Page:Mycenaean Troy.djvu/24

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20
MYCENAEAN TROY

Υ, 91), and that topmost crest is Gargarus,[1] rising almost six thousand feet, blue and majestic, its ranges broken by river valleys, until at last a line of hills runs to the Hellespont and completes the eastern boundary of the Trojan Plain. On this summit sat Zeus, "exulting in glory, looking down upon the city of the Trojans and the ships of the Achaeans" (Θ, 47– 52). Here was his sanctuary (Θ, 48). Hither repaired Hera (Ξ, 292).

A little distance from the coast is an island rising like a hill out of the sea. Its proximity to the shore makes it a conspicuous object in the Trojan country.

Est in conspectu Tenedos, notissima fama
Insula dives opum, Priami dum regna manebant.

The theater of the Homeric wars is before our eyes. Tenedos (Α, 38, 452; Λ, 625; Ν, 33; γ, 159) lies in front of the wide Besika Bay, about four miles from the mainland and twelve from the Hellespont. Farther in the distance is "rugged" Imbros (Ν, 33; Ω, 78), above which towers the huge Samothracian mountain.[2] It was from this summit that Poseidon looked upon the battle, "for thence was plain in sight all Ida, and plain in sight were Priam's city and the ships of the Achaeans" (Ν, 11–14). In a clear day "holy" Lemnos (Β, 722) shows its outline in the west, while, over one hundred miles distant, Mount Athos (Ξ, 229) is dimly seen at sunset.

Between the Thracian Chersonesus, which in the


  1. Gargarys (called to-day Kazdagh) is mentioned in Θ, 48; Ξ, 292, 353; Ο, 153.
  2. Called by a Scholiast to Ν, 11, Saoke.