Stalk, in stern tumult through the halls of Troy."
--Trans. by BULWER.

Such, in brief, is the commonly received account of the Trojan
war, as we find it in Homer and other ancient writers. Concerning
it the historian THIRLWALL remarks: "We consider it necessary
to admit the reality of the Trojan war as a general fact, but
beyond this we scarcely venture to proceed a single step. We
find it impossible to adopt the poetical story of Helen, partly
on account of its inherent improbability, and partly because we
are convinced that Helen is a merely mythological person." GROTE
says:[Footnote: "History of Greece." Chap. XV.] "In the eyes of
modern inquiry the Trojan war is essentially a legend and nothing
more. If we are asked if it be not a legend embodying portions
of historical matter, and raised upon a basis of truth--whether
there may not really have occurred at the foot of the hill of
Ilium a war purely human and political, without gods, without
heroes, without Helen, without Amazons, without Ethiopians under
the beautiful son of Eos, without the wooden horse, without the
characteristic and expressive features of the old epic war--if
we are asked if there was not really some such historical Trojan
war as this, our answer must be, that as the possibility of it
cannot be denied, so neither can the reality of it be affirmed."
In this connection it is interesting to note that the discoveries
of the German explorer, Schliemann, upon the site of ancient Troy,
indicate that Homer "followed actual occurrences more closely
than an over-skeptical historical criticism was once willing to
allow."