The first country which presents itself on the sea-coast is the Troad.[1305] Although it is deserted, and covered with ruins, yet it is so celebrated as to furnish a writer with no ordinary excuse for expatiating on its history. But we ought not only to be excused, but encouraged, for the reader should not impute the fault of prolixity to us, but to those whose curiosity and desire of information respecting the celebrated places of antiquity is to be gratified. The prolixity is greater than it would be otherwise, from the great number of nations, both Greeks and Barbarians, who have occupied the country, and from the disagreement among writers, who do not relate the same things of the same persons and places, nor even do they express themselves with clearness. Among these in particular is Homer, who suggests occasions for conjecture in the greatest part of his local descriptions. We are therefore to examine what the poet and other writers advance, premising a summary description of the nature of the places.
2. The coast of the Propontis extends from Cyzicene and the places about the Æsepus and Granicus[1306] as far as Abydos, and Sestos.[1307] Between Abydos and Lectum[1308] is the country about Ilium, and Tenedos and Alexandreia Troas.[1309] Above all these is the mountain Ida, extending as far as Lectum. From Lectum to the river Caïcus[1310] and the Canæ mountains as they are called is the district comprising Assus,[1311] Adramyttium,[1312] Atarneus,[1313] Pitane,[1314] and the Elaïtic bay, opposite to all which places lies the island Lesbos.[1315] Next follows the country about Cyme[1316] as far as Hermus,[1317] and Phocæa,[1318] where Ionia begins, and Æolis terminates. Such then is the nature of the country.
The poet implies that it was the Trojans chiefly who were divided into eight or even nine bodies of people, each forming a petty princedom, who had under their sway the places about Æsepus, and those about the territory of the present Cyzicene, as far as the river Caïcus. The troops of auxiliaries are reckoned among the allies.
3. The writers subsequent to Homer do not assign the same boundaries, but introduce other names, and a greater number of territorial divisions. The Greek colonies were the cause of this; the Ionian migration produced less change, for it was further distant from the Troad, but the Æolian colonists occasioned it throughout, for they were dispersed over the whole of the country from Cyzicene as far as the Caïcus, and occupied besides the district between the Caïcus and the river Hermus. It is said that the Æolian preceded the Ionian migration four generations, but it was attended with delays, and the settlement of the colonies took up a longer time. Orestes was the leader of the colonists, and died in Arcadia. He was preceded by his son Penthilus, who advanced as far as Thrace, sixty years[1319] after the Trojan war, about the time of the return of the Heracleidæ to Peloponnesus. Then Archelaus the son of Penthilus conducted the Æolian colonies across the sea to the present Cyzicene, near Dascylium. Gras his youngest son proceeded as far as the river Granicus, and, being provided with better means, transported the greater part of those who composed the expedition to Lesbos, and took possession of it.
On the other side, Cleuas, the son of Dorus, and Malaus, who were descendants of Agamemnon, assembled a body of men for an expedition about the same time as Penthilus, but the band of Penthilus passed over from Thrace into Asia before them; while the rest consumed much time near Locris, and the mountain Phricius. At last however they crossed the sea, and founded Cyme, to which they gave the name of Phriconis, from Phricius, the Locrian mountain.
4. The Æolians then were dispersed over the whole country, which we have said the poet calls the Trojan country. Later writers give this name to the whole, and others to a part, of Æolis; and so, with respect to Troja, some writers understand the whole, others only a part, of that country, not entirely agreeing with one another in anything.
According to Homer, the commencement of the Troad is at the places on the Propontis, reckoning it from the Æsepus. According to Eudoxus, it begins from Priapus, and Artace, situated in the island of the Cyziceni opposite to Priapus, and thus he contracts the boundaries [of the Troad]. Damastes contracts them still more by reckoning its commencement from Parium.[1320] He extends the Troad as far as Lectum. But different writers assign different limits to this country. Charon of Lampsacus diminishes its extent by three hundred stadia more, by reckoning its commencement from Practius, for this is the distance between Parium and Practius, but protracts it to Adramyttium. It begins, according to Scylax of Caryanda, at Abydos. There is the same diversity of opinion respecting the boundaries of Æolis. Ephorus reckons its extent from Abydos to Cyme, but different writers compute it in different ways.
5. The situation of the country actually called Troja is best marked by the position of Ida, a lofty mountain, looking to the west, and to the western sea, but making a slight bend to the north and towards the northern coast. This latter is the coast of the Propontis, extending from the straits near Abydos to the Æsepus, and to the territory of Cyzicene. The western sea is the exterior (part of the) Hellespont, and the Ægæan Sea.
Ida has many projecting parts like feet, and resembles in figure a tarantula, and is bounded by the following extreme points, namely, the promontory[1321] at Zeleia, and that called Lectum; the former terminates in the inland parts a little above Cyzicene (to the Cyziceni belongs the present Zeleia), and Lectum projects into the Ægæan Sea, and is met with in the coasting voyage from Tenedos to Lesbos.
“They (namely, Somnus and Juno) came, says Homer, to Ida, abounding with springs, the nurse of wild beasts, to Lectum where first they left the sea,”[1322]