Upon this house, by the side of the double gate, upon Ilium's Great Tower, at the edge of the western slope of the Acropolis, sat Priam, the seven elders of the city, and Helen; and this is the scene of the most splendid passage in the Iliad:
"Attending there on aged Priam, sat
The Elders of the city; . . .
All these were gathered at the Scæan Gates.
. . . so on Ilion's Tower
Sat the sage chiefs and counselors of Troy.
Helen they saw, as to the Tower she came."
From this spot the company surveyed the whole plain, and saw at the foot of the Acropolis the Trojan and the Achæan armies face to face, about to settle their agreement to let the war be decided by a single combat between Paris and Menelaus.
"Upon Seamander's flowery mead they stood
Unnumbered as the vernal leaves and flowers."
The description which Homer gives of the Tower of Ilium, and the incidents connected with it, corresponds so closely to the tower which Dr. Schliemann found that it leaves no doubt that the two are identical.
WONDERFUL VASES OF TERRA-COTTA. (From the Palace of Priam, at 24¼ feet.)[ToList]
"Now, with regard to the objects found in these houses, I must first of all mention having discovered, at a depth of twenty-six feet, in the Palace of Priam, a splendid and brilliant brown vase, twenty-four and one-fourth inches high, with a figure of the tutelar goddess of Troy, that is, with her owl's head, two breasts, a splendid necklace, indicated by an engraved pattern, a very broad and beautifully engraved girdle, and other very artistic decorations; there are no arms, nor are there any indications of them. Unfortunately this exquisite vase has suffered from the weight of stones which lay upon it. No. 4 resembles an owl's beak, and especially as this is seen between the ear-shaped ornaments, it was doubtless intended to represent the image of the owl with upraised wings on each side of the vases, which image received a noble appearance from the splendid lid with a coronet. I give a drawing of the largest vase of this type, which was found a few days ago in the royal palace at a depth of from twenty-eight to twenty-nine and one-half feet; on the top of it I have placed the bell-shaped lid with a coronet, which was discovered close by and appears to have belonged to it.