PLAIN OF TROY. 
47. 
allowed to contemplate;* and in the practice existing at this 
day among itinerant bards of Italy, who recite long poems 
upon the antiquities of the country, we may observe customs 
of which Homer himself afforded the prototype.! These ob¬ 
servations are applicable only to the question of the war of 
Troy, so far as the truth of the story is implicated. The iden¬ 
tity of the place where that war was carried on, so many ages 
ago, involves argument which can be supported only by prac¬ 
tical observation, and* the evidence of our senses. It will be 
separately and distictly determined, either by the agreement 
of natural phenomena with the locality assigned them by Ho¬ 
rner, or of existing artificial monuments with the manners of 
the people whose "history has been by him illustrated. To 
this part of the inquiry the attention of the reader is therefore 
now particularly requested. 
It seems hardly to admit of doubt, that the plain of Anatoliy 
watered by the Mender, and backed by a mountainous ridge, 
of which Kazdaghy is the summit, offers the precise territory 
alluded to by the poet. The lon| controversy, excited by 
Mr. Bryant’s publication, and since so vehemently agitated, 
would probably never have existed, had it not been for the 
erroneous maps of the country, which, even to this hour, dis¬ 
grace our geographical knowledge of that part of Asia. 
According to Homer’s description of the Trojan territory, 
it Combined certain prominent and remarkable features, not 
likely to be affected by any lapse of time. Of this nature 
was the Hellespont; the island of Tenedos; the plain itself; 
the river by whose inundations it was occasionally overflowed; 
and the mountain whence that river issued If any one of 
these be found retaining its original appellation, and all other 
circumstances of association characterize its vicinity, our 
knowledge of the country is placed beyond dispute. But 
the island of Tenedos, corresponding in all respects with the 
position assigned to it by Homer, still retains its ancient name 
unaltered; and the inscriptions, found upon the Dardanelles, 
prove those straits to have been the Hellespont. The dis¬ 
covery of ruins, which I shall presently show to have been 
those of the Ilium of Strabo^ia^serve not only to guide us 
Witness the discovery of the “ capurhcris 'tiq'uV'’ at the building of Carthage, and 
the death of Laocoon, as described by Virgil; as well as the metamorphoses of Ovid, 
whose archetypes are still discernible upon the gems of Greece. 
t These men, called improvisaiovi , are seen in tf!e public streets of cities in Italy\ 
A crowd collects around them, when they begin to recite a long poem upon a cameo 
or an intaglio put into their hands. I saw one, j.n the principal square at Milan, who 
thus descanted for an hour upon the loves of Cupid and Psyche. 
