And on the Trojan Plain. 157 
tions in asemi-barbarous state, can send forth 
larger armies than when more civilized. But 
numbers are easily exaggerated, and most 
probably are so in the Thad; and this no more 
invalidates the truth of the account, than the 
contradictory statements and overgrown cal- 
culations of the forces under Darius and 
Xerxes make us doubt the reality of their 
invasions. 
As to the duration of the siege, it was, 
perhaps, the acquisition of plunder, as much 
as the quarrel of Menelaus, which detained 
the Greeks so long fromhome. Achilles says, 
“T have destroyed 
«“welve cities with my fleet, and twelve, 
save one, 
“ On foot contending on the plains of Troy. 
They were, therefore, engaged in pira- 
tical excursions, which probably carried them 
to a distance, and detained themlong. If the 
duration of the siege is an improbable cir- 
cumstance in the account, the history is, 
however, perfectly consistent with itself, and 
to a degree which strongly confirms its truth. 
The Greeks we find had courts of justice, 
forum, and altars, established in the fleet, from 
which it is fair to conclude, that they had 
been stationary for sometime. Agamemnon, 
