Kitap 13
1.7
Those who have paid particular attention to this subject conjecture, from the expressions of the poet, that all this coast was subject to the Trojans, when it was divided into nine dynasties, but that at the time of the war it was under the sway of Priam, and called Troja. This appears from the detail. Achilles and his army perceiving, at the beginning of the war, that the inhabitants of Ilium were defended by walls, carried on the war beyond them, made a circuit, and took the places about the country; I sacked with my ships twelve cities, and eleven in the fruitful land of Troja.Il. ix. 328. By Troja he means the continent which he had ravaged. Among other places which had been plundered, was the country opposite Lesbos,—that about Thebe, Lyrnessus, and Pedasus belonging to the Leleges, and the territory also of Eurypylus, the son of Telephus; as when he slew with his sword the hero Eurypylus, the son of Telephus;Od. xviii. 518. and Neoptolemus, the hero Eurypylus. The poet says these places were laid waste, and even Lesbos; when he took the well-built Lesbos,Il. ix. 129.Il. ix. 129. and, he sacked Lyrnessus and Pedasus,Il. xx. 92.Il. xx. 92. and, laid waste Lyrnessus, and the walls of Thebe.Il. ii. 691.Il. ii. 691. Briseïs was taken captive at Lyrnessus; whom he carried away from Lyrnessus.Il. ii. 690.Il. ii. 690. In the capture of this place the poet says, Mynes and Epistrophus were slain, as Briseïs mentions in her lament over Patroclus, Thou didst not permit me, when the swift-footed Achilles slew my husband, and destroyed the city of the divine Mynes, to make any lamentation;Il. xix. 295. for by calling Lyrnessus the city of the divine Mynes, the poet implies that it was governed by him who was killed fighting in its defence.
