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[41] So the Ilians tell us, but Homer expressly states that the city was wiped out:
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and
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And other such evidences of the same thing are set forth; for example, that the wooden image of Athena now to be seen stands upright, whereas Homer clearly indicates that it was sitting, for orders are given to “put” the robe
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Hom. Il. 6.273
(compare
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For it is better to interpret it
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in this way than, as some do, to interpret it as meaning “to put the robe ‘beside’ her knees,” comparing the words
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which they take to mean “beside” the hearth. For how could one conceive of the dedication of a robe “beside” the knees? Moreover, others, changing the accent on
γούνασιν
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accenting it
γουνάσιν,
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like
θυιάσιν
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(in whichever of two ways they interpret it), talk on endlessly. . . There are to be seen many of the ancient wooden images of Athena in a sitting posture, as, for example, in Phocaea, Massalia, Rome, Chios, and several other places. Also the more recent writers agree that the city was wiped out, among whom is the orator Lycurgus, who, in mentioning the city of the Ilians, says:
The day shall come when sacred Ilios shall perish;
surely we have utterly destroyed the steep city of Priam,
by means of counsels and persuasiveness;
and in the tenth year the city of Priam was destroyed.
upon Athena’s knees
that never should there sit upon his knees a dear child).
and she sits upon the hearth in the light of the fire,
Who has not heard that once for all it was razed to the ground by the Greeks, and is uninhabited?
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Geography. Strabo. Horace Leonard Jones (Translator). London. 1924-1929.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.