TROY, the name both of the country in which the city of Troy Was situated and of the city itself The country of Troy, more com monly called Trees, formed the north-western part of Mysia in Asia Minor. It was bounded W. and N.W. by the sEgeati Sea and the Hellespont, the extent of its coast being from the promontory of Lectum on the sonth to the river Rhodius, which falls into the Helles pont below Abydoa on the north. Its eastern boundary was a ridge of Mount Ida, extending from the source of the Ithodius to the sea coast near the promontory of Lectum.
The inhabitants of the Tread were moat probably of Thracian origin. At the time of the Trojan war they had reached a higher state of prosperity and civilisation than their opponents the Achaeans. There seems however to have been no considerable town in the district except the capital, Ilium or Troy. The cities mentioned by Homer would seem, from the case with which they were taken, to have been nothing more than villages. ('IL; ix. 329, Ike.) ,The whole of the Tread is intersected by the branches of Mount Ida. Two of its summits, which bore special names, were Cotylua and Gargara. (' viii. 45, 5:c.) The following were the principal places in the Tread at the time of Strabo :--Near the promontory of Lectum were the villages of llama xitus and arra. At the latter, which stood on the coast, was the temple of Apollo Smintheus (' i. 37), which was still standing iu the time of Pliny. Skeptic was so called from its having been first built on the highest summit of Ida, whence, according to Strabo, it was afterwards removed to a spot 60 stadia lower. Aristotle collected a library at Skopsis, which was ultimately removed by Sulla to Athens. Alexandria Troas was on the coast, a little to the north of Chrysa. [ALEXAMMEIA, Trees.] From Alexandria to the promontory Sigeum (Yenietar) the coast was called Achaium. The promontory of Sigeum formed the southern side of the entrance to the liellespont, and near it was a town of the same name. Near Sigeum also was the A chilleum, a mound of earth supposed to be the grave of Achilles. Not far to the east of Sigeum was Matsui's, and near it the sEantium, or mouu useut of the Telamonian Ajax. The coast between Sigeum and Rheetentu was, according to Strabo, the naval station of the Greeks during the siege of Troy. Here is the mouth of the united rivers of Simois and Scamander or Xanthus. The principal city in Trees was Troy, in ancient times more commonly called Ilium, which exercised a kind of sovereignty over the other towns of the country. Its site, which has been the subject of so much discussion in modern times, is placed by some upon the western branch of a range of hills extending from the river Simois into the plain towards the river Scamander.
Its citadel lay on the south-eastern side of the city. Others have traced its site a little farther north in the modern Turkish village of Bunar-Bashi. Others again have denied the existence of ancient Troy altogether, or have declared it to be a useless task to investigate its site, since it was totally destroyed by the Greeks, and abandoned by its inhabitants. Honier however clearly suggests, that, after the calamity that befell Troy in the reign of Priam, it continued, at least for some time, to be ruled over by the sEneadw, a branch of the house of Priam. The city of Troy which Xerxes (Herod., vii. 42, &c.) and afterwards Alexander the Great visited, may have been of later origin, but it is nevertheless attested that it was built on the site of the ancient Troy. This town appears to have gradually decayed after the time of Alexander, and a new town of the same name was built somewhat below the spot where the Simoia is joined by the Scamander. (Struts., xiii. p. 597.) In the times of the Romans this Troy was regarded and treated as the genuine ancient Troy from which they derived their descent The first king in Trees is said to have been Teucer, whence the Trojans are also called Teucrians. Dardanus, one of the neighbouring chiefs, married a daughter of Teucer, by whom he had two sons, llus and irichthonius : the latter became the father of Tres, from whom the names Troy and Troas are derived. He had three sons, one of whom, Ilus, founded the town of Ilium or Troy, which became the capital of the country of Treas. In the reign of his successor, Laomedon, the city was said to have been fortified with walls by the assistance of Poseidon (Neptune) and Apollo. Soon after this Troy was taken by Hercules, but was restored to Priam, son of Laomedou, who reigned for a long time in peace and prosperity, until his kingdom was attacked by the united forces of the Greeks, in consequence of his son Paris having carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus. After a siege of nine years the Greeks took and destroyed the city of Troy. This event is usually placed about the year B.C. 1184.
The most important among the remaining towns of the Tread were Dardanus, Theis°, and Thymbra.
(Upon the topography of Troy and its neighbourhood, the reader may consult the earlier works of Pococke, Le Chevalier, Choiseul Gouflicr, Spon, Wood, Wheeler, and others; Leake, Travels in Asia Minor; Journal of the Ceographkal 'Society of London, vol. xii.; Lord Carlisle, Travels in the East.)