History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
18 (return) [ See Wood’s Observations on Homer, p. 320. I have,
with pleasure, selected this remark from an author who in general
seems to have disappointed the expectation of the public as a
critic, and still more as a traveller. He had visited the banks
of the Hellespont; and had read Strabo; he ought to have
consulted the Roman itineraries. How was it possible for him to
confound Ilium and Alexandria Troas, (Observations, p. 340, 341,)
two cities which were sixteen miles distant from each other? *
Note: Compare Walpole’s Memoirs on Turkey, v. i. p. 101. Dr.
Clarke adopted Mr. Walpole’s interpretation of the salt
Hellespont. But the old interpretation is more graphic and
Homeric. Clarke’s Travels, ii. 70.—M.]
19 (return) [ Demetrius of Scepsis wrote sixty books on thirty
lines of Homer’s catalogue. The XIIIth Book of Strabo is
sufficient for _our_ curiosity.]
20 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiii. p. 595, [890, edit. Casaub.] The
disposition of the ships, which were drawn upon dry land, and the
posts of Ajax and Achilles, are very clearly described by Homer.
See Iliad, ix. 220.]
21 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. [c. 30,] p. 105. Sozomen, l. ii. c.
3. Theophanes, p. 18. Nicephorus Callistus, l. vii. p. 48.
Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 6. Zosimus places the new city
between Ilium and Alexandria, but this apparent difference may be
reconciled by the large extent of its circumference. Before the
foundation of Constantinople, Thessalonica is mentioned by
Cedrenus, (p. 283,) and Sardica by Zonaras, as the intended
capital. They both suppose with very little probability, that the
emperor, if he had not been prevented by a prodigy, would have
repeated the mistake of the _blind_ Chalcedonians.]
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