It is especially remarkable to find the sun-god here, for Homer knows nothing of a temple to the Sun in Troy, and later history does not say a word about the existence of such a temple. However, the image of Phœbus Apollo does not prove that the sculpture must have belonged to a temple of the Sun; in my opinion it may just as well have served as an ornament to any other temple.
As early as my report of the 11th of May,[150] I ventured to express the conjecture that the image of the Sun, which I find represented here thousands and thousands of times upon the whorls of terra-cotta, must be regarded as the name or the emblem of the town, that is Ἴλιος. I now venture to express the opinion, that in like manner this Sun-god shone in the form of a woman upon the Propylæa of the temple of the Ilian Athena as a symbol of the Sun-city (τῆς Ἰλίου). I have heard a learned friend express the opinion that this masterpiece belonged to the period between Pericles and Alexander the Great, because the Sun-god’s outstretched hand is very similar to that of Phœbus Apollo on the coins of Rhodes of the same period. But, according to Strabo (XIII. I), Alexander the Great, on his visit to Ilium, found there a little temple (εὐτελῆ ναόν) of the Ilian Athena; and a little temple, of course, cannot have possessed such excellent works of plastic art. Besides this, the head of the Sun-god appears to me to have so much of the Alexandrian style, that I must adhere to history and believe that this work of art belongs to the time of Lysimachus, who, according to Strabo (XIII. I), after the death of Alexander the Great, built here the new temple of the Ilian Athena, which Alexander had promised to the town of Ilium after the subjugation of the Persian Empire.[151]
The discovery of this work of art upon the steep declivity of the hill--whereas it must necessarily have stood on the opposite side above the entrance to the temple--can only be explained by the fact that the Turks who came here in search of monumental pillars despised this sculpture because it represented living creatures, the imitation of which is strictly forbidden in the Koran.
Beneath the ruins of this temple I hope to discover the remains of that little temple which Alexander the Great found here. I do not, however, think it likely that I shall discover in its depths the old Trojan temple in which Hecuba caused the priestess Theano to lay her costly robes on the knees of Athena.[152] To judge from the _débris_ of the ashes of animal sacrifices, which is as hard as stone, and which gives me such exceedingly great trouble along an extent of 82 feet at the eastern end of my large platform, the area of the very ancient temple cannot possibly be identical with the one built by Lysimachus; it must certainly be somewhat more to the west, and must commence somewhere near its western end.