PREFACE
The first time I came in sight of the Troad, I felt as if the whole panorama of the Homeric wars had been suddenly spread out before me. This, I am sure, has been the experience of all visitors to the Trojan plain. About four miles off the mainland is Tenedos. Farther to the west is Imbros, while high above it, clear and distinct on the horizon, is the great Saoke of Samothrace. On the north, the Hellespont resembles a large river with steep banks, where the Thracian Chersonesus meets the eye. On its southern shore, between Sigeum (marked to-day by the unattractive houses of the village of Yeni Shehr) and the mound In Tepeh—indicating where the high and rocky Rhoetean shore began—was the position of the Greek fleet. The coast along the Aegean consists of a line of foot-hills, while the eastern boundary of the plain is formed by the spurs of the Ida chain. Between these ranges, in a spot especially favored by nature, sheltered as it is by hills and sea, is the valley of the Scamander (modern Mendere), fertile and rich-soiled, where to-day is still to be recognized much of the Homeric flora. The present course of the river is toward the northwest corner of the plain, but in ancient times it probably flowed close beside the Ida range, and, meeting the Simoïs at the swamp of the modern Dumbrek Su, emptied by what is now a dead arm of the sea (In Tepeh Asmak) into the Hellespont. Here, on a ridge of the mountains where the
