399 
of Edinburgh^ Session 1868 - 69 . 
most recent times that writers of romance have thought it worth 
their while to know and portray the natural features of the places 
where the incidents they invent are represented to have occurred. 
It is a matter of doubt, whether even the most recent and scrupu- 
lous works of the kind could stand successfully so minute a topo- 
graphical scrutiny as that to which the Iliad has been subjected by 
Chevalier and others since his time. But it is scarcely to be sup- 
posed that a composer of mere fiction, in so remote a period of 
antiquity and barbarism, and when intercommunication between 
countries was rare and difficult, would, as must be held by the 
advocates of the Iliad being a romance, undertake so troublesome 
and unnecessary a condition in those days, for a work of the ima- 
gination, as a minute personal study of a wide and complex field 
of strife, which he chose for the theatre of a romance. It is 
impossible, therefore, to deny that the researches of Chevalier 
added greatly to the pre-existing probability that Homer was an 
entity, and the siege of Troy an event, in real history. 
The main features of Chevalier’s Tableau de la Elaine de Troye , 
remain undisputed to the present day, save one, and rather an 
important one, the actual site of ancient Troy itself. Our late 
much-esteemed Fellow, Mr Charles Maclaren, without having 
visited the plain (though he did so subsequently), called in question 
the conclusion at which Chevalier arrived as to the position of the 
town for the possession of which Homer’s heroes fought. The 
district may be briefly described as a plain about eight miles long 
and five miles in breadth, stretching from the westerly spurs of 
mount Ida to the Hlgean Sea, bounded on the north and south by 
ridges of moderate elevation, and separated from the Hlgean by a 
line of low heights, except at the mouth of the river Mindere or 
Simois. Chevalier placed the site of ancient Troy near the south- 
east angle of the plain, in the lower region of the bounding ridge 
on the south, and describes traces of ancient walls in this locality, 
close to a modern Turkish village, Bounarbashi. But Maclaren 
points out that this position, — nine miles from the coast, where the 
Creeks were encamped, with their vessels drawn up on shore, — is 
much too great for the time allowed by Homer for certain incidents 
of the war which took place between the two limits, the town and 
the ships ; and bringing to his aid the knowledge of a skilful geolo- 
3 p 
VOL. VI. 
