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60 ANCIEOT GREECE. [CHAP. iv.other, were so adopted into the language of intercourse, thatthey are not infrequently applied, even where the language ofreproach is used. Let it not be said, that this is merely thelanguage of epic poetry.The poet never could have employed it, if its original, and a taste for it,had not alreadyexisted. If the tone of intercourse is a measure of the socialand, in a certain degree, of the moral improvement of anation, the Greeks of the heroic age were already vastly elevated beyond their earlier savage state.To complete the picture of those times, it isnecessary tospeak of war and the art of war. The heroic age of theGreeks, considered from this point of view, exhibits a mixture of savageness and magnanimity, and the first outlinesof the laws of nations. The enemy who has been slain, isnot secure against outrage, and yet the corpseis not alwaysabused. 1 The conquered party offers a ransom ;and it depends on the victor to accept or refuse it. The arms, bothof attack and defence, are of iron or brass. No hero appeared, like Hercules of old, with a club and lion's skin forspear and shield. The art of war, as far as it relates to theposition and erecting of fortifiedcamps, seems to have been2first invented in the siege of Troy. In other respects,every thing depended on the more or less perfect equipments, together with personal courage and strength. As thegreat multitude was, for the most part, without defensivearmour, and as only a few were completely accoutred, oneof these last outweighed a host of the rest. But only theleaders were thus armed ;and they, standing on their chariots of war, (for cavalry was stillunknown,) fought with eachother in the space between the armies. If they were victorious, they spread panic before them and it ;became easyfor them to break through the ranks. But we will pursueno farther the description of scenes, which every one prefers to read in the poet himself.As the crusades were the fruit of the revolution in thesocial condition of the West, the Trojan war resulted fromthe same causes in Greece. It was necessary that a fondness for adventures in foreign lands should be awakened ;1 An example, II. vi. 417.2 See on this subject, on which we believe we may be brief, the Excursusof Heyneto the vi. vii. and viii. books of the Iliad.