By the GRE E -K S. 47 



But there would have been no place for the compliment, if he 

 could not have committed the fault. Be this as it may, the 

 allegory is certainly of a very ancient date, and proves, that 

 the authors of it did not believe HOMER'S account of the Tro- 

 jan war. Indeed, it goes further : It proves, they did not be- 

 lieve there had been a Trojan war at all ; in fupport of which 

 opinion, much may be faid and has been faid *. 



2fy, IT is clear that HERODOTUS difbelieved, or very much 

 doubted the Greek account of the Trojan war, That very in- 

 telligent and inquifitive hiftorian informs us f, That he afked 

 the Egyptian priefts, whether what the Greeks alleged to have 

 happened at Troy was a foolijh Jlory J ? And he fays they told 

 him, that PARIS and HELEN, in their pafTage from Sparta to 

 Troy, were overtaken by a florm, which drove them to Egypt, 

 where fome of their fervants having difclofed the crime they 

 had committed, PROTEUS, who then reigned at Memphis, feized 

 and detained their perfons, and the effects which they had 

 brought with them : That when the Greeks came before Troy,, 

 and demanded back HELEN and her effects, the Trojans an- 

 fwered, that they had neither, both being in Egypt ; but the 

 Greeks, not believing this, befieged the town, and took it ; and 

 then MEN EL A us, finding that what they had faid was true, pro- 

 ceeded to Egypt, where his wife and goods were reftored to him. 

 HERODOTUS then quotes feveral paffages of the Iliad to prove, 

 that HOMER knew HELEN was not in Troy, but in Egypt, and 

 had perverted the fact for the fake of his poetry. He adds, 

 that he, too, fubfcribes to what was faid with regard to HELEN'S 

 not being in Troy, for this reafon, that it was impomble to be- 

 lieve PRIAM fo devoid of underftanding, as that he would have 



expofed 



* See PERNETY'S Fables Egyptiennes et Grecques devoilees, torn. ii. And that 

 trie hiftory of the Trojan war was no more than an allegory is taken for granted by 

 GEBELIN DE LA Coon, in his Monde Primitif, ii. 400. j and by BRYANT, in his My- 

 thology. 



f Lib. 2. J M*Ties Tuye;. 



