CHAPTER XV.

LEGEND OF TROY.

Great extent and variety of the tale of Troy.—Dardanus, son of Zeus.—Ilus, founder of Ilium.—Walls of Ilium built by Poseidôn.—Capture of Ilium by Hêraklês.—Priam and his offspring.—Paris—his judgment on the three goddesses.—Carries off Helen from Sparta.—Expedition of the Greeks to recover her.—Heroes from all parts of Greece combined under Agamemnôn.—Achilles and Odysseus.—The Grecian host mistakes Teuthrania for Troy—Telephus.—Detention of the Greeks at Aulis—Agamemnon and Iphigeneia.—First success of the Greeks on landing near Troy.—Brisêis awarded to Achilles.—Palamêdês—his genius, and treacherous death.—Epic chronology—historicized.—Period of the Homeric Iliad.—Hectôr killed by Achilles.—New allies of Troy—Penthesileia.—Memnôn—killed by Achilles.—Death of Achilles.—Funeral games celebrated in honor of him.—Quarrel about his panoply.—Odysseus prevails and Ajax kills himself.—Philoktêtês and Neoptolemus.—Capture of the Palladium.—The wooden horse.—Destruction of Troy.—Distribution of the captives among the victors.—Helen restored to Menelaus—lives in dignity at Sparta—passes to a happy immortality.—Blindness and cure of the poet Stesichorus—alteration of the legend about Helen.—Egyptian tale about Helen—tendency to historicize.—Return of the Greeks from Troy.—Their sufferings—anger of the gods.—Wanderings of the heroes in all directions.—Memorials of them throughout the Grecian world.—Odysseus—his final adventures and death.—Æneas and his descendants.—Different stories about Æneas.—Æneadæ at Skêpsis.—Ubiquity of Æneas.—Antenôr.—Tale of Troy—its magnitude and discrepancies.—Trojan war—essentially legendary—its importance as an item in Grecian national faith.—Basis of history for it—possible, and nothing more.—Historicizing innovations—Dio Chrysostom.—Historical Ilium.—Generally received and visited as the town of Priam.—Respect shown to it by Alexander.—Successors of Alexander—foundation of Alexandreia Trôas.—The Romans—treat Ilium with marked respect.—Mythical legitimacy of Ilium—first called in question by Dêmêtrius of Skêpsis and Hestiæa.—Supposed Old Ilium, or real Troy, distinguished from New Ilium.—Strabo alone believes in Old Ilium as the real Troy—other authors continue in the old faith—the moderns follow Strabo.—The mythical faith not shaken by topographical impossibilities.—Historical Trôas and the Teukrians.—Æolic Greeks in the Trôad—the whole territory gradually Æolized.—Old date, and long prevalence of the worship of Apollo Sminthius.—Asiatic customs and religion—blended with Hellenic.—Sibylline prophecies.—Settlements from Milêtus, Mitylênê, and Athens. 284-340