^8 TABLEAU dc la PLAINE de TROTE. 



Agamemnon, to convince Achilles that, even without his 

 affiftance, vi<5lory might be obtained, caufes the army to march 

 out of the camp, and advance tow^ards the city. Hitherto the 

 Trojans had kept clofe within their walls, following the advice 

 of their old men'^, who faw plainly, that, if a fiege fhould ac- 

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

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

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

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

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

 to the proud fpirlt of Achilles, that now, for the fir ft time, 

 when it was known he was not with the army, the Trojans 

 fliould venture out into the plain f . t 



The two armies met. Four principal battles are defcribed in 

 the Iliad. The firfl, (the fubjedl of our prefent inveftigation), on 



the 



felf then to be mifled by refpefl: for Pope 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 trufted to 

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

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

 ias Homer exhibits it. This EfTay I now prefent to the public, I had for a long 

 time thrown it afide, when its coincidence with the information colIe£bed by M. 

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

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

 be an eafy taik. 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 rafh Hector would not confent, (XVIII. 266. &c.). Unqueftionably the 

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

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



t Once only Hector had ventured beyond the Scaean Gate, as far as the beech 

 tree; but on that occafion he with difficulty efcaped from Achilles. (II. IX. 352, 

 &c.). H. 



