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

'
THE HOMERIC AGE. 303
through the Bronze Age in Greece, as in most other countries
of Europe, arrows were usually tipped with stone and flint
and not with bronze. The metal was so valuable for providing
cutting implements of a superior kind that, except in countries
where copper was more than commonly abundant, no one
thought of employing it to tip arrows, which were to be shot
away and freciuently
lost. In our own islands arrowheads of
bronze are practically unknown. The .same scarcity of this
class of arrowhead is the I'ule in the countries north of the
Alps, and bronze arrows even in the southern countries, where
they are mainly found, seem usually to belong to the early
Iron Age '.
In Spain, however, we find aiTOwheads of copper appearing
in the earliest age of metal. The types range from a simple
bar of copper, flattened and sharpened at one end, which passes
into the lozenge-shaped or simple triangle, thence to the
regular leaf type with a tang (like those of Cyprus and Egypt),
culminating in a well-Hnished form with tang and two welldetached
barbs. These types all
correspond to well-known
forms of flint arrowheads^
Swords. Ab(jut 1.50 bronze swords have been found in
the royal graves at Mycenae (Figs. (J, 7), but n(jt a single sword
has been found in any of the })re-histoi'ic settlements of Hissarlik.
These swords are often three feet long or more, with a
straight two-edged blade of rigid metal. They are rather
broad at the heel and taper towards the point. This adapts
them I'athei- for thrusting than for cutting. Accordingly we
see them used for the thrust exclusively in the encounters
re[)i'esented in Mycenenn designs'.
( )n the other hand the H'.snicric swoi'dsman prefei'red the
stroke. Thus Helbig^ has shown that thert' are twenty-fouiinstances
of the cut as against eievi'U cases of the thrust in the
]toenis.
l-l\Hiis, Aiicii-Nl r,i-(ni:>' 1 inph iiitntii tif drait I'-ritu i ii, ji. :ns,
-
H. ;ui(i J.. Sirct, Lcs prciidi
rx .(//f.sdu
M>'tiil duns le Siid-cst dc V l-'.sjuujiif.
14). '.I. J7. 111. ins, 12(;. ctr.
'I'souiila.-^ luul Mitiiatt, ji.
I'.i'.l.
304 THE HOMERIC AGE.
Blades made of bronze were badU' adapted for striking.
was only with the discovery of iron and its
employment for
sword-blades that at last the warrior Avas furnished with a
strong sword capable of dealing a sweeping blow without risk
of snapping off short at the hilt. Thus the general use of iron
for all kinds of weapons and implements in the Homeric age
tallies completely with the preponderance of the cut over the
thrust in the poems; and, on the other hand, ecjually striking
is the coincidence that all the pictorial representations of the
use of the sword in the Bronze Age exhibit always the thrust
and never the cut.
What we have already remarked on the overlapping of the
Bronze and Iron Ages applies to the facts connected with the
history of the early Cireek sword.
None of the swords found in the Acropolis graves at
Mycenae have entire bronze hilts, but these are generally of
wood, bone, or ivory, ending in a pommel of the same material,
often mounted with gold, or of alabaster. Occasionally the
upper end of the blade runs out into a shank, on which the
wooden hilt was mounted. The hilt is riveted on to the blade.
The rivets were of bronze or gold.
The blade has usually a midrib, and is sometimes decorated
with geometric ornament or animal
It
subjects, such as galloping
horses, or flying griffons.
Outside the royal graves, and therefore presumably later
than the inlaid daggers, some swords of a somewhat different
type
have been f(^und. One of them has the usual bronze
blade, but this broatiens at the heel to form a guard, and then
runs back in a wood-mounted hilt to form a knob at the end.
The latest jVIycenean swords are comparatively short, with a
hilt differing but little from the earlier type save in respect to
the guard, which is occasionally found. Iron swords of the
same ty})e
ai-e met with in parts of (Jreece, showing that the
fashion outlastt'd the ^lycenean age.
'J' this transition type
we shall return later on.
The hilts of tlie ^lycenean sunrds are short, as they do not
measiu'e more than o'i inches, showing that the ])e