Nor is there anything here to attract those self-satisfied iconoclasts who not only deny that Homer wrote the _Iliad_ but also deny his very existence. Neither is there anything here to impress the followers of Wolf and other so-called atomists who insist that the _Iliad_ is but a collection of ballads composed by a number of rhapsodists.[67] Still less is there here aught to interest those who not only maintain that Homer and his authorship of the _Iliad_ are myths but who also contend that there is no evidence whatever for believing that there was such a place as Troy or for supposing that the traditional Troy was located in this place, or that there ever was such a conflict as the Trojan War, which is so graphically described in the _Iliad_. No. To be thrilled by a visit to the well-fought field of Ilium, one must share the sentiments which animated Byron when he contemplated what Catullus so well denominated: _Troia (nefas) commune sepulchrum Asiæ Europæque,_ _Troia virum et virtutum omnium acerba cinis._[68] He must share the sentiments of thousands of others---poets, artists, historians, kings, statesmen, commanders of vast armies---who, during the past twenty-five centuries, have found on the site of Ilium, once the _City of unconquered men_ an inspiration in their work and an incentive to high achievement which they could not find in the same degree in any other place in the wide world. When Xerxes, with his army, was on the way from Sardis to Greece he stopped at Troy, and “when he had seen everything and inquired into all particulars, he made an offering of ten thousand oxen to the Trojan Minerva, while the Magians poured libations to the heroes who were slain at Troy.”[69] And the first thing Alexander the Great did on arriving in Asia, previously to beginning his stupendous campaign against the Persians, was to make a pilgrimage to what was once the city of Priam. The famous Macedonian was a credit to his master, Aristotle, both as a scholar and as a philosopher. He was, moreover, a great admirer of Homer and slept with a copy of the _Iliad_ under his pillow. Ascending the acropolis of New Ilium, he, like Xerxes, sacrificed to Minerva and also to the shade of Priam, which he wished to propitiate before starting on his expedition into the heart of Asia. And, as an assumed descendant, through his mother, of Achilles, he offered an oblation on the tumulus of Achilles, beneath which, it was believed, the ashes of the hero, together with those of his friend Patroclus, were preserved in a golden urn. After this he made a careful topographical survey of the Trojan plain. And so convinced was he of all that tradition claimed for it that he promised to enrich and fortify the New Ilium,[70] but was prevented by premature death from carrying his project into execution.