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[147] ἔνθα δέ MSS., “ἔνθα τε” Hermann and most edd. See note on 13.21. The two springs are of necessity at the root of all speculations on the question whether or no the poet is describing an actual locality with which he was personally acquainted. Lechevalier thought that he had discovered them at the foot of the hill of Bounarbashi, which therefore for many years held an unquestioned claim to be the site of Troy. But further investigations shewed, firstly, that there were at this spot not two springs but very many — the Turks call the place ‘the Forty Eyes’ (i.e. springs); secondly, that to the thermometer all the springs were of the same temperature, whatever they might be to the fancy. Virchow (Beiträge zur Landeskunde der Troas, 13-45) has tested all the springs round the plain of Troy, and finds that there are but trifling differences of temperature between them. There are hot springs in the Troad, but they lie far away to the SW. (at Tuzla and Lidja Hammám) and are quite out of the question. It is, however, remarkable that the Menderé, which we are bound to identify with the Skamandros, rises in Ida from two very large springs notably differing in temperature. Clarke in 1801 found them to be 34° and 69° Fahr. respectively, Barker Webb in 1819 43° and 70°, Virchow in 1879 8.4° and 15.8° Cent. (= 47.12° and 60.44° F.), the differences depending doubtless on the amount of melting snow which probably supplies the cold spring. This admirably suits the words of the text; the more so as “πηγαὶ Σκαμάνδρου” must mean sources of Skamandros, not merely ‘springs flowing into Skamandros.’ But the sources in question, so far from being close under Troy, whether we place it at Hissarlik or Bounarbashi, are some twenty miles away to the SE., close under the top of Ida. The conclusion is inevitable; the topography of the “Μῆνις” is a fancy picture, composed of fragments of real geography known by hearsay to a poet not personally acquainted with the locality. The piece of information about the springs is just such as might have been brought home to Greece by campaigners in the Troad; not only is the spot itself, according to the descriptions, one eminently calculated to impress the imagination, but it was in all likelihood the seat of the worship of the “διιπετὴς ποταμός” in connexion with the ancient cultus of Zeus upon Gargaros. Whether from confusion of the tradition or from merely poetical motives, the poet transfers the source of the river bodily to the foot of the hill of Troy.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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