THE TROAD. 



569 



I do not know ; but if Constantine built near Ilium these ruins may 

 certainly have belonged to him. 



Another point still left to be ascertained from Strabo is the 

 vixvcrTocQpos, or position of the Grecian fleet and camp during the siege. 

 He mentions it first in p. 595. : — " Beyond Rhseteum is Sigseum, a city 

 in ruins, and the station of the ships, and the port of the Grecians, and 

 the Greek camp, and the marsh called Stomalimne, and the mouths 

 of the Scamander." In p. 598. he adds, " The vuwroi^oq (station of 

 the ships) is at Sigceum, and near it the Scamander discharges its 

 waters at the distance of twenty stadia from New Ilium. But if any 

 one should insist that the place now called the AIMHN AXAII2N, the 

 port of the Grecians, was the station of the ships, he will fix it at a 

 place twelve stadia distant from the city (of New Ilium), for all the 

 plain between the city and the sea is an alluvial plain, formed by the 

 river, so that the interval, which is now twelve stadia, was formerly 

 less than the half." This passage appears to me of great importance 

 in ascertaining not only the situation of the Grecian camp, but the 

 relative positions of the rivers and the city, as I will endeavour to 

 convince you. For, first, the description of the shore is such as pre- 

 cludes all possibility of deriving from its present form any argument 

 as to its ancient windings ; next, the little bay which you mark as 

 the harbour of the Grecian fleet is indeed nearly in the position of 

 the place called in Strabo's time the > i-xrp 'A^a/ar, the port of the 

 Greeks, which he expressly asserts to have been different from the 

 vcZvo-TuGpog, or station, assigned by Homer ; for this was at Sigceum, and 

 consequently on the other side of the Mendere river. I should lay less 

 stress on this position assigned by Strabo, were it not confirmed in 

 many respects by Homer, and did it not account also for the strait- 

 ness and crowding of the Grecian quarters, for which, under the other 

 supposition, it would be difficult to assign any reason. 



The source of the Scamander was, according to the account of 

 Demetrius, in a hill of Ida called Cotylus, at one hundred and twenty 

 stadia from Scepsis ; from whence also rose the iEsepus and the 

 Granicus, the Scamander alone flowing to the west. Strabo, p. 602. 



4 D 



