I’ve stood upon Achilles’ tomb,
And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome.

Byron wrote these lines in the early phase of his career, when he was turning travel and classical learning into meditations on history’s fragility. The speaker evokes having visited the legendary site of Achilles’ tomb near the Troad and hearing skepticism about Troy’s very existence—an allusion to long-standing debates over Homeric geography and the historicity of the Trojan War. From that experience Byron draws a larger historical analogy: if even Troy can be doubted, then Rome—seemingly more securely documented—may one day be treated with similar uncertainty. The couplet belongs to a poem that reflects on ruins, memory, and the eroding power of time over fame and empire.

The couplet compresses a characteristic Byronic theme: the vanity of human grandeur before time. Standing at Achilles’ supposed tomb symbolizes direct contact with heroic legend, yet even that “evidence” does not prevent Troy from being questioned. Byron then extends the logic to Rome, the archetype of imperial permanence, suggesting that historical certainty itself is contingent and perishable. The lines imply that monuments and records do not guarantee lasting remembrance; posterity can reduce even the greatest civilizations to rumor. The effect is both skeptical (about historical knowledge) and moral (about pride), aligning classical exempla with Romantic melancholy over ruins and the transience of power.