568 



THE TROAD. 



all sides by a level plain" which you conjecture to have been the 

 Simoisian plain, and from the medals which are said by the Turks to 

 have been found there, certainly it appears to have existed here. 

 But in Strabo's description of New Ilium it appears to me to have 

 stood between the two rivers, which he considered as the Simois and 

 Scamander ; for his description of the country is as follows (Strabo, 

 p. 597. lib. xiii.): " The two rivers, the Scamander and the Simois, 

 the first having approached Sigaeum, and the latter Rhaeteum, join 

 their waters at a little distance in front of New Ilium, and then fall 

 into the sea near Sigasum, and form what is called the Stomalimne. 

 A large neck of land divides the two plains from each other (the 

 Scamandrian and Simoisian plains,) beginning immediately where 

 the modern town of Ilium stands, and trvftQvvjs dvru, \ connected with 

 it,' but extending to Cebrenia, and completing the form of T, till it 

 reaches the ridges on either side j" which ridges he had before de- 

 scribed as enclosing the plain in a semicircle. If New Ilium stood at 

 the end of a neck of land between the Simois and Scamander, and the 

 junction of the two took place in front of the town, it would seem as 

 if Strabo considered the front as the side next the shore, from whence 

 and not from Ilium he seems to have taken his survey. The city of 

 New Ilium also in the time of Strabo had another peculiarity which I 

 candidly confess agrees neither with the situation in which I looked 

 for it between the Mender and the stream of Bournasbashi, nor 

 with that which you assign it : for it could not admit, he says, of the 

 flight of Hector round its walls (which he considers as essential to the 

 situation of ancient Troy), hot crwexv P«-x tv on account of the continued 

 ridge on which it stood. In this confusion it appears to me impossi- 

 ble to reconcile Strabo's description to the places now discoverable 

 in the plain. I found some old work and broken inscriptions between 

 the two rivers, which I supposed the Simois and Scamander. Should 

 a city have existed in that situation, it would, from Strabo's account, 

 dispute the title of Ilium with your ruins at Kalifat, as they are so 

 contiguous, that Ilium medals would be found by the Turks at either 

 place. Where KaufTer gets his name for it of VilJe de Constantine, 



