I'jgi. ON THE REALITY OF THE JTROJAK WAR. 49 



rota Afia, added to his fine appearance and addrefs, 

 carried off Helen : Being an affair in which the fuperi- 

 ority betwixt Greece and Afia came to be tried, it was 

 no wonder the Trojans would not give her up. The 

 iame caufe, added to their hopes of prevailing ; and 

 thefe, ftrengthened by the death of Achilles, would 

 make them retain her till the end of the war. / 



Caftor and Pollux might be alive when fbe was car- 

 ried off to Troy, but die before the time mentioned 

 in the Iliad ; as the expedition required confiderable, 

 preparation, and feveral towns were taken previous 

 thereto ; for it is faid they took all the towns about, 

 and fought manj' battles during the nine years before. 

 At leaft, Achilles tells the embaffy fent to him, to 

 perfuade him to return, after he had retired in dif- 

 guft. 



" I fack'd twehe ample cities on the main, 



" And t-juelve lay fmoking on the Trojan plain." 



The original calls the lall of thefe eleven, which be- 

 ing more explicit, fhews it was lefs a random guefs ; — • 

 he fpeaks in another place, of beating ^neas, and driv- 

 ing the Trojans before him. — Hercules warred with 

 Troy only ; the Greeks under Agamemnon, with a 

 great number of Afiatic allies. The obje£lion, that if 

 the Greeks were fo powerful, they might have cut off 

 their refources ; and if the walls were fo weak as An- 

 dromache reprefents them, they might have taken the 

 town whenever they were mafters of the field, is not 

 very ftrong. Andromache's account of the danger of 

 the city being taken, is founded on a woman's fears 

 or fondnefs : But Polydamas fays it is impregnable.. 



From their little fkill in furgery, there is no impof- 

 fibility of Achilles dying of a wound in the tendon of 

 the heel, which goes by his name, occafioned by ' an 

 arrow Ihot from Ilus's monuinent, or fome other fimi- 

 lar place, by Paris. — It is immaterial whether Patro- 

 clus had Achilles's armour or not. — His men, with Pa- 

 troclus at their head, were enough to produce all the 



Vol. Ilk f G 



