82 TABLEAU de la PLAINE de TROTE. 



No. II. (p. 73.)- 



Mr Heyne's Note, additional to Mr Dalzel's, on Achilles's 

 Pur/uit of Hectok. (Iliad, XXII. 165.). 



LONG as this note has been *, I find it neceflary flill to fub- 

 join another. We ought, I think, to take up the fubjedl in this 

 way. Here, as frequently happens in regard to Homer, two 

 diflin<5l queftions occur : i. How the Ancients underftood Ho- 

 mer ? 2. How he may SL.nd /hould be underftood ? 



Unquestionably the ancients often underftood their Ho- 

 mer furprifingly ill ; and in the inftance before us it may very 

 well have happened that they miftook his meaning. His com- 

 mentators have conftantly been deficient in point of acquaint- 

 ance with the topography of the Troad. Seldom was this rug- 

 ged coaft vifited by travellers, as no great road either led to or 

 run through it. Over the precipices of Mount Ida it was hardly 

 pofiible that there fhould lie any much frequented path. To 

 the prefent hour this coaft continues to be but rarely vifited. 

 Thofe tracfls only are known to us through which caravans tra- 

 vel. Even where an accurate acquaintance with the topography 

 of the country might have been moft confidently looked for, 

 in Strabo for inftance, we find nothing more than an abridg- 

 ment of the accounts of Demetrius of Scepfis ; and that this 

 laft mentioned author, in his examination of the groundy car- 

 ried throughout in hi« mind a preconceived hypothefis, is evi- 

 dent in what relates to the fountains of the Simois and Scaman- 

 der. This may perhaps have been the cafe too, when he aifert- 



edr 



* See the Englifh Tranffation of M. Chevalier's Efley, p. i'35', St-c. •, and tHe 

 German, p. 2c6, £cc. D. 



