a special and careful study of the scene. That is such an improbable hypothesis that it can hardly be entertained. The alternative is that the local circumstances came down to Homer implicit in a story of events.

Mr Leaf has systematically applied this test as it never was applied before. The results of his careful exploration of the Troad from the Egean to the river Æsepus, from the Hellespont to the Gulf of Adramyttium, have established triumphantly the veracity of Homer, so far as the scene of the war and its neighbourhood are concerned. The landscape viewed from the hillock of Hissarlik is in its general features identical with the landscape in Homer.

'Over the low range of hills fringing the sea to the west rises the conical peak of Tenedos "notissima fama." The "broad Hellespont" flows to the north. Samothrace and Ida, farther away, display themselves as seats worthy of gods' (Troy,' p. 28).

The distance of Hissarlik from the sea, about three miles, is that required by the conditions Homer contemplates. The lesser place which the Simois holds in the Iliad compared with the Scamander corresponds to reality. The Scamander flows from south to north through the plain and

'is a considerable stream throughout the year; in winter it often brings down heavy floods which overflow the whole plain, and leave it covered with silt and tree trunks. The description of the fight between Achilles and the River in Iliad XXI, is a magnificent picture, transfigured by the highest art, of such a flood; the very trees and shrubs so minutely named in it are those which line the course of the Mendere to-day. Here at least we feel we are in the very presence of the poet' (Ib. pp. 30, 31).

The Simois, now the Dümbrek-su, which flows down a valley north of Hissarlik, is only a small brook which runs dry in summer; but it marks one of the natural limits of the battle-field, and it is as such that it is generally named.'

To satisfy completely the conditions of the Iliad, we shall have indeed to suppose that three thousand years ago the course of the Scamander was somewhat different and lay farther east than it lies to-day. It is clear from the Homeric descriptions that the scene of fighting was entirely to the east of the river, and that the combatants were not compelled to cross by the ford. But, however this may be, the general features of the landscape were conceived by the poet with wonderful faithfulness. The rise in the ground (Opwoμòs medíolo) to the north of the city can be identified; and to the south-west a spring has been discovered which suits the position required by the springs that are mentioned as a landmark in the description of Hector's flight round the walls. The tomb of Ilos near the Scamander ford must have long since been washed away, but some broken columns may possibly mean that a Roman shrine continued the old tradition of the tomb of a hero.' Characteristic flora of the plain to-day are not unnoticed in Homer. When Hephaistos sends fire to stay the onrush of the river god, elms and willows and tamarisks are consumed. To-day the river channel through the plain is marked by the line of low willows and elm bushes . . . and the tamarisks spread from the banks in thick copses, making with their young shoots at the end of April conspicuous patches of dull crimson.' It is to be observed that these features are mentioned incidentally by the poet and assumed to be well known. There is just one conspicuous case of discrepancy with fact. There is no trace in the Trojan

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