Note 67 — Chapter IV · THE HELLESPONT AND HOMER’S TROY

“The main contention was that the Iliad and the Odyssey were a collection of songs composed at different times and of very unequal values and that, like the Niebelungen Lied, they could be resolved into shorter lays, each celebrating the deeds of individual heroes. The more famous of these heroes, Achilles for example, like Siegfried, had, it was maintained, their ultimate origin in mythological personages, once worshiped as divine.” Schliemann’s Excavations, an Archæological and Historical Study, p. 17 (by C. Schuchhardt, London, 1891).