60 T ROT not taken 



at lead. If fo, it cannot be believed, that they would have 

 made a large breach in their wall, when the enemy was fo near. 

 But it would be improper to dwell longer here. Since the 

 town, it is admitted, was not taken by force, and fince the flra- 

 tagem by which it is alleged to have been taken is abfurd and 

 impracticable, the fair conclufion is, that it was not taken at 

 all, and that we mould have read the r.epulfe of the Greeks in 

 verfe, if time had not envied us the works of the poets of 

 Troy. 



LET us now fee what happened, according to the Greek wri- 

 ters, after Troy was, as they pretend, taken and facked. If the 

 Greeks had been, in reality, victorious, it is natural to fuppofe 

 that they would have returned home in a body, in good order, 

 obferving due difcipline and obedience to their general. But, 

 inftead of doing fo, HOMER tells us *, that they quarrelled 

 among themfelves, differed about the courfe they mould fleer j 

 that fome went one way, fome another, and that feveral were 

 fhipwrecked. 



BUT this is not all : If the Greeks had been, in reality, vic- 

 torious, thofe who returned would have been received as con- 

 querors, with open arms by their families, and with acclama- 

 tions by their fubjecls. But the re verfe of this confefledly hap- 

 pened. AGAMEMNON, their captain-general, upon his arrival, 

 was flain in his own houfe, by a villain who had debauched his 

 wife in his abfence. Would fuch have been his fate, had he ap- 

 peared at the head of an army of conquerors ? And not only was 

 he himfelf flain, but, according to HOMER, all thofe who return- 

 ed with him ; yet this exploit was performed, he fays, byyEcisTH us, 

 with no more than twenty men ; and he reigned feven years in 

 AGAMEMNON'S ftead f, till he was afTaffinated, in his turn, by 

 ORESTES. DIOMED was foon driven from his country, and 

 NEOPTOLEMUS from Peloponnefus ; and, according to the ac- 

 count of the former in VIRGIL, all who were concerned in the 



expedition 



* Odyff. iii. 136. f Ibid. iv. 530.. 



