Ἔστι δέ τις προπάροιθε πόλιος αἰπεῖα κολώνη,
Ἐν πεδίῳ ἀπάνευθε, περίδρομος ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα,
Τὴν ἤτοι ἄνδρες Βατίειαν κικλήσκουσιν,
Ἀθάνατοι δέ τε σῆμα πολυσκάρθμοιο Μυρίνης.
Ἔνθα τότε Τρῶές τε διέκριθεν ἠδ’ ἐπίκουροι.
‘Before the city stands a lofty mound,
Each way encircled by the open plain;
Men call it Batiea; but the Gods
The tomb of swift Myrina; mustered there
The Trojans and Allies their troops arrayed.’
M. Nikolaïdes gathers from this, that in front of Ilium there was a very high hill, upon which the Trojan army of 50,000 men were marshalled in battle-array. I, however, do not interpret the above lines by supposing that the mound of Batiea was large and spacious, nor that 50,000 were marshalled upon it in battle-array. On the contrary, when Homer uses the word ‘αἰπύς’ for height, he always means ‘steep and lofty,’ and upon a steep and lofty height 50,000 Trojans could not possibly have been marshalled. Moreover, the poet expressly says that the steep hill is called by the gods the tomb of the nimble-limbed Myrina, while ‘Batiea,’ the name which men gave the hill, can signify only ‘the tomb of Batiea.’ For, according to Apollodorus (iii. 12), Batiea was the daughter of the Trojan King Teucer, and married Dardanus, who had immigrated from Samothrace, and who eventually became the founder of Troy.[180] Myrina was one of the Amazons who had undertaken the campaign against Troy.[181] Homer can never have wished us to believe that 50,000 warriors were marshalled upon a steep and lofty tumulus, upon whose summit scarcely ten men could stand; he only wished to indicate the locality where the Trojan army was assembled; they were therefore marshalled round or beside the tumulus.
“M. Nikolaïdes goes on to say, that such a hill still exists in front of Bunarbashi, whereas there is no hill whatever, not even a mound, before Ilium Novum. My answer to this is that in front of the heights of Bunarbashi there are none of those conical tumuli called ‘σήματα’ by Homer, that however there must have been one in front of Hissarlik, where I am digging, but it has disappeared, as do all earthen mounds when they are brought under the plough.[182] Thus, for instance, M. Nikolaïdes, during his one day’s residence in the Plain of Troy in the year 1867, still found the tumulus of Antilochus near the Scamander, for he speaks of it in his work published in the same year. I, too, saw the same tumulus in August, 1868, but even then it had considerably decreased in size, for it had just begun to be ploughed over, and now it has long since disappeared.
“M. Nikolaïdes says that I am excavating in New Ilium. My answer is that the city, whose depths I am investigating, was throughout antiquity, nay from the time of its foundation to that of its destruction, always simply called Ilium, and that no one ever called it New Ilium, for everyone believed that the city stood on the site of the Homeric Ilium, and that it was identical with it. The only person who ever doubted its identity with Ilium, the city of Priam, was Demetrius of Scepsis, who maintained that the famous old city had stood on the site of the village of the Ilians (Ἰλιέων κώμη), which lies 30 stadia (3 geog. miles) to the south-east. This opinion was afterwards shared by Strabo, who however, as he himself admits, had never visited the Plain of Troy; hence he too calls the town ‘τὸ σημερινὸν Ἴλιον,’ to distinguish it from the Homeric Ilium. My last year’s excavations on the site of the Ἰλιέων κώμη have, however, proved that the continuous elevation on one side of it, which appeared to contain the ruins of great town walls, contains in reality nothing but mere earth. Wherever I investigated the site of the ancient village, I always found the primary soil at a very inconsiderable depth, and nowhere the slightest trace of a town ever having stood there. Hence Demetrius of Scepsis and Strabo, who adopted his theory, were greatly mistaken. The town of Ilium was only named Ilium Novum about 1000 years after its complete destruction; in fact this name was only given to it in the year 1788 by Lechevalier, the author of the theory that the Homeric Ilium stood on the heights of Bunarbashi. Unfortunately, however, as his work and map of the Plain of Troy prove, Lechevalier only knew of the town from hearsay; he had never taken the trouble to come here himself, and hence he has committed the exceedingly ludicrous mistake, in his map, of placing his New Ilium 4¼ miles from Hissarlik, on the other side of the Scamander, near Kum-kaleh.
“I wonder where M. Nikolaïdes obtained the information that the city which he calls Ilium Novum was founded by Astypalæus in the sixth century B.C. It seems that he simply read in Strabo (XIII. 602), that the Astypalæans, living in Rhœteum, built on the Simoïs the town of Polion (which name passed over into Polisma), which, as it had no natural fortifications, was soon destroyed, and that he has changed this statement of Strabo’s by making the Astypalæans build Ilium Novum in the sixth century B.C. In the following sentence Strabo says that the town (Ilium) arose under the dominion of the Lydians, which began in 797 B.C. Whence can M. Nikolaïdes have obtained the information that the foundation of the town was made in the sixth century?
“M. Nikolaïdes further says that Homer certainly saw the successors of Æneas ruling in Troy, else he could not have put the prophecy of that dynasty into the mouth of Poseidon.[183] I also entertained the same opinion, until my excavations proved it to be erroneous, and showed undoubtedly that Troy was completely destroyed, and rebuilt by another people.
“As a further proof that the site of the Homeric Ilium was on the heights of Bunarbashi, M. Nikolaïdes says that the Trojans placed a scout on the tumulus of Æsyetes, to watch when the Achæans would march forth from their ships, and he thinks that, on account of the short distance from the Hellespont, this watching would have been superfluous and unreasonable if, as I say, Troy had stood on the site of Ilium, which M. Nikolaïdes calls Ilium Novum. I am astonished at this remark of M. Nikolaïdes, for, as he can see from his own map of the Plain of Troy, the distance from hence to the Hellespont is nearly four miles, or 1½ hour’s walk, whereas no human eye can recognise men at a distance of 1 mile, much less at a distance of four. M. Nikolaïdes, however, believes the tumulus of Æsyetes to be the mound called Udjek-Tépé, which is 8 miles or 3½ hours’ journey from the Hellespont. But at such a distance the human eye could scarcely see the largest ships, and could in no case recognise men.
“In like manner, the assertion of M. Nikolaïdes, that there is no spring whatever near Hissarlik, is utterly wrong. It would be unfortunate for me if this were true, for I have constantly to provide my 130 workmen with fresh water to drink; but, thank God, close to my excavations, immediately below the ruins of the town-wall, there are two beautiful springs, one of which is even a double one. M. Nikolaïdes is also wrong in his assertion that the Scamander does not flow, and never has flowed, between Hissarlik and the Hellespont; for, as already stated, the Scamander must at one time have occupied the large and splendid bed of the Kalifatli-Asmak, which runs into the Hellespont near Cape Rhœteum, and which is not given in the map of M. Nikolaïdes.
“Lastly, he is completely wrong in his statement that the hill of Hissarlik, where I am digging, lies at the extreme north-eastern end of the Plain of Troy; for, as everyone may see by a glance at the map, the Plain extends still further to the north-east an hour and a half in length and half an hour in breadth, and only ends at the foot of the heights of Renkoï and the ancient city of Ophrynium.