Page:Mycenaean Troy.djvu/11

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PREFACE
7

ination, although, when the Cyclopean walls of Tiryns and Mycenae were the only relics of the heroic age, they seemed to contradict the Homeric picture.

3. In Π, 702, we are told that "thrice did Patroclus seek to climb upon the 'elbow' of the lofty wall." Such an escalade is possible in the strongly scarped lower wall of the VI City, where its rough stone forms an "elbow" with the perpendicular upper wall. Again, we read (Ζ, 433) that "beside the fig tree the wall may he best scaled, and the city is more assailable." This portion of the citadel must have lain on the western side, where the slope of the hill makes the town more accessible than on the north, and where, too, the excavations show the walls of our city to be more poorly constructed.

4. Of the many gates of Troy (Β, 809), Homer gives the names of two, the Scaean and the Dardanian. Of the three gates unearthed in our city, VI T must have formed the principal entrance on that portion of the hill where the city was most accessible; while on the northern side, where the wall is entirely destroyed, the gate towering high above the plain could have been reached only by a ramp, such as is seen to-day in the ruins of the retaining wall beside the Northeast Tower. It is presumable that the Dardanian Gate lay in the direction of the Ida range, toward the southeast, where Dardania was situated, and where the excavations have brought to light the great South Gate, VI T. From this gate, the farthest removed from the battlefield, the Trojans (Ε, 789) did not dare to issue while Achilles went forth to battle, nor did the Trojan women (Χ, 155) venture longer to wash their garments at the springs lying near.