^8 TABLEAU de la PLAINE de TROTE. 



Agamemnon, to convince Achilles that:, even without his 

 afliflance, vi<ftory might be obtained, caufes the army to march 

 out of the camp, and advance towards the city. Hitherto the 

 Trojans had kept clofe within their walls, following the advice 

 of their old men*, vsrho faw plainly, that, if a fiege fhould ac- 

 tually take place, the Greeks could make little impreffion on the 

 town : for the firft rudiments of the arts of attack were then 

 hardly known. Encouraged, however, it flaould feem, by intel- 

 ligence of the divifion in the Grecian army, the Trojans quitted 

 the city, and met the Greeks in the field ;— * new gratification 

 to the proud fpirit of Achilles, that now, for the firfl time, 

 when it was known he w^as not with the arniy, the Trojans 

 fliould venture out into the plain f . 



The two armies met. Four principal battles are defcribed in 

 the Iliad. The firft, (the fubjed: of our prefent inveftigation), on 



the 



felf then to be milled bj refpefl: for PoFE and Wood, fo far as to renounce my own 

 ideas, and to mould, according to the reprefentations of thefe gentlemen, the views 

 I had drawn from Homer himfelf. I foon found, however, that I had trufled fo 

 bad guides, and at once refolved, laying afide all fecondary aids, to attempt, from the 

 defcriptions given in the poem itfelf, a (ketch of the Topography of the Iliad, fuch 

 as Homer exhibits it. This Eflay I now prefent to the public. I had for a long 

 time thrown it afide, when its coincidence with the information colledted by M. 

 Chevalier on the fubjefl, induced me to revife it, and now inclines me to fubmit 

 it, for further inveftigation, to the friends of the poet. Amendment after this wil} 

 be an eafy tafk. H. 



* Iliad, XV. 721, &c. The fage Poltdamas, afterwards, likewife, when 

 the defign of an attack upon the camp feemed likely to mifgive, gave his advice ra- 

 ther to retire again within the city, and take refuge, as formerly, behind the walls. 

 But the ralh Hector would not confent, (XVIH. 266. &c.). Unqueftionably the 

 long fiege mull have proved extremely harrafling. The provifions, as well as the 

 treafure, of Priam were exhaufted, as Hector himfelf urges. (Ibid. 288.). H. 



f Once only Hector had ventured beyond the Scsean Gate, as far as the beech 

 tree ; but on that occaiion he with diflSculty efcaped from AcHiLres. (II. IX. 35a, 

 fee). H. 



( 



