Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/461

 WEAPONS. 421 strips were never intended for the purpose to which they have here been put, for one of them is cut in such a way as to divide a driver from his horses. 1 We have of course been unable to notice everything, but we have dwelt at some length upon these objects from Tuscany, with their Eastern physiognomy, in order to give some idea of the importance acquired by the Phoenician trade in arms. Defensive armour was, as a rule, of bronze ; that metal was more ductile than any other that could be used, and more easily ornamented. We know, however, that the Cypriot cuirasses of Demetrius Polior- cetes were of iron. 2 So that the skilful artisans of Cyprus must soon have recognized that the latter material was the best for arms of offence, and we know as a fact that they did so, for an iron sword two feet long was found at Amathus, in the same tomb as the shield so often mentioned ; it was accompanied by several javelin points in the same metal. 3 None of the pieces we have described are very ancient. Scholars are agreed in assigning the tablet of Dali to the first years of the fifth century B. c., and the arms found in the same place cannot be much older. It is likely that the importation of Phoenician armour and weapons into Italy did not begin before the eighth century, as for the arms borne by the heroes of Homer, they must be sought neither in Italy nor in Cyprus, but in Mycaene itself, in the very capital of that Agamemnon who wore a Cypriot cuirass. We should be willing to recognize the hand of an Oriental workman in most at least of the swords discovered there by Dr. Schliemann and disengaged from their crust by Mr. Koumanoudis ; on several among them, designs formed by slender threads of some other metal gold, silver, or electrum inlaid in the bronze, may yet be traced. 4 It was our first intention to figure and describe these precious remains in this chapter ; but on second thoughts, their proper place seemed to be in the pages which we propose to 1 In the cistae from Praeneste there is more 'than one instance of this kind of carelessness. People are sometimes cut in two at the waist. FERNIQUE, tude sur Preneste, pp. 146, 147 (8vo, 1880), in the Bibliothique des coles d'Atheneset de Rome. 2 PLUTARCH, Demetrius, xxi. 2. 3 CECCALDI, Monuments antiques de Cypre, p. 138. 4 A&paiov, vol. ix. p. 162, and vol. x. p. 309 (with plate). Ahttheilungen des deutschen arch&ologischen Instituts in A then, vol. vii. p. 241 ; KOEHLER, Mykenische Schwerter (plate viii.).