These consist of beautiful Doric pillars, whose capitals and shafts are of the finest white marble. Among them, also, are entire shafts of granite. As the temples of Jupiter were always of the Doric order, these are supposed to have belonged to a temple dedicated to that deity. Among these ruins was found an inscription, which Dr. Clarke sent to Cambridge. This is as old as the archonship of Euclid. It was on the lower part of a plain marble pillar; the interpretation of which sets forth, that “those partaking of the sacrifice, and of the games, and of the whole festival, honoured Pytha, daughter of Scamandrotimus, native of Ilium, who performed the office of Canephoros, in an exemplary and distinguished manner, for her piety towards the goddess.”
In the village of Callifat there are several capitals of Corinthian pillars. Medals, too, are sometimes dug up there; not of ancient Troy, however, but of the Roman emperors. Not far from Callifat are also to be seen traces of an ancient citadel. These are the remains of a city, called New Ilium[290]. “We stand,” says Dr. Clarke, “with Strabo, upon the very spot, whence he deduced his observations, concerning other objects in the district; looking down upon the Simoisian plain, and viewing the junction of the two rivers (‘one flowing towards Sigeum, and the other towards Rhætium,’ precisely as described by him), in front of the Iliensian city.”
From the national and artificial elevation of the territory on which this city stood, this accomplished traveller saw almost every landmark to which that author alludes. “The splendid spectacle,” says he, “presented towards the west by the snow-clad top of Samothrace, towering behind Imbrus, would baffle every attempt at delineation. It rose with indescribable grandeur beyond all I had seen of a long time; and whilst its ethereal summit shone with inconceivable brightness in a sky without a cloud, seemed, notwithstanding its remote situation, as if its vastness would overwhelm all Troas, should an earthquake heave it from its base.”
Besides these, there are various tumuli in the Troas, which are distinguished by the names of Homer’s heroes; the tomb of Achilles, for instance, and two others, near the Sigæan promontory, mentioned by Strabo, Ælian, and Diodorus Siculus. When Alexander came to visit these, he anointed the Hêle of Achilles with perfumes; and, as we have already related, ran naked around it, according to the custom of honouring the manes of a hero in ancient times. One of the other tombs was that of Patroclus. Alexander crowned the one, and his friend Hephæstion the other[291].
There, on the green and village-cotted hill, is (Flanked by the Hellespont and by the sea) Entomb’d the bravest of the brave, Achilles. They say so;—(Bryant says the contrary.) And further downward, tall and towering, still is The tumulus—of whom? Heaven knows; ‘t may be Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus; All heroes, who, if living still, would slay us. High barrows, without mark, or name, A vast, untill’d, and mountain-skirted plain, And Ida in the distance, still the same; And old Scamander (if ‘tis he) remain: The situation still seemed formed for fame; A hundred thousand men might fight again With ease; but where they fought for Ilion’s walls, The quiet sheep feed, and the tortoise crawls.
These tombs have been so celebrated in all ages, that we give place, willingly, to a description of them by Mr. Franklin; more particularly as he has mentioned several particulars, unnoticed by other travellers.
Not far from the site of Ilium are to be observed a number of antiquities, fragments of Doric and Ionic pillars of marble, some columns of granite, broken bas-reliefs, and, “in short,” says Dr. Clarke, “those remains so profusely scattered over this extraordinary country, serving to prove the number of cities and temples once the boast of Troas.”
At no great distance is the steep, which some have supposed the spot on which stood the citadel of Priam. On the edge of this is a tumulus, ninety-three yards in circumference, which is called the tomb of Hector; it is formed entirely of loose stones. From this spot the whole isle of Tenedos is seen, and a most magnificent prospect of the course of Scamander to the sea, with all Troas, and every interesting object it contains.