THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

'
'*
Iron Age, we shall then be completely convinced of the truth
of traditions which are unanimous in making the Pelasgians
the creators of the great fortresses and palaces with their
manifold contents, and which at the same time affirm that the
294 THE HOMERIC AGE.
CHAPTER III.
THE HOMERIC AGE',
Iron.
the acropolis graves of Mycenae,
NYN r^'P ^H peNOC CCTI ciAhpeoN.
Hesiod, W. d- 1). 17).
In the preceding chapters we have reviewed the evidence
botli material and literary
for tiie
Mycenean culture, and we
were led to conclude that its creators had long dwelt in the
Aegean area, and had reached the height of tiieir culture before
the introduction of iron, and that all the facts before us pointed
single-headed (rjfjLtTreXeKKa),
to the Pelasgians as the sti'onyest claimants for authorship.
( )ui' object in the present chapter is to compare the remains
of the Mycenean Age as laid bare in Argolis, Attica. Thessaly
and its othei- chief seats up to the present known, with the
culture picturt'd
for us in the Homeric poems
in which the
glories of the sous of the Acheans have been immortalized. If
We rind on comparison that the metals, wt'apons, armour, dress,
funeral customs and the like coincide, tlien we shall have to
moflity our conclusion alieady ai'i'ived at, that the Acheans
Were not the authois of the Myct'iiean civilization. But if on
fittings of the plough,
thf contrary we shall find that thei'e are many striking discrepancies
between the ei|uipment, dress, and fuiu-ral practices
of the MyceiU'an men and the Homeric Acheans, then we shall
ha\c obtained a strong coiitii-matioii of the conclusion to whicli
we Were le(j bv tile considei'at ions set foilh in our ])re\ious
imagining that the Homeric Age
inipiiiies. l''urt hermore, if we shall find that the Myceiieiin
culture is of an earlier character than the Homeric, or in other
words, if it should turn out that, whilst the Mycenean cultui'e
l)elongs to the Ihduze Age, that p(rtrayed in Homer is in the
'I'lir .idctiiiics set out ill tills cliaiitcr liavc I iilrcfidy [mt t'diwiiid in .hmr.
UAL Stud.. XVI. (ISDC), pp. 111! 1. IhI'oiv tlic .Viitluop. Institute on Dec. 1 llli,
amply confirmed by the discoveries just cited.
IsiK'j {.fniir. .liitlir. III"!., xxNi. ]).
271 I,
and in a niore I'Xiiandt'ii
i'oiiu in a
Icctuir bcfoii' the Hellenic: Soeiety, t'eb. 21tli, Is'.is, (if whieli ii suniniarv
//. XXIII. Hr,0 aqq.
XVIII. M.
*
-
"
aiijieiLied ill .nil, III! tun, Mar. ")lli. is'.is. iiji. lil.', C, and in -/./((/. //,//. .^liitL
//. XXIII. H'2() sqq.
Acheans were but new comers into Argolis and Thessaly.
We saw that there was a complete absence of iron in
and that it is only in the form
of finger-rings^ that this metal has occasionally been found in
the graves of the Lower Town and at Vaphio, tombs which,
as we saw, may be assigned to the close of the Mycenean age.
But when we turn to Honker, we find that iron is in general
use for all kinds of cutting instruments, and for agricultural
purposes. Thus the axes both double-headed {ireXeKeh) and
which Achilles offered as prizes for
the archery contest-, are of 'dark iron'; so is the knife with
which the same hero cut the throat of a hapless youth ^,
and
the arrow with which Paiidarus wounded Menelaus*; maces
with iron heads were likewise in use in war". Finally, the
weapons that hung on the w^ills of the Megaron of Odysseus
are collectively spoken of as iron. The reason to be given for
their removal b}-
Telemachus to prepare the wa}' for the Slaying
of the Suitors is that ' Iron of itself doth attract a man".' But
for the
it was even of such common use as to be employed
for Achilles declares that the winner of
the mass of natural iron (croXo? avro-^ocovo^)
will be well supplied
for the needs of his ploughman and shepheid, nor wdll they
want to go to a town for several years to come to procure iron'.
Yet in spite of all this Homeric scholars have persisted in
was that of Bronze because
the word cojyper or hronze {)(^a\K6'^)
occurs more frequently than
that for iron (aiS7]po'i).
But this is just one of those cases
wiiere the statistical method has misled the Homeric students
Clialko.s is the name t'ov the older metal of wiiich cutting
'
The lo^end that Proinuthous wore an iron fiii},'er-riug as a memorial of liis
torture indicates that iron was first used in txreece for this purpose, a tradition
llcU. Stud., XIII.
p. 'i;").
IV.
^
I'i'.t.
"
VII. 141.
Cf. F. B. .Jevons, -Jour.