84 'TABLEAU de la PLAINE de TROTE. 



Acropolis it was furrounded by abrupt precipices, and deep ra- 

 vines ; and at the bottom lay the rocky bed of the Simois, as 

 M. Chevalier, an eye witnefs, afTures us. His teftimony, by 

 the by, affords a folution why the Greeks, numerous as they 

 were, never completely invefted the city, though this would 

 have been a natural and effedlual plan of operation. It explains, 

 too, why they did not cut off all approach to the place ; for we 

 find freih fupplies and provifions received without interruption 

 from Phrygia; allies and auxiliaries arriving conftantly at Troy. 

 On the fide next the mountains there mufl therefore have been 

 a free accefs to the town. Hence, too, it is no lefs evident, that 

 Homer, intimately acquainted as he was with the ground, ne- 

 ver could have faid what has been afcribed to him, that Achil- 

 les chafed Hector thrice roi/?id the walls. Still lefs can this 

 be fuppofed, when what the poet is thus made to fay is palpa- 

 bly abfurd in itfelf, that two combatants fhould run three times 

 round the walls of a city. For either, if we fhould reckon the 

 thing polfible, our idea of the city mufl be diminutive and con- 

 temptible ; or, fhould we fuppofe the city to be large, the im- 

 probability becomes obvious, and we are rtruck with the abfur- 

 dlty of the army's ftanding idle, waiting for the re-appearance 

 of the runners from the oppofite fide of the walls. Add to this, 

 that fuch an abfurdity.is by no means necefTarily iiyplied in the 

 words ; nor would it at all occur, were the pafTage read without 

 prejudice, and with proper attention to its meaning. All the 

 combats take place before the Scaean Gate. Thus far had Pa- 

 TRocLus, the preceding day, driven back the flying Trojans. 

 (XVIII. 453. XVI. 712.). No battle, no tranfa(fl:ion, is men- 

 tioned, as happening in any other quarter, or on the oppofite 

 fide of the town. It is on the Scaean Gate that Priam and his 

 Trojans fland, to be fpedlators of the fight. (Iliad, III. 145 — 154. 

 XXII. 25. 462.). Even during the flight of Hector, we do 

 not find Priam running from one gate to another, from one 



fide 



