1. The Peloponnesus, properly so called, bounded by the Isthmus of Corinth. 2. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from PagÆ to NisÆa, and including the above. 3. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from the recess of the CrissÆan Gulf, properly so called, (the Bay of Salona,) to ThermopylÆ, and includes the two first. 4. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from the Ambracic Gulf to ThermopylÆ and the Maliac Gulf, and includes the three former. 5. The peninsula bounded by a line drawn from the Ambracic Gulf to the recess of the Thermaic Gulf, and contains the former four peninsulas. ?e???fa ?a?e?ta? d??[* * * ? ?p?p]?pta? t? ?????? ?a???e??? ped??? ? d?ate??e? * * * * * * ?p? t?? ?p?t?? ?????. Pausanias, b. ix. ch. 19, makes mention of a tumulus covered with trees, near the ruins of Glisas or Glissas, which was the burial-place of Ægialus and his companions, and also of other tumuli. These were probably the ?e???fa d??a, woody hillocks. The obscurity, however, still remains. The myths relating to the Curetes abound with different statements and confusion. The following are the only points to be borne in mind. The Curetes belong to the most ancient times of Greece, and probably are to be counted among the first inhabitants of Phrygia. They were the authors and expositors of certain religious rites, which they celebrated with dances. According to mythology they played a part at the birth of Jupiter. They were sometimes called IdÆan Dactyli. Hence their name was given to the ministers of the worship of the Great Mother among the Phrygians, which was celebrated with a kind of religious frenzy. The Curetes were also called Corybantes. Hence also arose the confusion between the religious rites observed in Crete, Phrygia, and Samothrace. Again, on the other hand, the Curetes have been mistaken for an Ætolian people, bearing the same name. Heyne, Not. ad Virgil. Æn. iii. 130. Religion. et Sacror. cum furore peract. Orig. Comm. Soc. R. Scient. Gotting. vol. viii. Dupuis, origin de tous les cultes, tom. 2. Sainte Croix MÉm. pour servir À la religion SecrÈte, &c., Job. Guberleth. Diss. philol. de Myster. deorum Cabir. 1703. FrÈret. Recher. pour servir À l’histoire des Cyclopes, &c. Acad. des Inscript. &c., vol. xxiii. His. pag. 27. 1749. “To whom the mysteries of the gods are known, By these his life he sanctifies, And, deep imbibed their chaste and cleaning lore, Hallows his soul for converse with the skies. Enraptur’d ranging the wild mountains o’er, The mighty mother’s orgies leading, He his head with ivy shading, His light spear wreath’d with ivy twine, To Bacchus holds the rites divine. Haste then, ye BacchÆ, haste, Attend your god, the son of heaven’s high king. From Phrygia’s mountains wild and waste To beauteous-structur’d Greece your Bacchus bring ******** O ye Curetes, friendly band, You, the blest natives of Crete’s sacred land, Who tread those groves, which, dark’ning round, O’er infant Jove their shelt’ring branches spread, The Corybantes in their caves profound, The triple crest high waving on their head, This timbrel framed, whilst clear and high Swelled the Bacchic symphony. The Phrygian pipe attemp’ring sweet, Their voices to respondence meet, And placed in Rhea’s hands. The frantic satyrs to the rites advance, The BacchÆ join the festive bands, And raptur’d lead the Trieteric dance.” Pinguia CÆÆ, Ter centum nivei tondent dumeta jurenci. Virg. Geor. i. 14, 15.
The arguments contained in this paragraph on the whole appear to me strange; they rest on a basis which it is difficult to comprehend; they establish explicitly a proposition which disagrees with what the author has said elsewhere, and lastly they present an enormous geographical error. It will therefore be useful to the reader to explain, as far as I understand it, the argument of our author. 1. The exact form of the chlamys is unknown to us, but it was such, that its greatest breadth was to be found, if not exactly in, at least near, the middle of its length. The Habitable Earth being of the form of a Chlamys, its greatest breadth would be found about the middle of its greatest length. 2. The greatest length of the Habitable World being 70,000 stadia, its greatest breadth ought to be found at the distance of 35,000 stadia from its eastern or western extremity, but this greatest breadth is only 30,000 stadia, and it does not extend, on the north, beyond the parallel of the mouth of the Hyrcanian Sea. B. ii. 3. The meridian which passes at the distance of 35,000 stadia from the eastern or western extremities of the Habitable Earth, is that which, drawn from the mouth of the Hyrcanian Sea to the Northern Ocean, and prolonged in another direction through the mouth of the Persian Gulf to the sea called ErythrÆan, would pass through the city Artemita. Consequently it is on the meridian of Artemita that we must look for the greatest breadth of the Habitable Earth. 4. On this same meridian, we must reckon from the parallel of the last habitable country in the south to the mouth of the Persian Gulf, about 8000 stadia; then from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Artemita, 8000 stadia; and from Artemita to the bottom of the Hyrcanian Sea, 8000 stadia: total 24,000 stadia. 5. It being established that the breadth of the Habitable Earth is 30,000 stadia, and not to extend it northwards beyond the parallel of the mouth of the Hyrcanian Sea, where it communicates with the Northern Ocean, the distance to this point from the bottom of this same sea must be calculated at 6000 stadia. Du Theil. The Trojans, properly so called, occupied the basin of the Scamander (Menderes-Tschai). The Cilicians, commanded by Eetion, occupied the territory which surrounds the present Gulf of Adramytti. The Cilicians of Mynes were to the south of the above. The Leleges extended along a part of the northern coast of the Gulf of Adramytti, from Cape Baba. The Dardanians were above the Trojans, and the chain of Ida. On the north, extending on both sides of the Hellespont, were the people of Arisbe, Sestos, and Abydos. The people of Adrasteia occupied the Propontis, as far as the Granicus. The Lycians, the country beyond, as far as the Æsepus and Zeleia. Strabo mentioned a ninth (c. i. § 2) principality subject to Priam; he does not mention it by name, or rather it is wanting in the text. M. de Choiseul-Gouffier, (Voyage Pittoresque de la GrÈce, vol. ii.,) with much probability, thinks that this principality was that of the island of Lesbos. Gossellin. The other 30 stadia, which, according to Strabo, or rather according to Demetrius of Scepsis, was the distance from New Ilium to the town of the Ilienses, are equal to 2440 toises, and terminate at the most eastern edge of the table-land of Tchiblak, in a spot where ruins of a temple and other edifices are seen. Thus there is nothing to prevent our taking this place for the site of the town of the Ilienses, and this is the opinion of many modern travellers. But did this town occupy the same ground as the ancient Ilium, as Demetrius of Scepsis believed? Strabo thinks not, and we shall hereafter see the objections he has to offer against the opinion of Demetrius.—Gossellin. Groskurd reads eta?? before t. e. a., changes the construction of the sentence, and reads the letter ? instead of e. His translation is as follows: “Both-mentioned plains are separated from each other by a long neck of land between the above-mentioned arms, which takes its commencement from the present Ilium and unites with it, extending itself in a straight line as far as Cebrenia, and forms with the arms on each side the letter ?.” The topography of the plain of Troy and its neighbourhood is not yet sufficiently known to be able to distinguish all the details given by Demetrius. It appears only that he took the Tchiblak for the SimoÏs, and placed the plain of Troy to the right of the present MenderÉ, which he called the Scamander. This opinion, lately renewed by Major Rennell, presents great and even insurmountable difficulties when we endeavour to explain on this basis the principal circumstances of the Iliad. It must be remembered that in the time of Demetrius the remembrance of the position of ancient Troy was entirely lost, and that this author constantly reasoned on the hypothesis, much contested in his time, that the town of the Ilienses corresponded with that of ancient Ilium. Observations on the Topography of the plain of Troy by James Rennell.—Gossellin. But it is difficult to conceive how, at so distant a period and among a people half savage, a space of ground so large and without water could be entirely occupied by a town, whose power scarcely extended beyond 25 leagues. On the other hand, as the exterior circuit of this mountain is more than 5500 toises, it is not to be conceived how Homer, so exact in his description of places, should have represented Achilles and Hector, already fatigued by a long-continued battle, as making an uninterrupted course of about seven leagues round this mountain, before commencing in single combat. It appears to me therefore that the Troy of Homer must have covered a much less space of ground than is generally supposed, and according to all appearances this space was bounded by a hillock, on which is now the village of Bounar-bachi. This hillock is about 700 or 800 toises in circumference; it is isolated from the rest of the mountain; and warriors in pursuing one another could easily make the circuit. This would not prevent Pergamus from being the citadel of Ilium, but it was separated from it by an esplanade, which served as a means of communication between the town and the fortress.—Gossellin. “Who has not heard of Troy, the greatest City of those times, and sovereign of all Asia, that when once destroyed by The Greeks it remained for ever uninhabited?” Modern travellers accuse Demetrius with having confounded the Scamander with the SimoÏs. The SimoÏs they say rises in Cotylus, (Kas-dagh,) as also the Granicus, (Oustrola,) and the Æsepus, (Satal-dere,) but the sources of the Scamander are below, and to the W. of Ida, near the village called by the Turks Bounar-bachi, which signifies the head of the source. If it is an error, Demetrius is not alone responsible for it, as Hellenicus (Schol. in Iliad xxi. 242) also says that the Scamander had its source in Mount Ida itself. Both probably rested on the authority of Homer, who places the source of the Scamander in Ida. They did not, however, observe that Homer employs the expression ?p’ ?da??? ????? in a more extensive sense.—Du Theil. In the time of Homer these two rivers united together and discharged themselves into the sea by the same mouth: but the course of the Scamander has been changed for a long time, since, according to Pliny, (v. c. 33,) a part of its waters spread themselves over a marsh, and the remainder flowed unto the ÆgÆan Sea, between Alexandria-Troas and Sigeum. This ancient author therefore gave to the little river (which he called Paloescamander, the old Scamander) exactly the same course which the stream Bounar-bachi still follows. This change of direction in the course of the river appears to me to have been anterior to the time of Demetrius of Scepsis, for this alone can explain his error. For, no longer finding a stream which runs on the left of the present MenderÉ, and which might represent the Scamander, he thought proper to transfer this latter name to the SimoÏs, and to look for the site of the Ilium of Homer, as also of the plain which was the scene of the combats described by the poet, on the right of this river. Thence he is persuaded that the town of the Ilienses occupied the same site as the ancient Ilium, and that the stream of the Tschiblak was the SimoÏs. I must remark that the MenderÉ is a torrent, the waters of which fail during a great part of the year, whilst the stream of the Bounar-bachi always continues to flow. This advantage is probably the reason why it preserved the name of Scamander to the sea, although it ran into the bed of the SimoÏs and was far inferior to this torrent in the length of its course. Hence it may be perceived how the name of Scamander, now changed into that of MenderÉ, has remained attached to this ancient mouth, how ultimately it was given to the whole course of the SimoÏs, and how Demetrius of Scepsis was led into error by the change in the course of the true Scamander, and by the transfer of its name to the SimoÏs.—Voyage Pittoresque de la GrÈce par M. de Choiseul Gouffier. Le Voyage dans la Troad, par M. Lechevalier. The Topography of Troy, W. Gell.—Gossellin. The town called Lamponia by Strabo is called Lamponium by Hellanicus and Herodotus. Inarime Jovis imperiis imposta TyphoËo.Æn. ix. 716. The modern name is Ischia. END OF VOL. II. JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY. |