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CHAPTER VI.
The Conical Mounds, Called Heroic Tumuli.
§ I. The Tumulus of Achilles.—Another object of special interest was my exploration of eight more of the conical mounds, the so-called Trojan Heroic Tumuli. I began with the excavation of the two tumuli situated at the foot of Cape Sigeum, the larger of which the tradition of all antiquity attributed to Achilles, the smaller one perhaps to his friend Patroclus. But this is by no means quite certain, for, according to Strabo,[1] there were at the foot of Cape Sigeum the tombs of Achilles, Patroclus, and Antilochus, and, as before mentioned, I discovered that one of the large massive windmills to the south-east of Sigeum is actually built on the top of an ancient conical tumulus, which makes up the number three, as stated by Strabo. With regard to the large conical hill on the projecting headland, there can be no question that it is the very tumulus to which tradition unanimously pointed as the sepulchre of Achilles; but we have nothing to guide us as to which of the two remaining tumuli was attributed by the ancients to Antilochus, and which to Patroclus, for the name "tomb of Patroclus," which the smaller unencumbered tumulus now bears, seems to have been given to it less than a century ago by Lechevalier or Choiseul-Gouffier,[2] and the other tumulus, which is crowned by the windmill, has not come under the notice of any modern traveller, and is therefore marked on no map. But for brevity's sake I
