Sir,
To your Geographical Queries, I answer as follows.
In sundry passages of the new Testament, in the Acts of the Apostles, and Epistles of S. Paul, we meet with the word Troas; how he went from Troas to Philippi in Macedonia, from thence unto Troas again: how he remained seven days in that place; from thence on foot to Assos, whither the Disciples had sailed from Troas, and there, taking him in, made their Voyage unto Cæsarea.
Now, whether this Troas be the name of a City or a certain Region seems no groundless doubt of yours: for that ’twas sometimes taken in the signification of some Country, is acknowledged by Ortelius, Stephanus and Grotius; and it is plainly set down by Strabo, that a Region of Phrygia in Asia minor was so taken in ancient times; and that, at the Trojan War, all the Territory which comprehended the nine Principalities subject unto the King of Ilium, Τροίη λεγομένη, was called by the name of Troja. And this might seem sufficiently to salve the intention of the description, when he came or went from Troas, that is, some part of that Region; and will otherwise seem strange unto many how he should be said to go or come from that City which all Writers had laid in the Ashes about a thousand years before.
All which notwithstanding, since we reade in the Text a particular abode of seven days, and such particulars as leaving of his Cloak, Books and Parchments at Troas: And that S. Luke seems to have been taken in to the Travels of S. Paul in this place, where he begins in the Acts to write in the first person, this may rather seem to have been some City or special Habitation, than any Province or Region without such limitation.
Now that such a City there was, and that of no mean note, is easily verified from historical observation. For though old Ilium was anciently destroyed, yet was there another raised by the relicts of that people, not in the same place, but about thirty Furlongs westward, as is to be learned from Strabo.
Of this place Alexander in his expedition against Darius took especial notice, endowing it with sundry Immunities, with promise of greater matters at his return from Persia; inclined hereunto from the honour he bore unto Homer, whose earnest Reader he was, and upon whose Poems, by the help of Anaxarchus and Callisthenes, he made some observations. As also much moved hereto upon the account of his cognation with the Æacides and Kings of Molossus, whereof Andromache the Wife of Hector was Queen. After the death of Alexander, Lysimachus surrounded it with a Wall, and brought the inhabitants of the neighbour Towns unto it, and so it bore the name of Alexandria; which, from Antigonus, was also called Antigonia, according to the inscription of that famous Medal in Goltsius, Colonia Troas Antigonia Alexandrea, Legio vicesima prima.
When the Romans first went into Asia against Antiochus ’twas but a Κωμόπολις and no great City; but, upon the Peace concluded, the Romans much advanced the same. Fimbria, the rebellious Roman, spoiled it in the Mithridatick War, boasting that he had subdued Troy in eleven days which the Grecians could not take in almost as many years. But it was again rebuilt and countenanced by the Romans, and became a Roman Colony, with great immunities conferred on it; and accordingly it is so set down by Ptolomy. For the Romans, deriving themselves from the Trojans, thought no favour too great for it; especially Julius Cæsar, who, both in imitation of Alexander, and for his own descent from Julus, of the posterity of Æneas, with much passion affected it, and, in a discontented humour,[273] was once in mind to translate the Roman wealth unto it; so that it became a very remarkable place, and was, in Strabo’s time, ἐλλογίμων πόλεων, one of the noble Cities of Asia.
And, if they understood the prediction of Homer in reference unto the Romans, as some expound it in Strabo, it might much promote their affection unto that place; which being a remarkable prophecy, and scarce to be parallel’d in Pagan story, made before Rome was built, and concerning the lasting Reign of the progeny of Æneas, they could not but take especial notice of it. For thus is Neptune made to speak, when he saved Æneas from the fury of Achilles.
Verum agite hunc subito præsenti à morte trahamus