Rather more than one hundred and twenty paces from this tumulus is another tumulus; the base of this is one hundred and thirty-three yards in circumference. Some little way from this is a third, ninety yards in circumference. The former is called the tomb of Priam; the latter the tomb of Paris. At a short distance farther on are beheld foundations of buildings; but these are not supposed to be of any high antiquity, nor even so high as to be classed with a Roman interdict. They are therefore, with probability, assigned to those pirates which at different times have infested the Hellespont. Near them are tumuli of much higher antiquity; but whether they belong to Trojan times, or to those in which the Milesians formed settlements on the coast, is not determined.
Four hours’ distance from Bonarbashy, situated on the Scamander, is a town called Æné, the Æneia of Strabo. It is ornamented with cypresses, and backed by lofty rocks and mountains. In this town medals have been found, and some have supposed that Æneas was buried here; it is, however, more probable that the town was named after him.
On a hill, in the shape of a cone, at about two hours’ distance from Beyramitch, towards Gargarus, are a vast quantity of substances for building; they may be traced from the bottom to the summit. These are supposed to have constituted a temple and altar of Jupiter; the work seems to be Roman. On the western extremity of the area are remains of baths, the walls of which are stuccoed; and there are remaining earthenware conduits still entire in several places. Above this are tombs, and close to them a bath; near which lie scattered about several columns, with broken pieces of amphoræ, marble, basalt, granite, jasper, and blue chalcedony. At no great distance off lies the cornice of a Doric entablature, so large, that M. Preaux said he had seen nothing like it at Athens. Higher up are the remains of another temple, the area of which measures one hundred and forty yards long and forty-four wide. These are supposed to be the temple and altars of Jupiter mentioned by Homer, Æschylus, and Plutarch. From this spot the view is represented as being exceedingly grand. “Immediately before the eye is spread the whole of Gargarus, seeming, from its immense size and the vastness of its features, as if those who were stationed on this spot might hold converse with persons upon its clear and sunny summit. Far below is seen the bed and valley of the Scamander.”
What kind of a scene is beheld from Gargarus may be, in some measure, imagined from what Dr. Clarke says of it. “In a few minutes I stood upon the summit. What a spectacle! All European Turkey, and the whole of Asia Minor, seemed as it were modelled before me on a vast surface of glass. The great objects drew my attention first. The eye, roaming to Constantinople, beheld all the sea of Marmora, the mountains of Prusa, with Asiatic Olympus, and all the surrounding territory; comprehending, in one wide survey, all Propontis and the Hellespont, with the shores of Thrace and Chersonesus, all the north of the Egean, Mount Athos, the islands of Imbrus, Samothrace, Lemnos, Tenedos, and all beyond, even to Eubœa; the gulf of Smyrna, almost all Mysia, and Bithynia, with part of Lydia and Ionia. Looking down upon Troas, it appeared spread as a lawn before me.”
In the same district are considerable remains of the ancient city Alexandria Troas. Long before the extinction of the Greek empire, this city was laid under perpetual obligation to contribute, by its monuments of ancient splendour, towards the public structures of Constantinople. Notwithstanding this, there are still some interesting remains; among which is to be noted the aqueduct of Herodes Atticus, formed of blocks of hewn stone of vast size. Part of one of its gates also remains; consisting of two round towers, with square basements, supporting pedestals for statues. At a few yards’ distance are the ruins of public baths. “Broken marble soroi lie about;” says the intelligent traveller to whom, in this account, we have been so largely indebted; “soroi of such prodigious size, that their fragments seem as rocks among the Valany oaks covering the soil. But in all that now exists of this devoted city, there is nothing so conspicuous as the edifice, vulgarly termed by the mariners the Palace of Priam; from an erroneous notion, prevalent in the writings of early travellers, that Alexandria Troas was the Ilium of Homer.”
This building has three noble arches in front, and there are many others behind. The stones with which it is constructed are placed without any cement; and the whole appear to have been once coated over with marble. There are, also, the bases of columns, each eight feet in diameter. This building is supposed to have been intended for baths, as a grand terminus of the aqueduct of Atticus.
There are other vestiges, also, of this city, amongst which may be mentioned a series of vaults and subterranean chambers, one beneath another, now serving as sheds for tenders, and herds of goats. Towards the south-west there are remains also of an immense theatre, still in a state of considerable preservation. Its diameter is two hundred and fifty feet, and there is a semicircular range of seats at each extremity. Towards the port, lower down, are marble soroi, and other antiquities of less importance.
From this spot, Dr. Clarke proceeded to an immense tumulus, called after Æsyates, the situation of which, he says, perfectly agrees with the account given of that monument by Strabo. He then descended again into the vale of Troy, and arrived at a village, called Erkessy, in which he found a marble soros, quite entire. Upon it is an inscription in Greek, beautifully cast, and in a very perfect state. “Aurelius Agethopodos Othoniacus, and the son of Aurelius, who was also a Pancratiast, of whom there is a hollow statue in the temple of Smintheus, and here in the Temple of Æsculapius, I have placed this Soros for myself and my dearest father, the afore-written Amelius Paulinus and to my descendants. But if any one shall dare to open this Soros, and lay in it the dead body of any other, or any man’s bones, he shall pay, as a fine to the city of the Troadenses, two thousand five hundred drachms, and to the most sacred Treasury as much more.”
At no great distance from this soros, Dr. Clarke found a village, the inhabitants of which live with great cleanliness in small cottages, and practising the customs of their forefathers, in their hospitality to strangers. They presented him with a medal, found in their village; and they showed him a marble, on which was an inscription in Greek characters, implying, that “Metrodorus of Amphipolis, the son of Timocles, is praised by the senate and people, for his virtue and good-will towards the king Antiochus and Seleucus and the people: he is deemed a benefactor to the state; is to have access to the senate; and to be inscribed into the tribe and fraternity to which he may wish to belong[292].”