Book 13
1.35
A little above thisi.e., a little further inland than the country which has the shape of the letter in question. is the Village of the Ilians, where the ancient Ilium is thought to have been situated in earlier times, at a distance of thirty stadia from the present city. And ten stadia above the Village of the Ilians is Callicolone, a hill, past which, at a distance of five stadia, flows the Simoeis. It therefore becomes easy to understand, first, the reference to Ares: And over against her leaped Ares, like unto a dreadful whirlwind, in shrill tones cheering the Trojans from the topmost part of the city, and now again as he sped alongside Simoeis o’er Callicolone;Hom. Il. 20.51for if the battle was fought on the Scamandrian Plain, it is plausible that Ares should at one time shout his cheers from the acropolis and at another from the region near the Simoeis and Callicolone, up to which, in all probability, the battle would have extended. But since Callicolone is forty stadia distant from the present llium, for what useful purpose would the poet have taken in places so far away that the line of battle could not have reached them? Again, the words,And towards Thymbra fell the lot of the Lycians,Hom. Il. 10.430are more suitable to the ancient settlement, for the plain of Thymbra is near it, as also the Thymbrius River, which flows through the plain and empties into the Scamander at the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo, but Thymbra is actually fifty stadia distant from the present Ilium, And again, Erineus,See footnote on “Erineus,” section 34 above. a place that is rugged and full of wild fig trees, lies at the foot of the ancient site, so that Andromache might appropriately say, Stay thy host beside Erineus, where best the city can be approached and the wall scaled,Hom. Il. 6.433but Erineus stands at a considerable distance from the present Ilium. Further, a little below Erineus is Phegus,Oak tree. in reference to which Achilles says,But so long as I was carrying on war amid the Achaeans, Hector was unwilling to rouse battle away from the wall, but would come only as far as the Scaean Gates and Phegus.Hom. Il. 9.352
