Comparing the Aeneid and the Excidium Troiae

After looking at the Excidium Troiae, I decided to examine the Aeneid, which is its main source.  Virgil wrote this in the late first century bce, so, around 1200 years after the bronze age collapse. Only a small slice of it deals with the fate of Troy.  There are several places in which the Excidium sounds like the Aeneid.  I will review a few of those below. 

The story begins with Aeneas at sea, having left the destroyed city of Troy.  He arrives in Carthage, where he tells his tale to Queen Dido.  

"By destiny compell'd, and in despair,
The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,
And by Minerva's aid a fabric rear'd,
Which like a steed of monstrous height appear'd:
The sides were plank'd with pine; they feign'd it made
For their return, and this the vow they paid.
Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side
Selected numbers of their soldiers hide:
With inward arms the dire machine they load,
And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.
In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle
(While Fortune did on Priam's empire smile)
Renown'd for wealth; but, since, a faithless bay,
Where ships expos'd to wind and weather lay.
There was their fleet conceal'd.  (Aeneid, II,17f)

Minerva would be Athena in Homer's vernacular. Virgil describes Tenedos as an island that was formerly wealthy but has fallen on hard times.  The Excidium follows him here.  

Agamemnon and Menelaus prayed to Minerva so that she would answer them on how Troy could be approached. To them the goddess responded that they had to prepare deceptions, and as if spreading out they should carry themselves with ships and army from Troy about to return to their province, and at the island of Tenedos they should hide themselves, and a wooden horse should there be secretly built according to Minerva's instruction in order that Troy may be penetrated with it. Hearing that answer, they obeyed Minerva and brought themselves to the island of Tenedos with ships and army, as Virgil described it: Within sight is Tenedos, an island well noticed by fame, full of activities when Priam's regime stood, now only a bay and harbor unsafe for keels of ship. When they arrived at Tenedos, in a hidden bay they gathered, and a wooden horse began to be constructed by them.  (Excidium print edition page 13)

They give similar descriptions of Tenedos.  They are also similar on the matter of the Trojans celebrating when the Greeks sailed to Tenedos. 

 

We thought, for Greece
Their sails were hoisted, and our fears release.
The Trojans, coop'd within their walls so long,
Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,
Like swarming bees, and with delight survey
The camp deserted, where the Grecians lay:
The quarters of the sev'ral chiefs they show'd;
Here Phoenix, here Achilles, made abode;
Here join'd the battles; there the navy rode.
(Aeneid, II 30f)

And as this was happening in Tenedos, the day being bright, the Trojan citizens spread out through the walls where the armies and ships of the Greeks used to be, they saw no one and they were filled with joy. Thinking that they were free of enemies, they started to sing in Virgil's tongue: 'Here lay the Dolopian bands, there stern Achilles had pitched tent, here with fleets, here armies accustomed to fight.'  (Excidium, print edition page 14)

Both texts describe Trojans exiting the city and surveying the former Greek camp.  They also tell similar stories about Sinon, the Greek smooth talker.  

Meantime, with shouts, the Trojan shepherds bring
A captive Greek, in bands, before the king;
Taken to take; who made himself their prey,
T' impose on their belief, and Troy betray;
Fix'd on his aim, and obstinately bent
To die undaunted, or to circumvent.
About the captive, tides of Trojans flow;
All press to see, and some insult the foe.
Now hear how well the Greeks their wiles disguis'd;
Behold a nation in a man compris'd.
Trembling the miscreant stood, unarm'd and bound;
He star'd, and roll'd his haggard eyes around,
Then said: 'Alas! what earth remains, what sea
Is open to receive unhappy me?
What fate a wretched fugitive attends,
Scorn'd by my foes, abandon'd by my friends?'
He said, and sigh'd, and cast a rueful eye:
Our pity kindles, and our passions die.
We cheer youth to make his own defense,
And freely tell us what he was, and whence:
What news he could impart, we long to know,
And what to credit from a captive foe.
"His fear at length dismiss'd, he said: 'Whate'er
My fate ordains, my words shall be sincere:
I neither can nor dare my birth disclaim;
Greece is my country, Sinon is my name.
Tho' plung'd by Fortune's pow'r in misery,
'T is not in Fortune's pow'r to make me lie.
If any chance has hither brought the name
Of Palamedes, not unknown to fame,
Who suffer'd from the malice of the times,
Accus'd and sentenc'd for pretended crimes,
Because these fatal wars he would prevent;
Whose death the wretched Greeks too late lament-
Me, then a boy, my father, poor and bare
Of other means, committed to his care,
His kinsman and companion in the war.

Here Virgil begins the saga of Sinon Palamedes, who convinces the king of Troy that the horse is a sincere sacrifice that ought to be brought into the city to the temple.  The Excidium also emphasizes this character. 

Then one of the people by the name of Palamedes Sinon said: 'I will make it so that the horse be led to Troy.' To him they said: 'By what way?' Sinon answered: 'Cudgel me and go around before a slope, and send me in the marshes of Troy through the night.' And it was done. Indeed, the day being bright the shepherds of Troy as usual went out in the marshes with their herds and stocks, where they found Sinon cudgeled and girded lying before the slope, whom with great clamor they brought to king Priam with hands tied to the back. After he had been brought to king Priam, his fame traveled throughout all Troy. And a congregation of Trojans was formed before the king. The king started to ask him about the present crowd. To him he thus said: 'Tell us, from what origin are you, and what is your kindred.' To him Sinon thus answered: 'From the kin of king Palamedes, whom the Greeks killed; and when I wanted to assume something before his death, I devised hostilities among the Greeks.  ...  Meanwhile, they made a horse of marvelous size, which they wanted to offer to the temple of Minerva which was built outside the wall for the sake of their return. That fear he hopes your kingdom to be already here. Therefore have it be taken from the temple of Minerva which is outside the wall, and there send that horse to the temple of Neptune which is inside the city [and in his protection Troy was built]; and it will be necessary that Apollo and Minerva, due to a promise to them is seen to be broken, are angered, and when they start to sail they would rouse tempestuous power and sink them in the main. And you will be deprived of enemies. And with such a plot and in Sinon's manner of perjury she (Troy) was captured which neither ten years nor a thousand ships managed to vanquish. (Excidium print edition page 15) 

Sinon is integral to the plot in both the Aeneid and the Excidium.  This passage makes clear that there was a temple to Neptune/Poseidon inside the city, and that Troy was built around the temple.  

In the following passage, Aeneas recounts the night Troy was taken.  He was asleep, and dreamed of Hector, then awoke to find the city aflame.   

"'T was in the dead of night, when sleep repairs
Our bodies worn with toils, our minds with cares,
When Hector's ghost before my sight appears:
A bloody shroud he seem'd, and bath'd in tears;
Such as he was, when, by Pelides slain,
Thessalian coursers dragg'd him o'er the plain.
Swoln were his feet, as when the thongs were thrust
Thro' the bor'd holes; his body black with dust; ...
His hair and beard stood stiffen'd with his gore;
And all the wounds he for his country bore
Now stream'd afresh, and with new purple ran.
I wept to see the visionary man,
And, while my trance continued, thus began:
'O light of Trojans, and support of Troy,
Thy father's champion, and thy country's joy!
O, long expected by thy friends! from whence
Art thou so late return'd for our defense?
Do we behold thee, wearied as we are
With length of labors, and with toils of war?
After so many fun'rals of thy own
Art thou restor'd to thy declining town?
But say, what wounds are these? What new disgrace
Deforms the manly features of thy face?'

This passage is recognizable as the inspiration for a similar passage in the Excidium, in which Hector appears to Aeneus while Troy is in flames.  

Behold, before my eyes the most mild Hector seen come to me shedding many tears, with stiffening and rough beard, having thong of swelling feet. Thus he said like this: 'You sleep, oh goddess-born; your enemy holds the walls, rushes down from the high summit on Troy. We are no longer Trojans, Ilium and the great glory of Troy no longer exist.' (print edition page 18)

Virgil does not refer to "the high summit on Troy" mentioned by the Excidium.  The words acropolis and citadel do not appear in Book II of the Aeneid.  So, Virgil is not the source of the Excidium's distinction between the city and the citadel at Troy.  

I also do not see in the Aeneid any mention of marshes outside the gates or walls of Troy.  So, Virgil does not appear to be the source of that detail from the Excidium.  

In the Excidium the Greeks build a temple of Minerva outside the gates of the city of Troy. 

Agamemnon and Menelaus besieged Troy with a thousand ships and ten dukes, where they erected a temple of Minerva outside the walls, and sought counsel on what should be the future for them. The answer to them was: unless through Achilles, son of Peleus and Tethys, there will be no way that Troy could be breached. (Excidium print edition page 9)

In the account by Dares Phrygius there is a temple of Apollo outside the gates.  

Hecuba, bewailing the loss of Hector and Troilus, her two bravest sons, both slain by Achilles, devised, like the woman she was, a treacherous vengeance. Summoning her son Alexander, she urgently begged him to kill Achilles, and thus to uphold the honor of himself and his brothers. This he could do in an ambush, catching his victim off guard. She would summon Achilles, in Priam’s name, to come to the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo in front of the gate, to settle an agreement according to which she would give him Polyxena to marry. When Achilles came to this meeting, Alexander could treacherously kill him. Achilles’ death would be victory sufficient for her.  ...  Accordingly, on the next day Achilles, along with Antilochus, Nestor’s son, came for the meeting. Upon entering the temple, he was treacherously attacked. Spears were hurled from all sides, as Alexander exhorted his men. Achilles and Antilochus counterattacked, with their left arms wrapped in their cloaks for protection, their right hands wielding their swords; and Achilles slew many. But finally Alexander cut down Antilochus and then slaughtered Achilles, dealing him many a blow. Such was the death of this hero, a treacherous death and one ill-suiting his prowess.  (Dares Phrygius 34) 

This temple of Apollo is "in front of the gate".  So, the Excidium agrees with Dares that there is a temple outside the walls of the city.  They disagree about the temple's deity.   They probably disagree about who built it. The Greeks built the temple in the Excidium, the Trojans surely built the temple of Apollo in Dares' account.  

 

Notes on the Excidium Troiae

The Excidium Troiae [Destruction of Troy] (also known as the Rawlinson Excidium Troiae) is a short, anonymous Medieval manuscript that tells the stories of Troy, Aeneas and the founding of Rome.  At around 35 pages, more than 20 of them describe events after the war.  It is a Latin text, perhaps based on an earlier Greek text.  It uses the names of Roman gods, rather than the Greek names Homer used. An English version of the Excidium is available online, along with a scholarly treatment that points out the uniqueness of several stories in the Excidium, especially the story of Achilles birth and upbringing. 

I noticed three references to marshes outside the walls or gates of Troy.  I  do not recall seeing that sort of description anywhere else. The following paragraph appears after the Greeks have gone to the nearby island of Tenedos to build the wooden horse.   

And as this was happening in Tenedos, the day being bright, the Trojan citizens spread out through the walls where the armies and ships of the Greeks used to be, they saw no one and they were filled with joy. Thinking that they were free of enemies, they started to sing in Virgil's tongue: 'Here lay the Dolopian bands, there stern Achilles had pitched tent, here with fleets, here armies accustomed to fight.' And when they were filled by joy, they threw open the gates of the city, and all herds and beasts of burden already secure rushed out into the marsh before the walls. And when Troy already stood secure, at Tenedos a wooden horse was created in the manner of divine Pallas. And when it had been perfected, they started to deliberate how would that horse be brought out to Troy. Then one of the people by the name of Palamedes Sinon said: 'I will make it so that the horse be led to Troy.' To him they said: 'By what way?' Sinon answered: 'Cudgel me and go around before a slope, and send me in the marshes of Troy through the night.' And it was done. Indeed, the day being bright the shepherds of Troy as usual went out in the marshes with their herds and stocks, where they found Sinon cudgeled and girded lying before the slope, whom with great clamor they brought to king Priam with hands tied to the back.  (print edition page 14)

Palamedes Sinon goes on to gain the favor of the king, and to influence him into bringing the horse into the city.  Note these two remarks: 

1 "they threw open the gates of the city, and all herds and beasts of burden already secure rushed out into the marsh before the walls"

2 Sinon's story mentions marshes twice ("send me into the marshes of Troy", and "the shepherds of Troy as usual went out in the marshes")

The first passage  describes marshes outside the walls of Troy.  Sinon's story treats the marshes as integral to the city and its way of life. This does not sound like the city on the ridge at Hisarlik.  Rather, the Excidium seems to be describing a city in the plain. 

The manuscript also makes a clear distinction between the city and the acropolis at Troy.  

Behold, before my eyes the most mild Hector seen come to me shedding many tears, with stiffening and rough beard, having thong of swelling feet. Thus he said like this: 'You sleep, oh goddess-born; your enemy holds the walls, rushes down from the high summit on Troy. We are no longer Trojans, Ilium and the great glory of Troy no longer exist.' (print edition page 18)

This passage speaks of a "high summit on Troy".  

Laocoon hastened down from the top of the great citadel accompanied by a crowd. (print edition page 16)

This passage speaks of "the top of the great citadel" at Troy.  

When Priam, indeed, saw his son killed by Pyrrhus before his eyes, he started to rebuke and curse him, Pyrrhus killed Priam before the altar like he did him, as Virgil described: This was the end of Priam's fate, this result of the lot bound him: witnessing the burned Troy and its collapsed citadel, and him, the supreme regnant of Asia over so many peoples and lands. He, a large trunk, lay down at the beach, and his head torn away from the shoulder, a corpse without a name. [This is the end of Priam.] (print edition page 19)

This passage speaks of "the burned Troy and its collapsed citadel" as though these are two distinct sights.  .  

So, the Excidium describes the walls of Troy as contiguous with marshes, and distinguishes the citadel from the city.  Dares Phrygius also distinguished the citadel from the city of Troy. 

During the whole night the Greeks did not cease wreaking slaughter and carrying off plunder. With the coming day, Agamemnon called all of his leaders to a meeting on the citadel. After giving thanks to the gods, he praised the army and ordered that all the booty be gathered together and fairly divided. (41f) 

This passage distinguishes the carnage of the city from a meeting place "on the citadel."  

 

Update: It turns out that Homer does mention swamps at Troy, but not in the Iliad.  Instead, it's at Odyssey xiv 469-475  

"Would that I were young and my strength firm as when we made ready our ambush, and led it beneath the walls of Troy. [470] The leaders were Odysseus and Menelaus, son of Atreus, and with them I was third in command; for so had they ordered it themselves. Now when we had come to the city and the steep wall, round about the town in the thick brushwood among the reeds and swamp-land [475] we lay, crouching beneath our arms, and night came on, foul, when the North Wind had fallen, and frosty, and snow came down on us from above, covering us like rime, bitter cold, and ice formed upon our shields." 

In Ilios, The City and Country of the Trojans Heinrich Schliemann notes that there probably were swamps, given the above remark from the Odyssey, adding that "I may remark here that swamps appear to be further indicated in the lower plain, near the Greek camp, by the reeds which Ulysses broke, and with which he made a mark on a tamarisk, as well as by the heron (a bird which lives in swamps), whose cries Ulysses and Diomedes hear on leaving the camp" (p 144). 

Legends of Troy: Roman and other European Lineages

Here is an old reference to Brutus of Troy, in a work published in 1287.  Historia Destructionis Troiae by Guido dele Colonne, translated by Mary Elizabeth Meeks, Indiana U Press, 1974. (The author is aka Guido de Columis.)  

The following are lines 24-43 of book two (pp 9f).  

Though Troy itself was completely destroyed, it rose again, and its destruction was the reason that the city of Rome, which is the chief of cities, came into existence, being built and extended by the Trojan exiles, by Aeneas, that is, and Ascanius, his son, called Julius.  Afterward certain other provinces received from among the Trojans an enduring settlement. Such is England, which we read was settled by the Trojan, Brutus, which is why it is called Britain.  Likewise such is France, which after the fall of Troy is said to have been settled by King Francus, a companion of Aeneas, who founded near the Rhine a great city which, as well as the whole province, he called France, from his own name.  The city of the Venetians was settled by the Trojan Antenor.  We read that Sicily also did not lack their colonizing; it is said to have been settled first by King Sicanus, who arrived in Sicily from Troy, which is why it was called Sicania.  Later, having departed from Sicily, leaving in Sicily his brother, Siculus, which is why it was later named Sicily, he went into Tuscany, which he filled with a colony of many people.  We read that the above mentioned Aeneas founded many cities along the sea coast in the kingdom of Sicily.  Such is the great city of Naples, and Gaeta, land of an ungovernable people.  

Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote about Brutus in 1135.  Here is Guido, a Sicilian, referring to him in 1287. As for Francus, he is like Brutus: an invention designed to attach elites from one age to elites from prior ages (perhaps under the false assumption that what is most ancient is most authoritative).  

Francus is an invention of Merovingian scholars which referred to a legendary eponymous king of the Franks, a descendant of the Trojans, founder of the Merovingian dynasty and forefather of Charlemagne. In the Renaissance, Francus was generally considered to be another name for the Trojan Astyanax (son of Hector) saved from the destruction of Troy. He is not considered to be historical, but in fact an attempt by medieval and Renaissance chroniclers to model the founding of France upon the same illustrious tradition as that used by Virgil in his Aeneid (which had Rome founded by the Trojan Aeneas).  (Wikipedia)

Of course, Aeneas is said to be the founder of Rome.  He, along with Antenor, who was a Dardanian/Trojan wise man, are said to have betrayed the city in some accounts (especially Dares Phrygius). 

According to Virgil's Aeneid, the Venetian city was founded by the Trojan prince Antenor in 1185 B.C., after the destruction of Troy… Archaeological findings confirm the ancient origins of the city, which developed between the XIII and XI centuries BC and linked to the civilization of ancient Venetians.
In the Iliad, to avoid the conflict with the Achaeans, Antenor begs the Trojans to give Helen back to her husband Menelaus, but no one pays attention.
For many ancient and medieval authors, Antenor is considered a traitor: he allegedly betrayed the Trojans and delivered Palladio - the talisman of the invincibility of Troy - to Odysseus and Diomedes, receiving in exchange the salvation for himself and his family.
For this reason, Dante Alighieri named Antenora the IX round in the final part of Inferno, where traitors are confined.  (Venice Inside)

Meanwhile, King Siculus, the alleged founder of Sicily, seems to go back no further than Thucydides. 

So, it is not just Rome and England that are allegedly founded by Trojans after the war. Those two along with France, Venice and Sicily are mentioned in a single paragraph.  

 

Raising Horses in the plain of Troy

Charles Maclaren wrote a lot about ancient Troy's alleged horses.  

Speaking of one of Priam 's ancestors, [Homer] says, “ Dardanus had a son, king Erichthonius, who was the richest of mortal men; he had three thousand mares grazing in the marsh, rejoicing in their tender foals.” What a picture have we here of the public economy of the heroic age in one passage of nervous brevity and pastoral beauty!  (McClaren, 124) 

From here, McClaren goes on for several pages calculating how many horses a square mile of Trojan plain can support.  

To get the necessary pasture ground for three thousand mares, we must assume that the space between the streams was nearly all a natural marsh in the time of Erichthonius; we may infer that it continued so for many generations, and was a source of wealth to that prince's successors, till a deficiency of corn land for the sustenance of the population was felt, and, further, that the poet saw it in this condition before the drainage had commenced, or before it had made much progress. When he rehearsed the story of the Iliad to the Ionic and Æolic colonists on the shores of the Ægean, if the marsh had been as small as it is now, it would have stood in glaring contradiction to his words; and to save his credit with his auditors, he would either have reduced the number of mares pastured on it to one thousand instead of three, or he would have told that its ancient magnitude greatly exceeded what was then seen. (McClaren 127f)

McClaren is thinking about Homer and his audience, but not about floods.  He quotes Forschhammer on it, but appears to forget about it after that.  

“When the rain , beginning in Mount Ida, extends to the plain, the wide and deep bed of the Menderé is completely filled; in a half or a quarter of an hour it rushes over its banks on both sides ; on the left side it fills the swamps below Bunarbashi, while the Kirk Jos sends off a stream in the direction of its ancient bed to join the Menderé farther down.  On the right it covers the high part of the plain over to the Kalifat Asmak, and transforms that stream into an impetuous river . If the rain continues a few hours, it often happens that the inundation prevails over the whole plain from the Hellespont to the springs at Bunarbashi. It happens also that about the season of the heaviest rains, the strong south-west winds blow, checking the current of the Hellespont, and raising the level of its waters, while these again impede the discharge of the rivers, and increase the inundation in the lower part of the plain.” (Forschhammer, cited by Maclaren, 1863 p. 62f )   

Forschhammer is not as explicit about the dangers of these floods as he could be.  Consider the following remark from Walter Leaf, who visited the plain in the early 20th century.  

"The Mendere is a considerable stream throughout the year; in winter it often brings down heavy floods, which overflow the whole plain, and leave it covered with silt and tree-trunks." Leaf p 30 

Silt and tree trunks?  How many mares pasturing below Pinarbasi will be wiped out in an event like that? The flood plain is not just a threat to humans, but to horses too.  Perhaps one could keep 3000 mares on the prominences around the plain, coming into the plain in small groups at the edges.  But horses living 24-7 in the plain are betting against the odds.  

This raises an interesting series of questions about what is under the mud in front of Hisarlik.  Surely, part of the tell contains living quarters.  Another part will be military.  Another might be stables and livestock containment.  

Look at Hattusa.  A great deal of the walled area is undeveloped.  Those open spaces allow for horses and livestock to be protected inside the walls. Also, perhaps, orchards.  

Hattusa is not the only city with walls that enclose a good deal of open space.  Uruk is that way, perhaps even more so.  

Uruk and Hattusa are good models for thinking about the mound at the foot of Hisarlik.  It is probably not urban dwellings from side to side and end to end.  Rather, there are probably one or more residential districts along with open spaces in which horses, livestock, orchards and military installations could be protected from floods and invaders. 

The above graphic is from Luwian Studies.  It shows a map of Hattusa projected onto the plain of Troy.  The raised earth anomaly at the foot of Hisarlik is around twice the size of the walled compound of Hattusa.  So, it could contain twice the amount of development found there, and also contain twice the amount of open space.  

In non-Homeric accounts of the war (Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis), Trojans have lots of horses, and they have these horses inside the city walls.  It would be impossible to have so many horses and men inside the little fortress on Hisarlik, which is only about 660 feet across, and was filled with many  buildings.  If there were battalions on horseback formed inside the walls and then moved outside the walls as these authors contend, then there must have been a walled area containing open spaces large enough to accommodate it.  

The Kalifat problem deepens

I wrote two months ago about the fact that old maps of the plain of Troy place Kalifat in the center of the plain, rather than at the foot of the prominence south of Hisarlik.  I noted that it is possible that the village used to be in the plain and was moved to its present location.  I thought that was unlikely, because it seems unlikely that there would be a village in the plain at all given the flood danger. 

Well, according to William Leaf, who visited Troy in the early 20th century, Kalifat was "on the flat". 

"The plain of Troy itself, exposed to frequent inundations in winter, marshy and malarious in summer, is almost uninhabitable. The alluvial soil, fertile enough where not waterlogged, can maintain a considerable population ; but those who till it are compelled to have their homes on the hillsides, barren though they are, as high as may be above the wet and fever of the level. At the present day only one poor village, that of Kalifatli, lies on the flat; while the hills around carry a considerable number of thriving settlements, some of them newly founded with Moslem refugees from various Turkish countries taken over by Christian powers. "  Walter Leaf, p. 53

There you have it.  Leaf saw Kalifat "on the flat", not on the foot of the prominence where we see it today.  The old maps place Kalifat in an abandoned river bed.  

The above map from Thomas Spratt places Kalifat in the "Winter Channel" of the Scamander around 1844.  That bed was canalized in modern times, and the Scamander/Mendere now flows in that bed.  

I have lost the link for the above map, so, I am unsure where it comes from.  It shows a 1956 shoreline at the Dardanelles, from which we can conclude that it was made after that time. It places Kalifat in the plain, west of the sharp angle taken by the Kalifatlee Osmak.  Based on this recent work, it is reasonable to conclude that as of 1956 or so, Kalifat was in the plain, as the older maps show.  When the river was canalized, the village must have been destroyed and moved to a new location above the plain.  

So, I think my original question is answered.  I was asking, how could Spratt get this wrong?  But in fact he did not get it wrong.  Kalifat was correctly placed by Spratt and others in the center of the plain.  However another problem is raised by this answer.  Because if Kalifat lasted hundreds of years in the low spot that Spratt called the winter channel, that fact needs an explanation.  How could it have survived for so long in a flood plain?  

Leaf is not wrong about the difficulty of living in the plain of Troy.  The plain is often waterlogged, marshy and mosquito laden.  And it floods.  

"The Mendere is a considerable stream throughout the year; in winter it often brings down heavy floods, which overflow the whole plain, and leave it covered with silt and tree-trunks." Leaf p 30 

I suspect that the old Kalifat was protected by ancient flood control structures that are no longer visible.  Perhaps the canalization project obliterated them.  

Pliny the Elder on the Troad and the Navigable Scamander

Pliny the Elder mentions a navigable Scamander river in the first paragraph of his discussion of the Troy region, which was chapter 33 of his Natural History.  

CHAP. 33.—TROAS AND THE ADJOINING NATIONS.
The first place in Troas is Hamaxitus, then Cebrenia, and then Troas itself, formerly called Antigonia, and now Alexandria, a Roman colony. We then come to the town of Nee, the Scamander, a navigable river, and the spot where in former times the town of Sigeum stood, upon a promontory. We next come to the Port of the Achæans, into which the Xanthus flows after its union with the Simois, and forms the Palæscamander, which was formerly a lake. The other rivers, rendered famous by Homer, namely, the Rhesus, the Heptaporus, the Caresus, and the Rhodius, have left no vestiges of their existence. The Granicus, taking a different route, flows into the Propontis. The small city of Scamandria, however, still exists, and, at a distance of a mile and a half from its harbour, Ilium, a place exempt from tribute, the fountain-head of universal fame.  Beyond the gulf are the shores of Rhœteum, peopled by the towns of Rhœteum, Dardanium, and Arisbe. There was also in former times a town of Achilleon, founded near the tomb of Achilles by the people of Mitylene, and afterwards rebuilt by the Athenians, close to the spot where his fleet had been stationed near Sigeum. There was also the town of Æantion, founded by the Rhodians upon the opposite point, near the tomb of Ajax, at a distance of thirty stadia from Sigeum, near the spot where his fleet was stationed.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57493/57493-h/57493-h.htm#FNanchor_665 

In the first sentence, Pliny mentions three towns, the last of which is Alexandria Troas, a town 15 miles south west of Troy on the Aegean shore that was renamed for Alexander the great, and which was in Pliny's day a Roman colony.  He is progressing north along the Aegean shore.  Another town, then the river, then Sigeum,  

If Pliny spotted a river between Troas and Sigeum, it would have been the artificial canal at Besik Bay.  It is probably not the Scamander, and certainly not navigable.  Below is a clip showing the canal in our times.  

Even if that is only a tenth of the water volume that was flowing down this hillside in ancient times, it was not navigable.   

After Sigeum, Pliny mentions "the port of the Acheans into which the Xanthus flows".  At this point his progression turns eastward.  The port of the Acheans has a river flowing into it which has joined with the Simois, and forms the Paleoscamander, "which was formerly a lake".  That sounds like a large river mouth.  After this he talks about the other rivers mentioned by Homer.  Then he talks about the trojan plain.  There is a town called Scamadria.  And "Ilium, a place exempt from tribute, the fountain-head of universal fame" is a mile and a half from its port.  

Then he says, "Beyond the gulf" is Rhoeteum. What gulf does he have in mind?  Perhaps the Paleoscamder.  Perhaps there was more of a bay between the two prominences than we see today, and he is referring to that gulf.  

In addition, he mentions the belief that Achilles and Ajax stationed their ships on the far sides of the beach, one near Sigeum the other near Rhoeteum, which are at least two miles apart.  

There is a tumulus of Achilles where Achilleon was supposed to be.  There is a tumulus of Ajax near Rhoeteum.  

My question is, what is Pliny talking about with his navigable Scamander remark?

Perhaps he thinks of the canal as a branch of a navigable river, the Paleoscamander, which he says was once a lake.  He calls its source Xanthus, which is interchangeable with Scamander in many writers.  

So if Pliny is at sea going north along the Aegean coast here, then perhaps he thinks of the canal and Besik Bay as a finger of the delta of a navigable river.  As he sails east into the Dardanelle Straits, he sees a quarter mile wide, mile long river mouth and other river mouths.  He concludes that what he saw along the Aegean side of the land mass was a finger of the same river.  

That is my suggestion.   On this reading, Pliny is not saying that the finger of river he saw at Besik Bay was navigable.  He is saying that the river that puts out a finger there was navigable.  

So, I think he is probably making two bad inferences.  

1. He infers that the canal at Besik Bay is part of the Scamander/Paleoscamander

2, He infers that the upper parts of the Xanthus/Paleoscamander are navigable like the mouth at the shoreline of the Dardanelles probably was

In general, the waterways in the plain of Troy are not navigable except by small craft near the Dardanelles.    

The City as Explanatory Hypothesis

An explanandum is a sentence containing something that needs to be explained. An explanans is a sentence containing something that explains an explanandum.  

Try writing sentences that can explain one or more of the following sentences.  

Explanandum:

1. There is an ancient, artificial cut through the coastline at Lisgar Marsh, due west of Hisarlik.  

2. The valley of the Ciplak rivulet rises as it approaches the valley of the Mendere. 

3, The Dumreck valley rises as it approaches the valley of the Mendere.  

4. There are huge, unnatural berms, mounds and declivities west and southwest of Kalifat. 

5,  The ground rises and turns NW of Kalifat.

6.  The ground rises and falls between Hisarlik and the Mendere.  

7. The ground rises and falls twice between the Dumreck valley and the Mendere. 

Explanans: 

A city built to survive floods is buried in the plain in front of Hisarlik. 

Accounting for the explanation: 

1 The Kesik Cut drains Lisgar Marsh so that it does not overflow in the direction of the city

2,3 each valley rises where it encounters the city

4 those are flood control works protecting the city

5,6,7 that is the mound containing the buried city