-64 clarke’s travels. 
covei y there made of medals of the city. Once in possession 
of this important point, a light breaks in upon the dark laby-. 
riiith of Troas; we stand with Strabo upon the very spot 
whence he deduced his observations concerning other objects 
in the district; looking'down upon the Sirrioisian plain, and 
viewing the junction of two rivers (‘‘one flowing toward 
Sigeum, and the other toward Rhaeteum,” precisely as de¬ 
scribed by him) in front of the Iiiensian city : being guided, at 
the same time, to Callicdlone, the village of the Ilieans, and the 
sepulchres of /Esyetes, Batieia, and lius, by the due he has 
afforded. From the natural or artificial elevation of the ter¬ 
ritory on which the city stood, (an insulated object in the plain) 
we beheld almost every landmark to which that author has 
alluded. The splendid spectacle presented toward the west 
by the-snow-clad top of Samothrace, towering behind I moms, 
would baffle every attempt of delineation : it rose with inde¬ 
scribable grandeur to a height beyond all I had seen for a long 
time; and while its etherial summit shone with inconceivable 
brightness in a sky without a cloud, seemed, notwithstanding its 
remote situation, as if its vastness would overwhelm all Troas, 
should an earthquake heave it from its base. Nearer to the 
eye appeared the mouth of the Hellespont, and Sige-um. On 
the south, (he tomb of /Esyetes, by the road leading to Alexan¬ 
dria Troas and less remote the Seamander, receiving Simois, 
or Calljfat Water , at the boundary of the Simoisian plain.— 
Toward the east, the Throsmos, with the sepulchres of Batieia 
and Ilus : and far beyond, in the great chain of Ida, Gargarus 
opposed to Samothrace,f dignified by equal if not superior al¬ 
titude, and beaming the same dcgiee of splendour from the 
snows by which it was invested. 
V 
* 'O vuv 5uxv6/i£Vos tou Atcruritou "rdepos xam thv tis ’ Akz%eLvdptiav 6<5ov. 
St mb. Gebgr. lib. xiii. p 863. Ed. Ox. 
p it is only by viewing the stupendous prospect afforded in these classical regions, 
that any adequate idea can be formed of Homer’s powers as a painter , and of the ac¬ 
curacy which distinguishes what Mr. Wood (Essay on Homer, p. 132.) terms his 
u. celestial geography .” Neptune placed on the top of Samothrace, commanding a. 
prospect of Ida, Troy, and the fleet, observes Jupiter, upon Gargarus, turn bis back 
upon Troas. What is intended by this averted posture of the god,Mother than that 
Gargarus was partially concealed by a cloud, while Samothrace remained Unveiled; 
a circumstance so often realized ? All the march of Juno, from Olympus, by Pieria 
and iEmathia, to Athos : from Athos, by sea, to Lemnos; and thence to Imbros and 
Gargarus ; is a correct delineation of the striking face of nature, in which the pictu¬ 
resque wildness and grandeur of realscenery is further adorned by asublirtie poetical 
fiction. Hence it is evident that Homer must have lived in the. neighbourhood of 
Troy; that he borrowed the scene of the Iliad (as stated by Mr: Wood, p. 182} 
from ocular examination; and the action of it, from the prevailing tradition of 
tunes. 
