578 



THE TROAD. 



opinion would be quite foundation sufficient for the incidental de- 

 scription with which he has ornamented his 22d book. The tombs 

 are another striking feature of this system. They of course were near 

 Troy, for the same reason that those of the Greeks were near the 

 shore. Hector's was made 7rv>tvo7<jiv Xa&tro-t, and all those you found 

 there were of stones heaped together, like the Scotch cairns, of 

 which we ourselves have numbers in each part of the island. It 

 would perhaps be difficult to point out that of Hector after your 

 observation, that the same description would apply to all ; but it by 

 no means follows that the same did not apply to all, as the poem 

 closes without mentioning the other tombs. Not only the tombs how- 

 ever, but the rocks mark the Acropolis of Troy, for they, too, are 

 mentioned in Odyss. @. v. 508: — "H zurx 7reTpduv jSaXesiv ... a cir- 

 cumstance not sufficiently weighed by many who have written on 

 the subject. Nay, I am almost inclined to insist on this situation 

 the more, from its explaining, I own, to my own satisfaction, a very 

 curious passage which has been much discussed by the commentators. 

 In the 21st book, U. O. 555, after the Trojans, pursued by Achilles, had 

 entered the city, and Priam had closed the Scsean gate to stop pursuit, 

 Agenor, incited by Apollo, remained on the outside of the wall. In 

 his alarm at the approach of Achilles, he meditates on flight, and says, 

 II. $. 556, — " What, if leaving the others to destruction from Achilles 

 I fly from the wall elsewhere, -n-^og wzUov "ix^i'ov, till I come to the 

 forests of Ida, and lurk in the dingles ? In the evening, after washing 

 in the river, I can return refreshed to Ilium." By some commen- 

 tators the ttsSIov 'ixyi'ov is translated, the Ilian plain ; but surely the 

 absurdity of flying towards the plain, when Achilles had driven, the 

 army to the town, need not be pointed out, and the plain which ex- 

 tended to the sea could not lead Agenor to the recesses of Ida. 

 Neither, I think, can any form of Greek derivation deduce 'ikqi'ov 

 from "iXtog, of which the possessive adjective would be 'ixUov or 

 'LXicckoi. Other commentators have on this account read the word 

 'iffyVci/, and supposed it the plain of Ida, to which Agenor might 

 naturally go. I believe it myself to be a genuine and uncorrupted 

 passage, and that 'iA^cr, or more anciently FtWviiov, is derived from 



