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

I
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IRON. 623
Siderotektones\ but he also speaks of the sword as " the
Chalybian stranger, eniigrant from Scythia^"
But although the Homeric poems exhibit a wide acquaintance
with the various tribes who dwelt along the south
of the Euxine, the Chalybes nowhere are mentioned. But, as
Alybe is described as ' the mother of silver,' it would be
indeed strange that all mention of the famous iron-works of the
Chalybes should have been omitted, had they as yet existed.
Of course too much stress must not be laid on the arginnentuni
ex silentio, but as the tribes enumerated among the allies of
Priam extend over the region in which the Chalybes dwelt in
later days, there was every reason for mentioning them, if they
were already a tribe of any importance. But if their metallurgical
skill made them so famous in later days, a fortiori it
W(juld have made them still more pnmiinent in the infancy of
iron.
Two lumps of unwr(jught iron were found in the Burnt
City at Hissarlik. The Dactyli of Ida in the Troad are
said to have been the first to wcn-k iron. From the Troad
they brought their art to Crete. This indicates that the early
Greeks thought that the knowledge of ii'on spread from the
north to the south of the Aegean. But it
may be said that
these Dactyli were Asiatics, and that as they are held to have
dwelt near the Hellespont, we have here an indication of how
the knowledge of iron reached if not Greece in general, at least
the Balkan an(i J)anubian regions. Now if Asia ^Minor had a
knowledge of iron earlier than the lands to the north of the
Hellespont, any iron swords in use in the noith-west of Asia
Minor would probably be described by some e])ithet derived
fi'om some famous seat of iron-woiking, just as in the time ot
Aesch\lus the best swords wei'e called Chalybian.
Importunately
on this p(jint the liiad furnishes us with at least two passages
of great importance, both of which ha\'e ali-eady ])een cited
(]). 44")). The Tfojaii lleleiius slew Deipyrus with a laige
Thi'iiciiin sword, and Achilles also took a handsome Thrdciim
/v. \-tn,-. 7;ii.
XdXvlioi f^vlJicv ciTroi^os.
624 IRON.
sword from Asteropaeus, the chieftain of the Paeonians. So
then instead of finding that the Trojans valued especially
swords from the Chalybes or some other place in Asia, on the
contrary it was evidently from Europe that they obtained the
best weapons, and it is still more significant to find that the
Thracian swords were in use among the Paeonians, or in other
words, in the Danubian region.
As Damascus, Toledo, and Ferrara sword-blades were made
at the places from which they were named, so we may assume
that Thracian swords were made in Thrace or came through
Thrace into the Asiatic markets. It may then be concluded
that the Thracian iron-working
is of a date earlier tlian that of
the Chalybes in Asia Minor, and that accordingly the Balkan
and Danubian area were not indebted to Asia Minor for the
of iron.
knowledge
The evidence is in favour of the movement of iron from the
Balkan into Asia Minor rather than the other way. The sword
of the Trojan Helenus came from Thrace, and axes of a regular
Danubian type are found at Troy. There is therefore no reason
why the two pieces of unworked iron found in the second
or Burnt City should not likewise have come from the same
quarter. ,As the Troad was the landing place in Asia for the
tribes who crossed from Europe,
it was just the verv spot
where, if the art of working iron came from Europe, people
on the Asiatic side would first learn to work it. The story
of the Dactyli
is then clear, and the tale of their migration
southwards indicates the way in which the use of iron spread
in the Aegean.
It is (piite possible from what we have seen
above (p. 888) tliat the Chalybes, like the Phiyges, Cimmerians,
and (iauls, were a trilx,' who had crossed fi'oni
Europe
into Asia Minor in ])()st-Honicric days and had brought with
them the art of manufacturing iron\
Aeschylus hy the jjlinisc Xct\i'/3os "^KvBQf aTroiKos seems to have ieij;arded
tlie Chalybes as eini^'iaiits from Scythia, which he terms the 'mother of iron'
{(ndripoiJ.riT(xip I'r. I'. HO'.l). This is confirmed by the fact that in I'r. V. (I'M) sqq.)
he reitreseiits the Chalybes as dwelling on the north side of the Euxine in the
renuite e[)och, when I'rometlu'us was 1)ound on the Caucasus,
There is thus no
need t(i suj)i)os(' with all the editors that Aeschylus was utterly ignorant of the
},'e()tjraihy of the I'luxine, a view which led some to change into the absurd