Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1875-03-25
Troy as IL Was.

The recent book of the interchangeable
Schliemann, which has been setting all
the antiquarian world agog with his
boosted discoveries at Troy, has, in one
respect at least, disappointed his most
ardent disciples. The ''learned grocery
clerk" as he might be not inappropriate
ly called, went to the Troad fully i'm
pressed with the idea that Troy contain
ed. as Homer intimates, at least fifty
thousand souls. After digging with true
Teutonic patience for more than two
wears he finds that the area of the far
famed city which Helen's peccadilloes
doomed TO dire destruction was about
half that of Boston Common. To this
lame and impotent conclusion he was
forced TO come-that Troy could not
possibly have harbored within its walls
mere. at the utmost, than five or six
six thousand people. 1t was but as
fair. sized New England village and the
| lordlv Priam was therefore but the mon
arch of a petty State, compared with
which Gerolstein is almost an Empire.
| To catch old Homer holding in this way
! over his figures is deplOrable, and opens
| to the fancy an endless vista of entail
ment in the rest of his narrative. We
| think of Priam and his stalwart sons no
longer as magnificent creatures, attired
! in satin and gold, in FURNISHED armor
and crowns ponderous with jewels, but
as rather insignificant Asiatic chiefs, clad
in simple flowing robes, with long boards
| and solemn, sallow faces. Perhaps
Priam was, after all, only such an Arab
sheik as we may see nowadays lording il
over little cities in the Arabian desert,
and making stately obeisances at the
shrine of Mecca. Perhaps-desolating
thought-perhaps he was squint-eyed
Chinaman! For il is asserted that some
of the inscriptions found at Troy are
strangely like Chinese characters, anC
one learned pundit propounds theory
that the Trojans were colony of Ce
lestials. Certain il is that Priaan, if h'
abided in the palace in which the enthu
siastic Schliemann has placed him, livet
, in scant comfort, under low-studdet
walls. half under ground while thu
tower, so glowingly described by thu
Smyrnan Bard, whence Trojan majesty
perched aloft with the fair and faithles
Helen, looked down upon the battles be
! tween the godlike Hector and Achilles
. is found to measure exactly twenty fee
= ia height.
! There may well have been TrojaI
. war, The mighty hosts of AgamemnoI
may be fancied, three thousand strong
| advancing doughtily upon twenty-foo
: towers and six foot walls Hector ma,
/ be imagined making heroic sortie wit
] an army corps of two hundred black
= | eyed Asiatics the venerable King ma
4 4 be seen with the minds eye easily ad
/ dressing the whole Trojan population
: men, women and children, from his pa
+ ace roof, and as easily stepping from I'd
r roof to the ground, and patting the b
1 no means wearisomely numerous babe
q upon the cheek with his patriarchi
v hand. Under the light of DIR. Schlit
3 mann's discoveries, indeed the who
! story becomes credibly diminutiye an
s commonplace Paris, the son OF peti
) Asiatic chief, is smitten with the few
a of travelling. He crosses the Hellespol
" with a sack of provisions, and wande
h on till he comes to cosy little Gree
er realm presided over by one Meneiau
d Menelaus has a pretty Greek wife, wit
4 a provoking tunic and a nose that ia
Il painfully straight from her forehea
~ The fine Young Arab-or Chinese
as tracts her coquettish eye. Hence
Sd elopemept J; and there were probat
in clippers before Paris, as there were gre
q | men before Agamemnon. Then folio
d. Greek expedition across the Hellespo
1t. | Menelaus is proud, although he may