His first plan, in 1864, was to visit the fatherland of Ulysses, but this was only a hasty and flying trip, and he was, shortly afterwards, induced to extend his journey to India, China, and Japan. On his return to Europe he spent some time in Paris, but made also, thence, journeys to Greece and the plains of Troy, an account of which, written, it would seem, about 1868, he has given in the first volume of his recent work. This volume contains, inter alia, the result of his studies among the “Cyclopean” works in Argolis, a knowledge of great value to him when he commenced his more important excavations. He seems also, about this period, to have carefully examined the Troad, and to have satisfied himself that Hissarlik was the place at which to commence his excavations. Having married a Greek lady, in every sense a “help-meet” for the work he had set himself to do, he went again to the Troad in the spring of 1870, and, having secured an ample number of labourers, continued his excavations there during the greater part of the period between the autumn of 1871 and the summer of 1873.
It must not be supposed that this work was one of ease or pleasant toil: he had not the patient “Chaldeans” who did Layard’s behests, still less had he Hormuzd Rassam to settle, as a native only can settle, the ever-rising disputes between the Greek and Mussulman “navvies.” Indeed, to secure one pavement from destruction, he had to tell his workmen that by this road “Christ had gone up to visit King Priam”! The cost, too, was very heavy; for he had often 150 men in his employment, and expended, from his own resources, fully £8,000. Is it possible to estimate too highly such exertions towards the ascertainment of the reality or falsity of ancient story, and this, too, by the only thoroughly effectual means, the excavation of sites of traditional importance? Can we withhold our admiration for the labourer, even though his enthusiasm may have led him to believe all he found was Trojan, the golden relics, especially, being those of King Priam? and, after all, what matters the theory of the excavator, so the work he does is well done? As well might we quarrel with Mr. Parker’s labours in Rome, because he has coupled with his most valuable excavations his own, somewhat fanciful, belief in the personality of a Romulus. Every honest excavation, such as those of Dr. Schliemann and Mr. Parker, are so many landmarks recovered from all-destroying time. We can well afford to dispense with or to smile at the fancies of the excavators, so only that a careful record be kept of what the excavations have really revealed.
Dr. Schliemann’s account of his diggings, between the autumn of 1871 and June 17, 1873, has been published in the form of twenty-three letters or memoirs; a mode of narrative the more pleasant that it places the reader au courant with the daily ideas of the discoverer, though, necessarily, causing some repetition and not a few corrections. His Introduction, however, gives a sufficient summary of what he accomplished. With the text he has also provided an atlas of 217 photographic plates of the plans and excavations carried on throughout the whole plain of Troy, together with representations of between three and four thousand individual objects discovered. These photographs—not, we regret to say, from the originals, but from drawings of them—are wholly inadequate to give any satisfactory idea of the beauty or character of the objects themselves.
Dr. Schliemann having, as we have stated, made up his mind[[11]] that the rising ground now called Hissarlik (or fortress) was the site of Old Troy, commenced his diggings there, on a plateau about 80 feet above the level of the plain, with a steep descent to the N.E. and N.W. Above this plateau is a portion of ground 26 feet higher, about 925 feet long by 620 feet wide, which he assumed to be the Pergamum of Homer, or citadel of Priam. If so, beneath and around this Acropolis must have been the second as well as the earlier city. Dr. Schliemann went to work much as miners do when they are “prospecting,” only on a larger scale: he took soundings of the plain till he reached the virgin rock, at a depth never greater than 16 feet, at first meeting only with walls of houses and fragments of pottery of a Greek or even later period. As he found nothing else up to the edge of the Pergamum,[[12]] he concluded that the original Ilium did not spread into the plain, and that its area was accurately defined by the great wall he afterwards found. In short, he concluded that the city had no special Acropolis,[[12]] as feigned by Homer, and that any enlargement of the old town was due to the débris gradually thrown down or accumulated around the base of the small central hill. He adds, rather amusingly, “I venture to hope that the civilized world will not only not be vexed that the town of Priam has shown itself scarcely the twentieth part as large as was to be expected from the statements of the Iliad, but, on the contrary, that, with delight and enthusiasm, it will accept the certainty that Ilium did really exist.”
[11]. Dr. Schliemann has fully stated in the Augsburg Gazette, Sept. 26, 1873, his reasons for accepting Hissarlik for Troy, and for rejecting Bounarbashi and other sites; and his reasons, to an antiquary, are weighty:—1. At Bounarbashi, nothing has been found earlier than potsherds of the sixth century B.C. 2. Sir J. Lubbock, in the so-called tomb of Hector, found nothing earlier than the third century B.C. 3. Von Hahn found neither potsherds nor bricks on the north side of the Balidagh, between the Akropolis (of Gergi) and the springs of Bounarbashi. 4. The sites examined by Clarke and Barker Webb, and that of Ulrichs, presented no remains of man. 5. The “village of the Ilians”—κώμη Ἰλιέων of Demetrius of Skepsis—gave forth nothing earlier than potsherds of the first century B.C. On the other hand, under Hissarlik, have been found all or most of the remains, treasure included, which Dr. Schliemann has secured.
[12]. This word Pergamum or Pergama, which occurs more than once in Asia Minor, notably in the case of the great city of that name, is probably only another form of the πύργος, burg or berg, which runs through so many languages of the Indo-European family. Thus, Sanskr. spurg; Gr. πυργ, originally σφυργος or φυργος. So the Gothic bairg-ahei, mountainous; fairg-uni, mountain. Compare, also, with this, Berge in Thrace, and Perge in Pamphylia. Possibly, the Celtic briga (Brigantes, the dwellers in the hills) is connected with the same root. The Arabs have now adopted the word (see Rénan).
There is nothing specially remarkable in the small size of the “supposed” Troy. It was an ancient custom to build the town round a central Acropolis where possible. So was it with Athens and Mycenæ, with Rome, Carthage and Mount Zion; the ordinary dwellings of the population for centuries being huts or small cottages, like the traditional Tugurium of Romulus, buildings which would, naturally, leave behind them no traces of their former existence. It has been well remarked, that Homer cannot fairly be accused of having invented this Pergamum, as the hill was a natural fact: and that what he really did, was, to indulge his imagination as to the magnificence of the town he grouped on it or in the plain round it.
The little hill of Hissarlik became, therefore, the centre of Dr. Schliemann’s labours, the most productive field of his excavations, and the site where he laid open walls far more ancient than Greek Ilium, with a perfect entrance-gateway and paved road through it, together with many remains of houses, and a marvellous collection of relics, some of great intrinsic value. But the most unexpected discovery was the position of the various remains, proving, as this did, that, at least, four different sets of people had occupied this site, and covered it with their own buildings, in complete unconsciousness that there had been elder races there before them, whose remains were actually under them. The same fact has been noticed, but on a small scale, elsewhere. Thus Roman London lies some sixteen or seventeen feet under the Mansion House or Bank of England; so, too, Layard found successive traces on the mound of Nimrud of Arab, Roman, and Parthian occupation. But such traces are as nothing to what Dr. Schliemann’s works revealed. It was clear that the natural hill of Hissarlik had been, at first, somewhat levelled, being also, in some places, made more secure by a retaining wall, and that, above this, the successive ruins have been heaped up in a solid mass from 46 to 52 feet above the native rock. On this, lastly, Novum Ilium was built. Dr. Schliemann gives a section, whence it appears that, commencing from the existing surface, Greek Ilium occupies about six feet in depth; that at 23 feet below this, Dr. Schliemann’s “Troy of Homer” is reached; and that, under this “Troy,” again, is a third stratum 29 feet thick, the whole human accumulations. The most sceptical person on the subject of “Troy divine” cannot question the accuracy of Dr. Schliemann’s measurements, whatever he may think of his theories. It is manifest that even the stratum immediately under Ilium Novum is essentially prehistoric. Of what date, then, are the still lower strata? Indeed, calculations, on such a point, can as little be relied on as those of Mr. Horner on the alluvium of the Egyptian Delta. There are, however, some matters connected with them that must be noticed from their peculiarity. Thus the super-imposed layers testify to periods of occupation rather than to those of destruction; while the theory of distinct and well-defined stone, bronze, and iron ages completely breaks down, stone implements occurring in all the strata, and even where bronze is abundant. Iron, on the other hand, is almost wholly absent. Thus instruments of stone and of copper occur with ornaments in gold, silver, and even ivory, evidencing, as these do, advance in civilization and, as the cause of this, some interchange of commerce with other nations.
Whatever else, therefore, may be thought of Dr. Schliemann’s researches, it cannot be doubted but that the excavations at Hissarlik form a new chapter in the history of man, and as such [apart from any supposed connection with Homer], are a sufficient reward for his labour and expenditure of capital. It would unquestionably have been better (but who shall control honest enthusiasm?) had he been less ready to invest every discovery he made with some Homeric name; we could have been well free of such pretentious identifications as the Tower of Ilium, the Scæan gates, the Royal Palace, and King Priam’s Treasure; just as, in a similar case, Mr. Parker’s valuable contributions to the early history of Rome are not improved by the revival of the legend of a Romulus and Remus, and of the suckling of these heroes by a she-wolf. Nothing, however, allowing for these slight blemishes, can exceed the interest of Dr. Schliemann’s narrative.
“The excavations,” to quote his own words, “prove that the second nation which built a town on this hill, upon the débris of the first settlers (which is from twenty to thirty feet thick), are the Trojans of whom Homer sings.... The strata of this Trojan débris, which, without exception, bears marks of great heat, consists mainly of red ashes of wood, and rise from five to ten feet above the great wall of Ilion, the double Scæan gate, and the great surrounding wall, the construction of which Homer ascribes to Poseidon and Apollo, and they show that the town was destroyed by a fearful conflagration. How great this heat must have been is clear also from the large slabs of stone of the road leading from the double Scæan gate down to the plain; for when a few months ago I laid this road open, all the slabs appeared as much uninjured as if they had been put down quite recently; but after they had been exposed to the air for a few days the slabs of the upper part of the road, to the extent of some 10 feet, which had been exposed to the heat, began to crumble away, and have now almost disappeared, while those of the lower portion of the road, which had not been touched by the fire, have remained uninjured, and seem to be indestructible. A further proof of the terrible catastrophe is furnished by a stratum of scoriæ of melted lead and copper of a thickness of from ⅕ of an inch to 1⅕ inch, which extends nearly through the whole hill at a depth of from 27 feet to 29 feet.”