.lS5 !»;VtJi||l % ^> I ^ •v. •^ o o 0' •^^ A^'^ v N v<\ «/^ \%^V ^\ Ul{. £*- i^ofc* ffc ity "^w. ULYSSES HOMER; A DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE AUTHOR ILIAD AND ODYSSEY. CONSTANTINE KOLIADES, PROFESSOR IN THE IONIAN UNIVERSITY. MT0ON A', H2 O, T AOIA02, EIIISTAMENnS KATEAEEA2, nANTON T' APrEIHN, 2EO T' ATTOT, KHAEA ATrPA. LONDON: o JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. MDCCCXXIX. .& ?<** LONDON: NTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHlTJiFKlARS. ADVERTISEMENT. The translator thinks it necessary to state that the following disquisition is meant but to serve as the introduction to a larger work, in which the same opinion is developed and supported, by the same ingenious author, much more in the detail. Indeed it is often by observations upon points apparently minute, and by the detection of coin- cidences seemingly trivial, that the most important truths are most firmly established. r J his larger work is actually finished, and the plans and views necessary for the illustration of the subject are already engraved. But the opinion therein broached respecting the real author of the Homeric poems being entirely new, it has been thought prudent to send forth the present little work into the world first, in order to try the sentiments of the learned on so interesting a subject. IV ADVERTISEMENT. It is proper to add, that the writer is not to be considered as one who, like father Hardouin, puts forth a fanciful paradox from the love of singularity, or in order to show his address. He firmly believes in the opinion which he promulgates; and his belief has not been formed in the retirement of the closet only, or from the study of the works of learned men, but from adventurous voyages and travels through the regions to which his inquiries relate. 'London, November 19/A, 1828. ^**t^w V ^ -HcC hZn^CJ ; rr iy f%X strumas <*~ Hz 'fct-6uL ) ln*J> } U/cw nZir^i Lc **-*y Lu tvv/ty "«- £ou to yevoc, e a^oLTTy? t Cl Lc~ r ^*L K 1 oUuJrlZjL *A Lii LA^&J u sxjfz Lc^^L u^rP l"-^*- ' r /Q^ZZlZlhu^. " VU.T. //>• 2iO. 23/. ULYSSES HOMER. 17 of retreat through which the suitors might call for assistance.' Mad. Dacier had made this remark long before thee. ' Ulysses,' says she, ' who knew all the parts of his pa- lace, took the wise precaution of setting Eu- maeus to guard that port, as it was the only one by which they could descend into the court.' * In general, the surprising agreement which exists between the numerous incidents of the combat and the localities of the palace proves that the person who described the combat must have been the principal actor in it ; and this argument would be sufficient alone, with- out any other, in the mind of every sensible man, to prove the incontestable identity of the poet and the hero. But there remain still other means of esta- blishing this identity. It is known that the king of Ithaca was a member of the con- federation of Greece, and that he had contri- buted more than any other to the taking of Troy. His adventures after the war, as he c 18 ULYSSES HOMER. recounts them himself in the Odyssey, have all the characters of a history ; and Strabo, a writer of the Augustan age, has said, that those who would refuse their belief to the adventures of Ulysses, when pruned of their mythological ornaments ; those who denied the return of Ulysses to his palace, and his punishment of the usurpers of his throne, calumniated the poet, and no more deserved to be refuted, than those who gave credit to the hospitality of goddesses, to metamorphoses, to the great size of the Cyclops and the Lae- strygons, to the monstrosity of Scylla, and the oxen of the sun. Now, if the adventures of Ulysses are true, who could have recounted them ? One of the companions of Ulysses? but they all perished in the shipwreck, the victims of their impiety. A Phaeacian, who had beard the hero himself give the recital of them? but we are in- formed in the recital itself that the Phaeacians dwelt far from civilized people : licdg /jtepoTrwv urQpw™v. and certainly no one can attribute the Odyssey to a poet of uncultivated genius. ULYSSES HOMER- 19 But might not Ulysses have recounted his adventures during his abode at Ithaca ? Yes, no doubt he would recount them to Penelope and Telemachus — but very rapidly; for his journey to the country abode of Laertes, his combat against the suitors, his victory, and the banishment into Italy which followed it, would not allow him time to make a long re- cital. Lastly, it should be remarked that, if the Odyssey was the work of any other poet than Ulysses, that poet would without doubt have given us the death of his hero in the poem. If it was the king of Ithaca who was the same person as the author, it is not to be wondered that he has said nothing of his own death. Ulysses is, therefore, most assuredly the author of the Odyssey ; and as in the opinion of all men of taste, ancient as well as modern,* the Odyssey and Iliad are by the same hand, it is to the king of Ithaca that we are obliged for two poems the most magnificent that have ever come from the hand of man. c: % 20 ULYSSES HOMER* " But although this reasoning, and the con- sequences which I have deduced from it," said my father, " may appear to thy eyes and to mine to have the character of a rigorous demonstra- tion, I feel the imperious necessity of having assistance so extraordinary and so new con- firmed by some one else besides myself. Thou art he then, my son, whom I declare the heir and the defender of my discovery, on condition that thou wilt spare no effort, no fatigue, no sacrifice, in order to confirm and render it perfect. Thou art now going first to pass some years at the university. When thou shalt have then acquired the knowledge ne- cessary to render thy travels advantageous, and which it was impossible for me to procure for thee in Ithaca, thou shalt repair by Constan- tinople to the Sigean promontory, in order to study there the theatre of the Iliad with the same zeal and the same care with which thou hast here studied with thy father that of the Odyssey. Without doubt, all the echoes of the plain of Ilium will repeat to thee the ac- tions of our king, when thou shalt have verified ULYSSES HOMES. 21 the presence of the hero in battles, and the coincidence of the topography of the plain with the poem of the Iliad, as thou hast al- ready verified that of our island with the poem of the Odyssey. Thou shalt follow the hero in the regions of the Greek and Trojan con- federation, in the islands of the ZEgean sea, and in the sea of Sicily. Thou wilt return to the embraces of thy father loaded with the fruits of thy travels, which will perhaps confirm the discovery of the true author of the Iliad and of the Odyssey. Who knows whether, at thy return, thou wilt not find the production due to the noble independence of the heroic ages ?" In pronouncing these last words my ve- nerable father melted into tears, and I threw myself into his arms. It seemed to me that we bade each other a last adieu ; and in truth, at my return from my long travels by land and by sea, I found only his ashes. The day after this conversation, I took my departure for the university. The general war of Europe, and the revolutions which menaced the happy 22 ULYSSES IIOMEK. and peaceful existence of the republic of Ve- nice, did not allow of my giving a fixed direc- tion to my studies. I therefore gave myself up to those which most flattered my taste — to the study of the ancient and modern lan- guages, and to reading the works of travellers of all nations who had visited the theatre of the Iliad and Odyssey. At length, after an abode of five years employed in preparing myself for the expedition, for which my fa- ther had given me such precise instructions, I commenced my route for the plain of Troy. The first object which struck my sight on arriving at the entrance of the Hellespont was that fine line of tombs ranged on the lofty coasts of the iEgean sea. Behold then, said I to myself, those ancient monuments pro- mised by Homer to the curiosity and interest of future generations, who were to traverse the Hellespont in ages to come, and in futurity the most remote. What an admirable picture for the lover of sublime poetry, and of beau- tiful relics of antiquity ! How happy should I be, if it was possible for me to impart to my readers the transports which I felt in ad- ULYSSES HOMER. c 2'.i vancing with religious steps towards that plain, the theatre of so many glorious ac- tions, and the place of sepulture of so many heroes ! When, in 1790, a French traveller an- nounced to the Royal Society of Edinburgh that those monuments still existed at the en- trance of the Hellespont, and that there was there to be found a vast plain watered by two rivers, one of which was remarkable for two beauteous springs of different temperature ; when he added, that still might be seen in that plain the tombs of Greek and Trojan war- riors, a valley which bore the name of Thim- breck, so like that of Thymbra which Homer gives to it ; when the same traveller pointed out in the island of Ithaca the mountains Neritos and Neios, the fountain of Arethusa, and the rock of the Crow, which is still called at this time Korax, as in the time of Ulysses and of Eumseus ; none of the schools of the learned in Europe believed in the existence of those venerable remains of antiquity. But when the description of them was received by 24 ULYSSES HOMES. the Royal Society of Edinburgh , and published by the learned professor Ualzel, under the au- spices of that illustrious body, the travellers of England and of all the nations of Europe visited those classic countries, and confirmed the discoveries of the Frenchman. From that time the sources of the Scamander, the tombs of the Greek and Trojan warriors, the foun- tain of Arethusa were no longer regarded as the dreams of a heated imagination ; and no one at present doubts the authenticity of those Homeric monuments ; more especially since the topography of the plain of Troy and that of the isle of Ithaca have been ascertained with the highest degree of accuracy. J. B. S. Morritt, member of the British Parliament, in an excellent memoir, entitled " Vindication of Homer," has demonstrated with the utmost clearness of evidence that the two poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey contain historic- truths. He has observed, he says, with great plea- sure that there is not in the Iliad a single event of which we cannot fix the place upon ULYSSES homer; l 25 some point of the plain near the Sigean pro- montory; and that from this coincidence of the poem with the topography, it must ne- cessarily be concluded, that the events are real and historical, or else that the poet has adapted them most exactly to the theatre which is at present seen at the outlet of the Hellespont. This reflection of Mr. Morritt is literally the same as that of Mr. David Morier, at this time consul-general from Eng- land at Paris : " The general appearance of the country and the relative position of the leading features of the land and sea prospects correspond so strikingly with the vivid pic- tures of the poet that it is hardly possible not to be convinced that he was himself an eye- ivitness of the deeds he celebrated, or that he adapted his fictitious pictures to a scene he had accurately studied with that view.'" William Martin Leake, an English colonel, as distinguished by his military talents as by his great erudition, justly remarks, that " not one of the ancient authors who have written on the Troas, with the exception of Homer, £(') ULYSSES HOMER. was so well acquainted with the locality as modern travellers are ; and that not one pos- sessed any delineation of its topography ap- proaching to the accuracy of that with which we are furnished, and not yet satisfied." * They did not, indeed, possess any of the resources, any of those means which are possessed at present, for comparing the poem with the topography of the places which it describes. They had neither charts nor views designed with exactness. They could not, therefore, form conjectures, nor draw the conclusions which have since successively enlightened the researches of the moderns. Is it not in fact very singular, that Strabo, (1. viii. p. 378.) who had travelled to Corinth, that is to say, within some miles of Mycenae, was ignorant of the existence of the immense ruins of that town, and asserted that there did not remain a vestige of it ? In like manner, he makes no mention of several other towns, of which modern travellers have found con- * Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, p. 277- ULYSSES HOMER. 27 siderable ruins. Diodorus Siculus also re- presents to us Mycenae as entirely destroyed. Livy too annihilates many towns of Italy, of which we still find the walls, the gates, and the towers in an almost perfect state of pre- servation. " As even the identity," adds the colonel, " of the country on the Asiatic side of the entrance of the Hellespont ne strait with the scene of the Ilias has been doubted, it may not be useless to premise, that if the war of Troy was a real event, having reference to a real topography, (and to doubt it would shake the whole fabric of profane history,) no dis- trict has yet been shown that will combine even a few of the requisite features of the plain of Troy, except that between Hum-kale* and Bunarbashi ; whereas in that district, and in the surrounding country by land and by water, we find the seas and mountains and islands in the positions which the poet indicates, and many of them with the same or nearly the same names. The features which do not accord so well with his description are 28 ULYSSES HOMER. those which are the most liable to change in the lapse of ages, the course and size of the rivers, and the extent and direction of the low coast, where these waters join the sea. Instead of a river with two large branches, which Homer seems to describe, we find on one side of the plain a broad torrent, reduced in the dry season to a slender brook and a few stagnant pools, and on the other side a small perennial stream, which, instead of joining the former, is diverted into an artificial chan- nel, and is thus carried to a different part of the coast. But the diminutive size of some of the most celebrated rivers of antiquity is well known to those who have travelled in Greece; and it must be considered, that a poet writing of a real scene is obliged to magnify those features which, without exaggeration, would be beneath the dignity of his verse. In regard to the course of the streams, it seems sufficient still to find, at the end of three thousand years, two rivers which, if they do not now unite, evidently did so at a former period of time ; and for the sources of that stream which Homer describes as rising ULYSSES HOMER. ^[) under the walls of Troy, to find some very remarkable springs, not very different in their peculiarities from the poet's description, and rising at the foot of a commanding height on the edge of the plain. " For poetry this coincidence appears suf- ficient ; and in regard to the position of Troy itself, it seems enough to find a hill rising above the sources just mentioned, not only agreeing in all particulars with the kind of position which the Greeks * usually chose for their towns, but the only situation in this region which will combine all the requisites they sought for; namely, a height overlooking a fertile maritime plain, situated at a sufficient distance from the sea to be secure from the * " It is almost unnecessary here to remark that the ruling family, and hence probably a large portion of the people of Troy, were of Greek origin, and that they had adopted the manners and language of Greece. The Dardanidee were Greeks settled in Asia; as the Atridae were Phrygians settled in Europe. For the history of Ilium the reader may conveniently consult the work of Chandler, in 4to, 1802." Si) ULYSSES IIOMKll. attacks of pirates, and furnished with a copious and perennial supply of water ; presenting a strong and healthy position for the city; and for the citadel a hill beyond the reach of bow- shot from the neighbouring heights, defended at the back by steep rocks and precipices, sur- rounded by a deep valley and broad torrent, and backed beyond the river by mountains which supplied timber and fuel. That it was precisely such a situation as the inhabitants of Greece and Asia in remote ages preferred, might be shown by a great variety of ex- amples ; and it can hardly be doubted, that a person totally unacquainted with the Ilias, but accustomed to observe the positions of ancient Greek towns, would fix on Bunarbashi for the site of the chief place of the surrounding country. " It is a necessary consequence of placing Troy on the heights to the S. E. of Bunar- bashi, that the river flowing from the sources which give that village its name (meaning spring-head) is the Scamander of Homer; that the large torrent which flows through a ULYSSES HOMER. Hi deep ravine on the eastern side of the heights is theSimoeis; and that, notwithstanding the much greater magnitude of the bed of the latter, and occasionally of that stream itself, the united river after the junction in the plain was called by the name of the former, Scamander. " With regard to the existing barrows, it seems incontrovertible only that those which stand in conspicuous situations on either side of the mouth of the Scamander are the tumuli supposed in the time of the Romans, and probably with reason, to have been the se- pulchres of Ajax, Achilles, and some other chieftains; and these monuments are so far important as they prove the identity of the plain of the Mendere with the scene of the Ilias. " It is objected to the springs of Bunar- bashi, that instead of being only two — one hot and the other cold, as described by Homer — they are in one place so numerous as to have received from the Turks the name of Kirk- 32 ULYSSES HOMER. Ghiuz, (the Forty Fountains,) and that they are all of the same temperature. " But viewing them as the springs of a river, they may in poetical language, or even in common speech, be considered as two, since they arise in two places, distant from each other about two hundred yards : in one the water appears in a deep basin, which is noted among the natives for being often covered with a thick vapor like smoke ; in the other place there are numerous rills issuing from the rocks into a broad shallow piece of water, terminating in a stream Avhich is joined by that from the smoking spring. As to the temperature of the water, the observations of travellers give various results. Some have observed a difference : according to others, it would appear that, being all deep-seated springs, their temperature is the same at all seasons, or about 60° of Fahrenheit at their eruption from the ground; consequently that they will feel cold when the air is at 70° or 80°, and warm when it is at 40" or 50\ It seems sufficient to justify Homer's expression, ULYSSES IIOMEK. .'J. c i that a difference of temperature was believed, and that an occasional appearance of vapor over one source was often observed by the natives." pp. 277—283. In the number of the important witnesses that have been cited, I must not forget the celebrated Wood, who appeared fifty years ago in the plain of Troy, after having braved the deserts of Palmyra, in order to render us ac- quainted with their monuments. He observes, that if any one were to take the pains of ex- tracting from the Iliad the simple journal of the siege of Troy, divested of all the orna- ments of poetry, that journal would be found in general to contain an exact recital of mi- litary events supported by the most perfect coincidence of time, circumstance, and place which history requires ; so that Homer is not only the most inimitable of poets, but is also the most faithful copyist of nature. Struck with this observation of Wood, I not only, in conformity with his wise counsel, extracted from the Iliad the simple journal of the siege of Troy, but as I luckily had the Iliad in my D 34 ULYSSES HOMER. hand, and the theatre of the battles before my eyes, I went and seated myself sometimes by the side of Mars on the Pergama and the beauteous hill (KaMtcoXw vrj), sometimes near Minerva on the intrenchment of Hercules at the Sigean promontory. Placed alternately on those two situations, so well chosen by the two divinities, I followed the armed gods in all their movements, and each of the heroes in his own particular exploits. The war between the Greeks and the Tro- jans had lasted nine years. The first were encamped in the neighbourhood of Troy when the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon occasioned a division in the army. Up to that time the Trojans had remained in the town, according to the advice of the aged counsel- lors, who foresaw the difficulties which the Greeks would have to overcome in forming the siege. But encouraged by the defection of Achilles, with which they had become ac- quainted, they at last marched out of their walls, and advanced to encounter the enemy. This sortie of the Trojans ought to satisfy the ULYSSES HOMER. '.i~> vengeance of Achilles, and flatter his pride, as it was an act of homage paid to his valor. The two armies engage, and have successively four grand battles, which form altogether the principal subject of the Iliad. In the first of those combats the Greeks occupied the plain of the Scamander: the Trojans the hill Bathycia. Paris and Me- nelaus are not long in discovering each other. Hector provokes a single combat between them, of which the issue is not decisive. The two armies could not then be at a great distance from the town, as Priam, accom- panied by the old men, distinguishes^ from the top of the walls the chiefs of the Greeks, of whom Helen recounts to him the names. The traitor Pandarus discharges an arrow: the two armies again engage: the battle took place in the neighbourhood of the town, as Apollo animated the Trojans by his shouts from the top of the Pergama. The fate of the battle rests for a long time undecided: the armies advance and retreat alternately between the rivers Simois and Scamander. d 2 :3() ULYSSES HOMEItJ At length Ajax drives back the Trojans to the gates of the town : there they rally at the voice of Hector and iEneas, and turn round upon the enemy. Hector, excited by Helenus, and no doubt alarmed at the approaching danger, has recourse to the gods. He enters the town, and engages the women to implore the protection of Minerva. During that time Glaucus and Diomed exchange their armour. At the return of Hector the battle recom- mences. Hector challenges the most valiant of the Greeks. At length the Trojans retire into their town, and the Greeks into their camp. Thus ends the first day's battle. The day after, an armistice is agreed upon in order to burn the dead ; and the Greeks avail themselves of it to throw up a rampart before their camp. On the point of the day following the second battle takes place, which is soon followed by another between the town and the camp. Towards the middle of the day a panic terror seizes the Greeks : they re- tire in disorder : they return, however, once more to the charge, but are repelled, and at ULYSSES HOMER. 37 last shut themselves up in their intrench- ments. Night comes on happily to save them. Hector does not allow his troops to enter into the town ; but lets them pass the night in the plain upon the banks of the river, at some distance from the camp, and commands them to light fires. The Greeks, in com- pliance with the advice of Nestor, keep watch also on their part during the same night. They send ambassadors to Achilles. Ulysses and Diomed are sent to reconnoitre. The situation of the camp of the Trojans is on this occasion described with precision. Hector, with the chiefs of the Trojans, holds a council at the tomb of Ilus. The auxiliaries sleep ; but the Trojans keep watch near the fires which they had lighted. The Lycians and the Mysians are towards the valley of Thym- bra ; that is, without doubt, on the right wing, and opposite the post of Ajax. The Carians and the Paeonians are towards the sea, on the left wing, and opposite to the post of Achilles. The Thracians, under the command of Rhe- 38 ULYSSES HOMER. sus, must have been at the advanced posts, and near the camp of the Greeks ; for Ulysses and Diomed, by following the banks of the Simois, surprised the former, and returned at the break of day to their camp, from whence they had departed some time after mid- night. The day following, the Trojans attacked the camp of the Greeks. In order to com- prehend perfectly the different actions which took place in the course of that day, it is ne- cessary to understand the disposition of the ships, and the fortification which the Greeks had newly constructed. The vessels were ranged in two lines be- tween the promontories, with their sterns turned towards the land. Ajax was on the left wing of the camp, and Achilles, with his Myrmidons, on the right. There can be no doubt respecting the disposition of the troops placed on the two promontories ; but it is not easy to determine with equal exactness the disposition of those who occupied the in- ULYSSES HOMER. .'j<) termediate space. It is, however, probable that Idomeneus with the Cretans was on the right of Ajax, and that Nestor with the Py- lians was next to the latter. Then Mnestheus with the Athenians ; next Ulysses with the Argives; and, lastly, Achilles with the Myrmi- dons and other Thessalians. This order of battle throws great light upon many incidents of the poem. When Machaon is wounded, and orders himself to be con- ducted to the tent of Nestor, Achilles is at such a distance that he cannot distinguish him. Patroclus, sent by Achilles in order to obtain information, and returning from the post of Nestor, passes near the ships of Ulysses. He finds Eurypylus wounded, who was re- turning, without doubt, to the right wing, where were placed the Thessalians. Machaon, though a Thessalian, was conducted into the tent of Nestor by Nestor himself, because he was too weak to reach the right wing. The vessels of Ulysses were in the centre ; and when he called his troops to arms, his voice was heard at the two extremities of the camp. 40 ULYSSES HOMER. The order of the vessels in the catalogue appears to have reference to the disposition of the troops in the camp. The Boeotians, in fact, and those who are next to them, up to the Salaminians commanded by Ajax, belonged to the left wing. The Argives, and those who were next to them, the Cretans, Rhodians, and other islanders, composed the centre. The Thessalians, with the Myrmidons, formed the right wing. The order of battle is a little different. Agamemnon throws himself into the midst of the combatants, and, after having passed some troops that are not named, reaches Ido- meneus, who commanded the Cretans. Then Ajax, under whom the Salaminians fought ; next Nestor, Mnestheus, Ulysses, and, lastly, Diomed. Ulysses was so far separated from the part of the camp attacked by the Trojans that he was not aware of their approach. The camp of the Greeks then occupied, as ULYSSES HOMER. 41 we have just seen, all the space comprised be- tween the two promontories. As they .had not succeeded in the former battle, Nestor, alarmed at the valor of Hector, and con- templating also the void which the secession of Achilles had left in the army, proposes to fortify the camp. This precaution had been hitherto unnecessary, as the Trojans had been always kept shut up within their walls. By the little time that was employed in constructing this intrenchment, it may be judged that the work was of no great im- portance ; but as it is the most ancient model of a fortification known, it merits on that ac- count some attention. It was constructed of earth, pierced with several ports, and flanked with towers built of stone and wood. It must have been at a distance from the ships, inas- much as a very sanguinary engagement took place in the part which separated them. The principal gate, through which the Greeks made a sortie into the plain, was on the left wing. This intrenchment was of little elevation, i 42 ULYSSES HOMER. inasmuch as Sarpedon reached the battlements of it with his hand. It was defended along its whole extent by a deep ditch fenced with palisades, which was immediately contiguous to it. Now let us return to the assault on the camp. At the break of day the Greeks sallied out of it, and left their chariots behind them : the Trojan were upon the Thrasimos. The fate of battle remains undecided to the middle of the day; at which time the Trojans are repelled, and fly across the plain, passing near the tomb of Ilus and the fig-tree, and do not stop till they reach the Scaean gates. There the combat is renewed, and continues the whole day. Agamemnon distinguishes him- self by many brilliant actions. At length he is wounded : the Trojans then resume their courage, and drive back the Greeks beyond the tomb of Ilus, where Paris, in ambuscade, wounds Diomed with an arrow. The battle becomes general, and reaches to great distance upon the plain ; inasmuch as Hector, com- bating on the left wing, towards the Sea- ULYSSES HOMER. 43 mander, knew nothing of the success which Dioined, Ulysses, and Ajax were obtaining over the Trojans towards the Simois. He flies to the assistance of his countrymen, and Ajax himself is forced to give way. The Greeks fly towards their camp, and there shut themselves up. Hector pursues them, pre- pares to attack them, to set fire to their ves- sels, and to destroy the whole Greek army. The Trojans were ignorant of the method of conducting an attack on an intrenched camp ; but, on the advice of Polydamas, their chiefs descend from their chariots, divide the infantry into five columns, and lead it on to- wards the intrenchment. Asius alone remains in his chariot ; and, casting his eyes towards the left of the ships, he observes that the pass by which the Greeks had sallied from their camp was open. He there makes an attack, but without success. The other divisions attack other points ; and as the columns of the Trojans were five in number, it is gene- rally supposed that the ports of the intrench- 4A ULYSSES HOMER. nient were the same. The division of Hector is particularly directed to destroy the rampart about one of the ports. Sarpedon directs his attacks upon the parts defended by Mne- stheus, the chief of the Athenians. He calls to his assistance Ajax and Teucer, who were fighting against Hector. The absence of these two adversaries offered to the son of Hercules an opportunity of bursting open the gate with a fragment of a rock, and of pene- trating into the camp. The Greeks, terrified, retire into their vessels. Here the two Ajaxes unite : they rally the fugitives, and bring them back to the combat. This column of the Greeks gives the first idea of a phalanx ; for the bravest troops began to close in their ranks on the approach of the enemy. By means of this manoeuvre the Trojans are quickly repelled. While the combat is at its height among the vessels, Idomeneus, accompanied by Me- riones, passes to the left wing, and makes head against the troops of Asius. ULYSSES HOMER. 45 The Trojans meanwhile assemble from all parts at the place where Hector was combat- ing. This warrior, following the advice of Polydamas, assembles a council. He quits it in order to seek the bravest chiefs with their battalions, and advances with them against Ajax. Hector thought that he had attained the object of his wishes, when the Greek generals, after having dressed their wounds, returned to the combat. Hector himself is wounded, and the Trojans are driven beyond the in- trenchment. He rallies them, attacks the foss once more, passes it, and renews the com- bat between the vessels and the tents. The Greeks, overpowered, seek an asylum behind the first rank of the vessels, and beat off the Trojans with the oars. Ajax advances gal- lantly against Hector, who at length seizes the poop of the vessel which had borne Pro- tesilaus, and sets fire to it. But here the success of the Trojans ends. Patroclus advances at the head of the Myr- 46 ULYSSES HOMERl midons divided into five close columns. The Trojans are soon forced to retire : confusion shows itself in their ranks : they betake them- selves to flight. Patroclus cuts through their army, and causes great carnage between the vessels, the river, and the town. Intoxicated with his victory, and forgetting the orders of Achilles, he pursues the fugitives to the walls of Troy, and even tries to carry the town by assault. Hector halts at the Scaean gates, attacks the Greeks in his turn, slays Patro- clus, and pursues the fugitives to their camp. They nevertheless carry off the body of Pa- troclus. Achilles presents himself without arms to the Trojans. The bare sight of this warrior arrests their course. They pass the night in the plain before the camp. Polyda- mas counsels them to retire within the town. Hector opposes him. At the break of day, Achilles, clad in his new armour, comes out of the camp. Here begins the fourth and last battle. At first the two armies display an equal valor ; but at length the Trojans give way, ULYSSES HOMER. 17 and fly towards the Scamander. Achilles pursues, and divides them into two parts. The one is fortunate enough to save itself in the town : the other is forced into the river. Achilles then approaches the town into which the Trojans had already entered. Hector alone remains before the walls, and falls by the hand of Achilles near the sources of the Scamander. Here I stop to invoke the testimony of all the generals who have fought during the last thirty years upon the grand theatre of Europe, and I ask of them confidently, whether it be possible that the historian of the Trojan war, " Trojani belli scriptor," could have made so perfect an agreement, so constant a harmony, between the localities of the plain of Troy and the numerous combats which there took place, without having been an actor and a witness of them. A dexterous painter designs every day scenes of imagination with as much facility as ele- gance. Voltaire describes the battles of Fori- 48 ULYSSES HOMER. tenoy, and those of Charles XII. ; but is there a single officer, Frenchman or Swede, who can comprehend those battles in the descrip- tion which Voltaire has given of them ? There is never anything but obscurity, or at least a description difficult to make out, in the battles which are given by historians who are not of the profession. In whatever relates to the tactics and the topography, we can only trust to those who have been present at, and have seen with their own eyes, or par- ticipated in the scenes which they describe. It is in Thucydides, Polybius, Xenophon, Caesar, Arrian, Josephus ; and, among the modern generals, in the Cond^s, the Tu- rennes, the Fredericks, the Napoleons, the Foys, the Segurs, the Wellingtons, the Rey- niers, &c. that are developed, with order, truth, and simplicity, the recitals of the great operations of war, offensive and defen- sive, the military reconnoitres, the art of in- trenchment, ambuscades, attacks, mines, and sieges. This kind of knowledge is not to be found in Voltaire, nor in Tasso, nor in Virgil himself. The description of Virgil is more ULYSSES HOMER. 49 ornamental without doubt, but that of Homer is more martial ; and though more detailed, has more warmth and truth. The picture which Tasso has drawn of the armies that dispute the Holy Land is intermixed with agreeable and interesting episodes ; but Tasso is far from approaching his model. He only presents the descriptions of the countries of which he speaks : he does not paint his war- riors with traits equally strong. We may perceive, says Pope, in the poems of Homer, that he has seen the places which he men- tions. In fact he executes his numerous pic- tures with a topographic fidelity, a freedom, a boldness, and liberty of pencil which evi- dently only belong to the warrior-poet, at once the historian and the witness of the scenes which he describes — the poet-king who, like Moses, was equally competent in the art of governing an empire and in that of com- manding armies. Thus those commentators who have up to the present time believed that this poet had written his own adventures and the wars in E 50 ULYSSES HOMER. which he had fought have been carried along by the force of truth. Those on the contrary who have maintained that Homer did not exist till many ages after the taking of Troy, being equally forced to allow that he could not put so much truth into his pictures with- out having seen the places which he describes, are necessarily obliged to suppose that the au- thor of the Iliad, whosoever he may have been, Homer, Ulysses, or any one else, has gone many ages after the war, and placed himself, for example, upon the Sigean promontory, or upon the Pergama, in order there to meditate the plan of his poem ; to adapt its episodes to the rivers, valleys, and promontories of that celebrated plain ; to support indeed through twelve books the recitals of all the combats, general and partial, which have there taken place, without deviating in a single instance from the topographic reality of the spot which has been the theatre of them. Nor is this all. It must further be admitted that the same poet has also taken up his abode in the island of Ithaca, and has there also happily placed himself upon the top of the Rock of the ULYSSES HOMER. 51 Crow, in order to paint to ns with the same exactness all that passed in Ithaca from the arrival of Ulysses at the Grotto of the Nymphs to his last combat with the usurpers of his throne : " credat Judseus Apella." It is therefore indubitably and rigorously demonstrable that the author of the Iliad, who- ever he may have been, has fought on the plain of Troy. Some authors of antiquity have pretended that the son of Palamedes, the king of Euboea, had composed certain poems upon this war : but as the name of that hero is not even mentioned in the Iliad, the opinion of antiquity respecting that prince can only serve to prove that the kings of the heroic ages, like the Hebrew patriarchs, knew both how to fight and to sing their battles. It now only remains to examine upon which of the heroes mentioned in the poem we ought to cast our eyes, and to whom we are to ascribe a distinction the most honorable that any e 2 52 ULYSSES HOMER. mortal has ever merited. If among those heroes there was one who was found to be the most devoted lover of his country and of his king, the most faithful husband, the most tender father, the most dutiful son ; if that hero had travelled among all nations known in his time, in order to become acquainted with their manners and their cities ; if by his address, his courage, his wisdom, and his elo- quence he had constantly directed the army of Agamemnon in the paths of victory, and had rendered it master of Troy ; if he had obtained throughout the preference over the other heroes ; if he had constantly supported the character of the pious hero of the Iliad as of the Odyssey, might he not confidently be declared the author of the first of those poems, more especially after it had been shown that no one but he could be the author of the second ? I think that I have sufficiently proved that Ulysses is the author of the Odyssey and of the Iliad : but let us now see whether he must not necessarily have been the author of a portion ULYSSES HOMER. 53 of the Iliad, which of itself alone is perhaps more surprising than the whole poem. Let us examine whether he has not permitted us to discover with sufficient clearness that himself, in concert with Nestor, was the author of the admirable enumeration of the Greek and Tro- jan nations, of that chief work, which is totally inexplicable, if it is not the act of a powerful king who unites in himself alone all the know- ledge of his age, in geography, in agriculture, in history, in politics, and in eloquence. This third proof would support the other two ; and no resources are to be neglected in the at- tempt to establish a system so new, and to triumph over an uncertainty protected by so many ages. I open the eleventh book of the Iliad, and I there remark the following passage : " When Ulysses and I were sent," says Nestor, " to assemble the heroes of all Greece" &c. (II. A. 769-) The commentators, ancient or mo- dern, at least so far as I know, have not at- tached to this beautiful passage the value and importance of which it is worthy, since it com- .54 ULYSSES HOMES. prises a brief and clear explanation of the list. Madame Dacier is the only person who has made a remark upon this subject, full of good sense and reason; but, unhappily, she has not sounded it to the bottom. " Nestor and Ulysses," she says, " were chosen to go into all the states of Greece and exhort the princes to join in the expedition against Troy. There was much wisdom in the choice ; for as they were the two men most celebrated in Greece for their prudence, they were perhaps the only persons capable of engaging in so difficult a war." Yes, no doubt, these were the only per- sons capable of assembling the heroes of their country in order to be led against the enemy ; to traverse all Greece at a period when, as Suidas says, travelling was so dear. But they had not only to arm the continent of Greece, but also to put in motion the sove- reigns of the iEgean Sea ; all the Greeks, in fact, who were to combat against the Trojans. If the great age of Nestor forced him to limit his services to the continent of Greece, it is probable that Ulysses, the indefatigable ULYSSES HOMER. 55 Ulysses, accompanied by another young and active prince, finished the recruiting of the iEgean Sea. It appears at least that he was no stranger to the expeditions which took place in that sea; since, according to the ge- neral opinion of antiquity, it was he who was employed to search for Neoptolemus in the island of Scyros ; to bring in Philoctetes from Lemnos to the army : and it was certainly more difficult to tear the son of Achilles from the arms of his mother, and to reconcile the son of Pceas with the Atridae, than to engage the kings of Crete and of Rhodes, Idomeneus and Tlepolemus, to follow the standard of Agamemnon. In this double conscription of the continent and of the islands of Greece Ulysses must have acquired at great expense and by immense fatigue a perfect knowledge of those regions. That happy genius might also during his em- bassies to Troy, and during the ten years in which he made war upon the Trojans, have become acquainted with the kingdom of Priam and the states of his numerous allies, the 56 i LYSSES HOMER. Mysians, the Phrygians, the Carians, the Maeonians, the Paphlagonians, the Chaly- beans, and the Halizonians. It has been remarked with great truth that the author of the Iliad has given a much less complete and much less detailed description of the kingdom of Priam than of the king- doms of Greece. This difference is in truth worthy of remark ; for it proves at the same time, in a manner the most incontestable, that that great man was not a native of Asia, as has been generally imagined by the ancients and the moderns ; for he would certainly know his own country better than that of Greece ; and besides, he would not have proclaimed in his poems a preference so decided for the ene- mies of Asia, and sentiments so hostile to the Trojans, who would in that case have been his neighbours and his countrymen. I have shown above that Ulysses has pre- sented in his Odyssey the most exact picture of the island of Ithaca. I have just now proved that he has been an eye-witness of the ULYSSES HOMER. 57 battles of the Iliad. It now remains for me to verify the exactitude which he has shown in painting all the regions of the catalogue of this immortal work — I repeat it, altogether inexplicable, if it were not the work of an illustrious ambassador accredited by the king of kings to all the sovereigns of Greece. I quitted then the plain of Ilium to go and study first the kingdom of Priam, from Paphlagonia to Lycia. I visited Egypt, and Thebes with its hundred gates, of which the ruins are still standing. I then traversed all the continent of Greece, all the islands of the iEgean Sea, and all those of the seas of Sicily and Italy. I saw the city of Erechtheus, cele- brated for the temple of Minerva; Argolis, abounding in fine horses ; Achaia, renowned for the beauty of its women ; the spacious plains of Mycalessus ; the arid rocks of Pytho ; Thisbe, which is still the chosen abode of doves, &c. &c. &c. I visited, in a word, all the treasures of Greece, the most distinguished country in the world, for beautiful scenery, for historic recollections and works of art. 58 ILYssks HOMES. Two celebrated English travellers, Mr. Ed- ward Dodwell and Sir William Gell, had per- formed before me the general tour of Greece, and had made drawings of all its chief monu- ments. It is to them that I am indebted for the small number which I have already had ex- ecuted for the illustration of a larger work on this subject, in order to prove at least by some examples that the author of the catalogue had described the monuments and the scenery with as much exactness and truth as the island of Ithaca and the plain of Troy. The first of those engravings presents us with the temple of Minerva Sunias, on the sacred promontory of Attica. This picture is followed by those of iEgina* and Troezen ; of the course of the Peneus ; of the fountain of Hesperia ; of the lake of Stymphalus ; of the Cyclopean ruins of Tiryns ; of the magnificent gate of the citadel of Mycenae, out of which passed the king of kings with the numerous battalions which he conducted to the siege of Troy ; and, last of all, the passage of Alpheus, where * The present seat of the new government of Greece. ULYSSES HOMER. 59 Nestor in his early youth gave such striking proofs of his valor. Arrived on the banks, and near the mouth of the Alpheus, I was so near to the capital of the king of Pylos, and to the port where Telemachus embarked on his return from Sparta to Ithaca ; I was be- sides so worn out with the fatigues which I had experienced in my long travels, that I was strongly tempted to follow the son of Ulysses along the shores ofElis from the embouchure of the Peneus, and to return, like him, into my native country. Would to God that I had persisted in this resolution! I should then have found my father alive after my long absence. But I was still once more excited by my de- sire of following my hero across the seas of Sicily and Italy. I therefore embarked in the port of Navarino, (Pylos,) which was soon to become the theatre of a great event, happy for certain nations, untoward for others, ac- cording to different interests, or perhaps accord- ing to political measures wisely concerted. A violent north wind had cast Ulysses upon the coast of Africa at the moment when he (JO ULYSSES HOMER. wished to double the Malean promontory, in order to sail up to Ithaca. This north wind, fatal to the course of Ulysses, was on the con- trary most favorable to mine ; and in a few days I arrived at the extremity of the Syrtes, where is situated the island of the Lotophagi, (Meninx,) now called Gerby, and where still grows the lotus. I landed on that island ; and I there in fact found the fruit-plant with the flower of which the odor was as agreeable as the taste was for the sailors of Ulysses the most dangerous of all poisons ; for it extin- guished in their hearts the remembrance of their country. From the island of the Loto- phagi I passed to that of iEgusa, which the poet seems to have described with as much satisfaction as his dear Ithaca ; for we there see the banks crowned with meadows well- watered, always covered with fresh grass and numerous flocks of goats, a port vast and commodious, and that beauteous spring of limpid water sung by the author of the Odyssey. From the island of ^Egusa I passed into that of the Cyclops, which, as Ulysses says, was very near. Polyphemus, of whom ULYSSES IIOIMKU. ()1 he draws so hideous a picture, was not any more than Ulysses himself a fabulous cha- racter. He was without doubt a king of the country, deficient in the duties of hospitality. It has been pretended that this king had a daughter of rare beauty, whom Ulysses car- ried off, and that the inhabitants pursued the daughter of their king, and rescued her from the hands of the ravisher : but how can we attribute such conduct to the virtuous hero who preferred his Penelope to immortality? After having surveyed the island of the Cyclops, and visited the immense crater which sometimes shakes Sicily and Italy, but which without doubt was silent in the time of Ulysses, inasmuch as he has not even pro- nounced its name in his narrative to the Phaeacians, I repaired to the island of iEolus, where the heroic navigator, protected by the god of the winds, becomes himself the master of the winds. Here the allegory is intelligible ; and we may see in it the poetical expression of a natural fact. From the island of iEolus I passed into that of Circe, at this day Monte 62 DLYSSES HOMER. Circello. I recognised, with all the other na- turalists who have travelled in these parts, an immense quantity of poisonous plants, the deadly nightshade, the datura ferox, the ra- nunculus sceleratus, and their antidote the moly, which Mercury makes known to Ulysses to secure him against the spells of Circe. Close to the island of Circe I perceived the capital of the Lsestrygons, those anthropo- phagi from whence Ulysses only escaped by abandoning to them twelve of his vessels. It is the hero himself who teaches me the real position of the island of the Syrens, which was unknown in the time of Strabo, and upon which modern geographers had no more cer- tain notions than he. Yet the name only, the island of bones, (Ustica,) ought to have pointed out to them the horrible abode of those goddesses, strewed with the dreadful relics of their victims. But where I have most admired the genius of the poet, and the fidelity of his pencil, is in his description of the dismal regions of the Cimmerians, and in his surprising picture of ULYSSES HOMER. 63 Charybdis and Scylla. Thus the poet has shown himself as faithful a painter of nature in the seas of Sicily and Italy as in the iEgean, in the continent of Greece, in the plain of Ilium, and in the island of Ithaca. Ogygia alone is involved in mystery, which has hitherto • evaded all the researches of geo- graphers. Did Ulysses wish to cast a veil over the theatre of his amours with Calypso ? This conjecture would agree with his resist- ance to the charms of the goddess, and his impatience to see once more the smoke of his palace. It is at the strait of Charybdis and Scylla that I end my observations on the seas of Sicily and Italy. Arrived at Rhegio, I had only a step to take to reach the interesting- ruins of Temese in the country of the Bruttii. I repaired thither that I might not leave a single one of the chief geographical points mentioned in the two poems without verifying its existence and position. Minerva, in the first book of the Odyssey, 6'4 ULYSSES HOMER. approaches Telemachus and says to him : " I am Mentes, king of the Taphians, whose principal occupation is on the sea. I am going to Temese * to fetch copper in exchange for iron." The ruins of that celebrated town and the scoria of its mines have been observed upon before me, and have been described by Swinburne, at the place named Campo Te- mese, some miles above Amantea. It appears that the commerce of the Taphians with Te- mese did not take place through the strait, but that the merchandise was deposited on the eastern coast of Italy, and transported by land to Temese upon the western shore. After quitting Temese, nothing remarkable occurred till I discerned the lofty mountains of Albania, and a favorable wind brought * The learned Boehart conjectures that the Phoeni- cians had given the name to that town, as well as to another situated in the island of Cyprus, on account of the minerals which ahound in their territory ; for Te- mese in their language signifies fusion, and it is known that the Phoenicians were much engaged in the casting of metals. ULYSSES HOMER. 65 me in less than twenty hours within the port of Corfu. At the time of my voyage from Ithaca to the university of Padua I had had occasion to observe how exact the author of the Odyssey is in his description of the ca- pital and gardens of the king of Corcyra. I had above all admired the circuit of the ancient port, surrounded with hills covered with olive-trees, fig-trees, and orange-trees, thrusting their branches into the waters of the sea. At the village of Chrysida I had remarked the abundant fountain of limpid water which, springing at present from the foot of a beautiful tree, turns a mill at the distance of a few paces. In this second voyage I made an observation which had escaped me in the first, that the pictures of the poet are more numerous, richer, and, if it be pos- sible, of an exactness still more striking, in proportion as they approach nearer to the two principal theatres of the Odyssey and the Iliad. In fact, when I contemplated that beauteous fountain of Chrysida, which was F 66 ULYSSES IIOMEll. heretofore divided into two channels, one of which watered the magnificent gardens of Alcinous, * and the other formed a vast basin in front of the palace, for the convenience of the citizens, I had a difficulty in figuring to myself that a schoolmaster had come from the extremity of Ionia to paint with so much care the gardens of Alcinous and the beauteous fountain which watered them. It seemed to me more natural to believe that a picture so minute had been painted by the neighbour and friend of the king ; by the king of Ithaca, whose flocks drank at the delicious fountain of Arethusa, and who had fought so long at the beauteous springs of the Scamander. After having taken a general view of the embellishments and improvements of every kind, which that happy colony owes to the English, my first care was to pay a visit to the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, Major-General Sir Frederick Adam, * These splendid gardens have received new embel- lishments from their illustrious possessor, the present Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian islands. ULYSSES HOMER. 6j and to the Earl of Guilford, the lord chancellor of the new University, who unfortunately had gone to the waters of Spa ; from whence he wrote to me, some days after my arrival (Aug. 15, 1827) : " The fatigues of the journey and the bad roads of the Ardennes have given me a disorder of which the waters will not cure me." This mournful presentiment was but too well founded : the noble and generous friend of humanity, the zealous protector of the Greek nation, died three months after- wards in London, at the house of his sister, Lady Sheffield, surrounded by his relations, and an object of regret to all Europe. At the time when I learnt from England the death of my benefactor, I received at the same time from Ithaca the fatal news of the death of my father. These two pure souls are in the bosom of the Almighty, where without doubt they still intercede for the restoration of Greece and the peace of the world. THE END. 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