The Story of Troy | Page 4

junction of two rivers, the Simê1o-is, and the Sca-manê1der or Xanê1thus. The people of Troy and Troas were called Trojans.
Some of the first settlers in northwestern Asia Minor, before it was called Troas, came from Thrace, a country lying to the north of Greece. The king of these Thraê1cian colonists was Teuê1cer. During his reign a prince named Darê1danus arrived in the new settlement. He was a son of Jupiter, and he came from Samê1o-thrace, one of the many islands of the ??gean Sea. It is said that he escaped from a great flood which swept over his native island, and that he was carried on a raft of wood to the coast of the kingdom of Teucer. Soon afterwards he married Teucer's daughter. He then built a city for himself amongst the hills of Mount Ida, and called it Dar-daê1ni-a; and on the death of Teucer he became king of the whole country, to which he gave the same name, Dardania.
Jove was the father, cloud-compelling Jove, Of Dardanus, by whom Dardania first Was peopled, ere our sacred Troy was built On the great plain,--a populous town; for men Dwelt still upon the roots of Ida fresh With Qiany springs.
BRYANT, Iliad, Book XX.
Dardanus was the ancestor of the Trojan line of kings. He had a grandson named Tros, and from him the city Troy, as well as the country Troas, took its name. The successor of King Tros was his son Iê1lus. By him Troy was built, and it was therefore also called Ilê1i-um or Ilê1i-on; hence the title of Homer's great poem,--the Iliad. From the names Dardanus and Teucer the city of Troy has also been sometimes called Dardania and Teuê1cri-a, and the Trojans are often referred to as Dardanians and Teucrians. Ilus was succeeded by his son La-omê1e-don, and Laomedon's son Priê1am was king of Troy during the famous siege.
The story of the founding of Troy is a very interesting one. Ilus went forth from his father's city of Dardania, in search of adventures, as was the custom of young princes and heroes in those days; and he traveled on until he arrived at the court of the king of Phrygê1i-a, a country lying east of Troas. Here he found the people engaged in athletic games, at which the king gave valuable prizes for competition. Ilus took part in a wrestling match, and he won fifty young men and fifty maidens,--a strange sort of prize we may well think, but not at all strange or unusual in ancient times, when there were many slaves everywhere. During his stay in Phrygia the young Dardanian prince was hospitably entertained at the royal palace. When he was about to depart, the king gave him a spotted heifer, telling him to follow the animal, and to build a city for himself at the place where she should first lie down to rest.
Ilus did as he was directed. With his fifty youths and fifty maidens he set out to follow the heifer, leaving her free to go along at her pleasure. She marched on for many miles, and at last lay down at the foot of Mount Ida on a beautiful plain watered by two rivers, and here Ilus encamped for the night. Before going to sleep he prayed to Jupiter to send him a sign that that was the site meant for his city. In the morning he found standing in front of his tent a wooden statue of the goddess Minerva, also called Pallas. The figure was three cubits high. In its right hand it held a spear, and in the left, a distaff and spindle.
This was the Pal-laê1di-um of Troy, which afterwards became very famous. The Trojans believed that it had been sent down from heaven, and that the safety of their city depended upon its preservation. Hence it was guarded with the greatest care in a temple specially built for the purpose.
Ilus, being satisfied that the statue was the sign for which he had prayed, immediately set about building his city, and thus Troy was founded. It soon became the capital of Troas and the richest and most powerful city in that part of the world. During the reign of Laomedon, son of Ilus, its mighty walls were erected, which in the next reign withstood for ten years all the assaults of the Greeks. These walls were the work of no human hands. They were built by the ocean god Neptune. This god had conspired against Jupiter and attempted to dethrone him, and, as a punishment, his kingdom of the sea was taken away from him for one year, and he was ordered to spend that time in the service of the king of Troy.
In building the great walls, Neptune was assisted by Apollo, who had also been driven