Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/121

 NATURE OF PHOENICIAN TRADK. l[j nous and Menelaus glitter with gold, copper, and electrum ; while large stocks of yet unemployed metal gold, copper, and iron are stored up in the treasure-chamber of Odysseus and other chiefs. 1 Coined money is unknown to the Homeric age, the trade carried on being one of barter. In reference also to the metals, it deserves to be remarked that the Homeric description* universally suppose copper, and not iron, to be employed for arms, both offensive and defensive. By what process the copper was tempered and hardened, so as to serve the purposes of the warrior, we do not know; 2 but the use of iron for these objects belongs to a later age, though the Works and Days of Hesiod suppose this change to have been already introduced. 3 him (at the expiration of their term of servitude) the stipulated wages of their labor, to cut off their ears and send them off to some distant islands (Iliad, xxi. 454). Compare xxiv. 752. Odyss. xx. 383 ; xviii. 83. 1 Odyss. iv. 73 ; vii. 85 ; xxi. 61. Iliad, ii. 226 ; vi. 47. modes of tempering copper, so as to impart to it the hardness of steel, ha3 been proved by the experiments of the Comte de Cay] us. The Massagetse employed only copper no iron for their weapons (Herodot. i. 215). 3 Hesiod, Opp. Di. 150-420. The examination of the various matters of antiquity discoverable throughout the north of Europe, as published by the Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen, recognizes a distinction of three suc- cessive ages: 1. Implements and arms of stone, bone, wood, etc. : little or no use of metals at all ; clothing made of skins. 2. Implements and nrms of copper and gold, or rather bronze and gold ;' little or no silver or iron. Articles of gold and electrum are found belonging to this age, but none of silver, nor any evidences of writing. 3. The age which follows this has be- longing to it arms of iron, articles of silver, and some Runic inscriptions : it is the last age of northern paganism, immediately preceding the introduc- tion of Christianity (Leitfaden zur Nordischen Alterthumskunde, pp. 31, 57, 63, Copenhagen, 1837). The Homeric age coincides with the second of these two periods. Silver 5s comparatively little mentioned in Homer, while both bronze and gold ara familiar metals. Iron also is rare, and seems employed only for agricultural purposes Xpvoov re, -^akubv TE ui '* kadJiTa #' v^avr'rjv (Iliad, vi. 48; Odyss. ii. 338 ; xiii. 136). The ^pCffojowf and the a/Uet)f are both men- tioned in Homer, but workers in silver and iron are not known by any special name COdyss. iii. 425-436). "The hatchet, wimble, plane, and level, are the tools mentioned by Homer, who appears to have been unacquainted with the saw, the square, and th* compass." (Gillies, Hist, of Greece, chap. ii. p. 61.) 5*
 * See Millin, Mine'ralogie Homerique, p. 74. That there are, however,