DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0066
46
New Chapters in Greek History. [Chap. II.
trace massive walls and gates, we can identify the
foundations of a palace ; and in the numerous works of
the crafts of potter and smith which have been recovered
we can discern proof of considerable proficiency in the arts
of life. We can recover a mirror of a state of society in
which indeed letters, coins, iron, all the great inventions of
rising civilisation, were unknown, yet which could scarcely
be called void of all civilisation or wanting in vigorous
promise.
This city had more than one distinct period of existence,
and perished, perhaps more than once, in violent conflagra-
tion ; and on the site we can trace for ages afterwards the
abode of communities far inferior in wealth, in power, and
in arts, to that which had been destroyed, weak and un-
settled tribes of no magnitude or cohesion, until at last we
reach the beginning of the historic age, and once more
strike into the stream of progress, a stream destined in
this case to flow steadily onwards, since Greece has now
lifted the human race for all time to a new level. Then we
come into clear daylight. We know that we are survey-
ing the remains of the city which Alexander the Great
planned, and which his general, Lysimachus, erected ; the
new Ilium, which was in the intention of its founders to
have been a worthy successor to the Ilium of old, and to
have made amends to Athena for the loss of the temple
where the Trojan women placed their offerings. A few
more careful excavations of this kind would put us in our
knowledge of human .stratification in Asia Minor almost
in the position which geologists hold in regard to the
strata of the earth. They would place the science of pre-
historic archaeology on a new level. But that which
concerns us at the moment, the relation of the remains
at Hissarlik to the story of Troy is even now more obscure
than one could have hoped.
If the legend of the Trojan War was based, as it almost
New Chapters in Greek History. [Chap. II.
trace massive walls and gates, we can identify the
foundations of a palace ; and in the numerous works of
the crafts of potter and smith which have been recovered
we can discern proof of considerable proficiency in the arts
of life. We can recover a mirror of a state of society in
which indeed letters, coins, iron, all the great inventions of
rising civilisation, were unknown, yet which could scarcely
be called void of all civilisation or wanting in vigorous
promise.
This city had more than one distinct period of existence,
and perished, perhaps more than once, in violent conflagra-
tion ; and on the site we can trace for ages afterwards the
abode of communities far inferior in wealth, in power, and
in arts, to that which had been destroyed, weak and un-
settled tribes of no magnitude or cohesion, until at last we
reach the beginning of the historic age, and once more
strike into the stream of progress, a stream destined in
this case to flow steadily onwards, since Greece has now
lifted the human race for all time to a new level. Then we
come into clear daylight. We know that we are survey-
ing the remains of the city which Alexander the Great
planned, and which his general, Lysimachus, erected ; the
new Ilium, which was in the intention of its founders to
have been a worthy successor to the Ilium of old, and to
have made amends to Athena for the loss of the temple
where the Trojan women placed their offerings. A few
more careful excavations of this kind would put us in our
knowledge of human .stratification in Asia Minor almost
in the position which geologists hold in regard to the
strata of the earth. They would place the science of pre-
historic archaeology on a new level. But that which
concerns us at the moment, the relation of the remains
at Hissarlik to the story of Troy is even now more obscure
than one could have hoped.
If the legend of the Trojan War was based, as it almost