Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/455

 WEAPONS. 415 7. Weapons. The Phoenicians were great workers in bronze as well as agents for the supply of its ingredients to others. 1 We have already described their engraved cups, their domestic vessels and furniture ; we have yet to speak of another industry which they followed with taste and success down to a very late period, namely, that of the armourer. In spite of their own love of peace and horror of fighting they enjoyed for centuries the reputation of being the best makers of weapons and defensive armour. In the time of Homer their fame in that respect was firmly established. After the armour of Achilles, which was the work of a god, the most beautiful and most impenetrable suit worn before the walls of Troy was that of Agamemnon. One of the most important of the pieces, the cuirass, was, as Homer tells us, a present from Kinyras, 2 who stood in Greek tradition for the Phoenician element in the Cypriot population. Many centuries later it was a king of Kition who gave Alexander the sword which he preferred to all others and carried on to the field of Arbela. 3 One of his successors, Demetrius Poliorcetes, had two cuirasses which were looked upon as masterpieces of the Cypriot armourers who made them. 4 The Phoenicians contrived to give a very fine temper to bronze, and their razors must have had as good a name as their swords. 5 Many objects in bronze have been found in Cyprus which give an idea of the habits of the Cypriot workman. Thus, in a narrow plain, near Dali, where the remains of several tumuli, erected perhaps after a battle, may be seen, several weapons were found in the year 1850 ; they are now divided between the Louvre and the Bibliotheque nationale. They were found at the same time and place as the long inscription with an agreement between a doctor,. 1 Homer calls Sidon 7roXvxaA.Kos, rich in bronze (Odyssey, xv. 425). 2 Ibid. Iliad, xi. 19-28. 3 PLUTARCH, Life of Alexander, xxxii. 4 Ibid. Life of Demetrius, xxi. 2. 5 Bronze razors have been found in those Sardinian tombs from which Phoenician texts were taken (A. CARA, Nota delle iscrizioni fenicit sopra monumenti della Sardegna, p. n)