Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1915-04-17
THE TROY OF HoMERs TIME.
Schlicmann's Modern Siege of Ancient
tity.

A generation ago all the world was
stirred by the report of what the eX-
cavations conducted by Schliemann
the archeOlogist had done in de-
termining that the Troy of the "Ilad"
was veritable city. DR.. Samuel June
Barrows, who was associated with the
later work at Mycenac says.
ut was Schliemann who began the
modern siege of Troy. How he was
laughed at for making the attempt.
As if there was anything in Homer
but pure fiction. His faith, enthusiasm
and perseverance were based on a
settled consciousness of historic ele-
ments i'm Homer. In spite Of the wond-
erful imaginative drapery in which
the Homeric story was invested
Schliemann could feel the force and
pressure of the reality beneath Per-
haps If he had been more critical and
less trustful he would not have felt it;
but he believed a real Troy. Just as
real Greece, was the foundation of the
story Of the Had SO, i'm his ardent
faith, he went to the spot where tradi-
ton said that Troy used to be. With
ndomitable perseverance, Schliemann
began with his spade to uncover the
city His discoveries were at first
ridiculed. Then people began to smile
another way when he brought forth
the treaSurcrs he had unearthed the
relics of a prehistoric age Afterward
when he had published his two books
on Troy. the great value of his find
was recognized by psychologists: but
1t was said, and said rightly, that the
civilization Of the Troy he had found
did not correspond with the Troy de-
scribed i'm Homer. SChliemann had
gone further back into the past than
he had known. He had dug down
clear below the foundation of the
HOmeric Troy into still older strata. o"
Eventually no less than nine cities
were discovered, built on different
levels centuries apart in time, though
in some cases the foundation stones of
a newer city were found to be COM
mingled with the walls below. For
more than seventeen centuries the dis
pute as to the site of Troy has gone
on, but II is now regarded as definitely
settled by excavations made since
Schliemann's time, and Hassarlik, the
sixth city counting from the bottom,
Is believed to be the Troy of the
Homeric story says Christian Science
Monitor.
DIR. Barrows says that when he went
to Troy he was apprehensive lest
some of the poetry of the Iliad'
might vanish in the process of these
excavations. 81 was not sure that the
Ilomeric Ilios could stand so much
publicity The result, however, was
just the reverse. THE uncovering of
the Mycenaean city. with its great
walls, towers and battlements.
strengthened the sense of reality 1t
might have been on just such a tower
that Helen stood looking over the
plain of Troy when she won from the
Trojan elders the greatest compliment
ever paid to the beauty of woman.
But now in Troy, as in Ithaca. site
and scene are but the warp and woof
OF which the picture Is woven. We
need not press the correspondence too
far between fact and fancy. over
mountains, islands, sea and plain the
poet has spread his canvas, and like
beautiful sunset in the Aegean has
suffused the scene with bright glow
of his Imagination. And when the last
stone Of Troy shall have crumbled into
dust" the unfadlng picture will re-
main.
This. through the muse of Homer
bard renowned
Whose fame not one alone, but many
shores revere