THE SWORD IN KHITA-LAND, PALESTINE AND CANAAN; PHŒNICIA AND
CARTHAGE; JEWRY, CYPRUS, TROY, AND ETRURIA.
Centuries before the Hebrews had left the Delta, a great empire
bounded Nile-land on the Asiatic side, reflecting Egypt as the New
World reflects the Old; in fact what Kemi was to the West, that
Khita-land was to the East. The people were known to the Nile-dwellers
as the Khita, Kheta, or Sheta of [Hieroglyphs]. The Hebrews from the
days of Abraham to the age of Nehemiah and the Captivity, called
them חתים, Khitím (our Hittites), or the ‘children of Heth.’[535] A
hunting-inscription of Tiglath-Pileser (Tigulti-pal-Tsira) the First,
B.C. 1120–1100, mentions the [Cuneiform], Kha-at-te (Khatte);[536]
he makes them dwell on ‘the upper Ocean of the Setting Sun.’ The
Greeks translated from Hebrew Γῆ Χεττιεὶμ, and termed the race Χεττιὶμ
and Χεττεινί. They are the ἑταῖροι Κήτειοι (Keteian or Cetian[537]
auxiliaries) of Homer (‘Odys.’ xi. 520), whose leader Eurypylus, was
slain with ‘the copper’ (Sword), and of whom many perished around him
‘on account of gifts to a woman.’
The cradle of this race, which took the lead of Western Asia
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries B.C., was the
rolling prairie between the Orontes and the Euphrates. Joshua
represents the Lord saying: ‘From the wilderness and this Lebanon
even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of
the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the
sun, shall be your coast’ (i. 4). In their palmy days they covered
the interval between Egypt and Assyria, extending northwards to
Phrygia and Cilicia; eastwards to Mesopotamia and westwards to the
Mediterranean. They had walled and fortified cities as ‘Tunep or Tunipa
(Daphne) in the land Naharayn’[538]—the latter here meaning Upper
Palestine—Arathu (Aradus); Hamatu (Hamath, the high city); Khalbu
or Khilibu (Aleppo);[539] Kazantana (Gozanitis); Nishiba (Nisipis)
and Patena, which gave rise to ‘Padan-Aram’ and to ‘Batanæa.’ Their
northern capital was Carchemish (the Gr. Hierapolis and the modern
Yaráblus),[540] on the Euphrates, lately explored: some explain the
word as ‘Kar’ (town of) ‘Chemish’ the Moab-god); others by ‘Khem’ or
‘Chemmis,’ the Egyptian Pan. It was captured by Sargon (B.C. 717), and
became the head-quarters of an Assyrian Satrapy. Their sacred city
was Kadesh (Κάδης, the holy), a synonym of El-Kuds, the Arabic name
for Jerusalem; and even of the City of David it was said (Ezek. xvi.
3), ‘her father was an Amorite and her mother a Hittite.’ A Hittite
tribe extended to the southernmost frontiers of Palestine (Gen. xxiii.
_passim_); Hebron, one of their settlements, was founded, we are told,
seven years before Zoan (‘a station for loading animals’), _alias_
San or Tanis, the capital of the Egyptian ‘Shepherd-Kings.’ But the
allusion must be to Sesostris-Ramses (II.), who also made San his
capital under the name of ‘Pi- (city of) Ramessu,’ not to the original
building by King Pepi of the Sixth Dynasty, who preceded Abraham by a
thousand years.
[Heading: _THE HITTITES._]
[Illustration: FIG. 195.—CYPRIAN DAGGER.]
The Hittites were governed by twelve ‘kings,’ probably satraps, under
the Khita-sir or supreme chief. The ‘kings of the Hittites’ are
mentioned as joining the Egyptians (2 Kings iii. 6).[541] Although the
Hebrews were ordered utterly to destroy the race, their books prove
that the Khita were often in intimate relation with the intruders,
as in the case of Uriah the Hittite, one of the thirty of David’s
body-guard. They worshipped Baal Sutech (Sutekh) the War-god, the
‘man of war,’ a counterpart of Amun, with his wife (Sakti or active
energy), Astartha-Anata, and they also venerated Targatha, Derketo
or Atargatis—two Syro-Greek words for one and the same person. The
Egyptians at times rank the Khita as a ‘great people,’ and their
habitat as a ‘great country’; holding them, in fact, almost as their
peers: they also speak with reverence of their gods. Like their
neighbours of Kemi, the ‘Hittites’ were a literary nation: the
monuments of Nile-land mention a certain Kirab-sar (or sir), ‘writer of
the books of the Chief of the Khita,’ and the determinative is papyrus
or parchment. Hebron was also originally called Kirjath- (Kariyat)
Sepher’—settlement of books.
The Khita were formidable opponents to Kemi between the seventeenth
and the fourteenth centuries B.C. They fought doughtily against
Thut-mes III. (_circa_ B.C. 1600) during his Syrian campaign, when
this ‘Alexander the Great of Egyptian history’ overthrew the chief
of Kadesh, built a fortress on the Lebanon-range and mastered
‘Naharayn.’[542] Three centuries later, Kadesh was taken by Osirei
or Seti I. (B.C. 1366). A few years afterwards took place the great
campaign of his son,[543] Ramses II., or the Great, ‘who made Egypt
anew,’ and who is famous as the Sesostris of Herodotus.[544] He was
nearly defeated at the historic battle of ‘Kadesh, the wicked’;[545]
but at last he succeeded in ‘throwing the foe one upon another, head
over heels into the waters of the Orontes.’ Wilkinson (i. 400) shows a
city with a double moat, crossed by two bridges: at the outer defence,
formed by the river running into a lake, a phalanx of the Khita is
drawn up as a reserve corps. ‘Wonderfully rich,’ says Brugsch, ‘is
the great picture which represents the fight of the chariots: while
the gigantic form of Ramses,[546] in the very midst of the hostile
war-cars, performs deeds of derring-do, astonishing friend and foe, his
gallant son, Prahiunamif, commander-in-chief of the charioteers, heads
the attack upon those of the enemy. The Khita warriors are thrown into
the river, and among them is the King of Khilibi (Aleppo), whom the
warriors try to revive by holding his legs in the air with his head
hanging down.’[547] This was the victory that gave birth to the first
of Epic poems, the ‘Song of Pentaur the Scribe.’
[Heading: _THE HITTITE SWORD._]
The war ended by the Egyptian marrying the Hittite’s daughter, and
making with his father-in-law a highly-civilised extradition treaty
engraved upon a silver plate.[548] Another invasion, however, took
place (circa B.C. 1200) under Ramses III. This ‘Rhampsinitus’ of the
Greeks, a compound title, Ramessu-pa-Neter (Ramses the god), has left
inscriptions concerning his ‘Campaign of Vengeance’ which cover one
side of the temple of Medinah Habu:[549] amongst the conquered foes
appears the ‘miserable King of Khita as a living prisoner.’
In later times the Khita became well known to Assyrian story.[550]
Shalmaneser II. (B.C. 884–852) mentions the ‘Hittites and the city
of Petra’ (Pethor); he takes ‘eighty-nine cities of the land of the
Hamathites,’ and Rimonidri of Damascus. Tiglath-pileser II. (B.C.
745–727) speaks of the ‘city of Hamatti’ (Hamath) and the ‘Arumu’
(Aramæans).
According to Wilkinson (I. chap. v.) the Khita are represented on the
monuments, the Memnonium, Medinah Habu, and elsewhere, as a shaven race
with light red skins. Their dress is the long Assyrian robe falling to
the ankles: the hair is crisply curled and at times covered with the
tall cap of Phrygian type. A characteristic article, which appears in
their hieroglyphs, is the pointed and upturned boot,[551] somewhat like
the soleret of the sixteenth century. For armour they had square or
oblong shields and quilted coats with bracelets defending their arms.
Their weapons were bows, spears, and the short straight Sword, the
modern flesh-chopper, then in use among their rival neighbours of the
Nile Valley.
These gallant Canaanites[552] were proficients in the art of war. The
army was distributed into foot and mounted men. The former consisted
of a native nucleus called Tuhir (Táhir?),[553] the ‘chosen ones,’
and a host of mercenaries under Hir-pits or captains. Amongst these
were the Shardana, Sardones, commonly translated Sardinians; Brugsch
contends that they were Colchians, and derives from them ‘Sardonian
linen.’ They were armed with horned helmets and round shields, spears
and long Swords. The Kelau or slingers appear to have been a _corps
d’élite_ that waited upon the Prince.[554] The tactics included a
regular phalanx, a herse or column of spearsmen like the Egyptian;
and, although the cavalry rode horses their ‘strength was in chariots.’
‘Hithism’[555] became a study of late years, after the publication of
‘Hittite hieroglyphs,’ first discovered at Hamah, then at Aleppo, gave
it an impulse. Two rock-inscriptions with bas-reliefs were discovered
by the Rev. E. Davis (of Alexandria) at Ibriz (Áb-ríz), three hours
south of Eregli, the old Cybistra on the great Lycaonian plain.[556]
The finds at Carchemish added to the scanty store, and there are said
to be Hittite seals in the British Museum. In Dr. Schliemann’s ‘Troy’
(p. 352), I find a Hittite hieroglyph on the stamped terra-cotta; the
middle figure to the right is apparently the fist or fist-shaped glove,
the Egyptian symbol of the hand. I shall presently notice the Lycian
coin and a gold incision from Cyprus. Three legible characters—the
bull’s head, the cap, and the bent arm—are traced to the so-called
prehistoric statue of Niobe, Mount Sipylus. Evidently Hittite, too, is
the bronze tablet in M. Peretié’s Museum, Bayrut.[557]
Modern discoveries enable us to characterise Hittite art as a blending
of Egyptian with Assyrian, or rather Babylonian, both considerably
modified. The former appears in the two sphinxes of Eyub, and in
the winged solar disk, which was also borrowed by Mesopotamia from
the Nile Valley. The bas-reliefs and gems of Assyria are reflected
in the Hittite representations of the human figure; but the stature
is shorter, the limbs are thicker and more rounded, and the muscles
are not so prominent. At Boghaz-Keui some of the deities stand upon
animals, a posture believed to be early Babylonian.[558] Here, too, the
goddesses wear mural crowns, the decoration of the Ephesian Artemis,
and Prof. Sayce thence infers its Hittite origin. At Eyub is found the
double-headed eagle which is supposed to be the prototype of the old
Siljukian and modern European monsters.[559]
[Heading: _HITTITE HIEROGLYPHICS._]
The Hittite syllabary has systematic affinities with the Egyptian, as
shown by the boot, the glove (or hand), the bent arm, the battle-axe,
and the short straight chopper-knife. But before reading these
ideographs it was necessary to determine the language, and here
difficulties arose. Prof. Sayce denies that the Khita were Semites
or spoke a Semitic tongue;[560] and in this he is followed by Mr.
W. St. Chad Boscawen. But the former contended with scant success,
that the Cypriote writing was ‘none other than the hieroglyphics
of Hamath.’[561] Mr. Hyde Clarke believes that Khita, Etruscan, and
Cypriote are kindred tongues; and detects their symbols upon the
autonomous coins of Spain. Others have supported the Scythic (Turanian)
origin of the Hittites: in our day this was inevitable. The Rev. Dunbar
I. Heath bravely pronounces the language Semitic and made a gallant
attempt at interpreting the syllabary.[562] But nothing final can be
done under present conditions: we have not even collected all the
characters.[563]
While the Khita were inlanders, the parallel shore-land of the
Mediterranean—Syria and Palestine—was occupied by a host of Semitic
and congener tribes. The former is a noble word and by no means the
‘invention of a Greek geographer’; Suríyyah denotes the rocky region
from Sur or Tsur (זור = rock), a tower (_turris_), Tyre, the Zurai of
Tiglath-pileser II., and the Tapau of the hieroglyphs. Thus ‘Syria’
and ‘Tyria’ would be synonyms. Herodotus (vii. 63) fathered a sad
confusion when he wrote, ‘The people whom the Greeks call Syrians are
called Assyrians by the barbarians.’ Assyria is from another root, אשר
(Ashur), supposed to signify ‘happiness,’ and applied, as will be seen,
to one of the gods. Syria is the hieroglyphic Khar, Kharu, or Khálu,
the ‘hinder-land,’ that is, behind or north of Osiris (Egypt), and
the Akarru or Akharu of the cuneiforms, both from the ‘Semitic’ root
Akhr. ‘Palestine’ (Syria) is simply the ‘land of the Philistines,’ the
Zahi of the hieroglyphs and mediæval Filistín; this powerful family,
probably connected with the Hyksos, extended eastward from the confines
of Egypt, and built Pelusium—‘Philistine-town,’ not town of πηλὸς or
mud.
Beyond the Philistines began the Phœnicians—merchants and traders,
travellers, explorers, and colonisers—the ‘Englishmen of antiquity.’
When Herodotus brings the Phœnicians from the ‘Erythrean Sea’ he is
generally understood to mean the Persian Gulf, where the islands of
Tyrus (or Tylos) and Aradus are supposed to be the mother-sites of
the homonymous Mediterranean settlements. The popular derivation of
‘Phœnicia’ is from φοῖνιξ, which again may have been, _more Græco_,
a mere translation of the Egyptian Kefeth, Kefthu, Keft, and Kefa, a
palm-tree. But the question would be solved if it can be proved that
the Phœnicians are the ‘Fenekh’[564] of the monuments and the Moslem
El-Fenish. Mariette Pasha derived the term Punoi, Pœni, from Pun or
Punt, by which he understood Somali-land; he is easily reconciled with
Herodotus by assuming Punt to mean, as most understand it, the opposite
Arabian coast.[565] Thus the ‘Port of Punt’ is the mythical Red Sea
(primordial matter?), where red Typhon and the red dragon App or Apáp
(Apophis) fought against the white god Horus—the prototype of Baldur
the Beautiful.[566]
The Phœnicians left their mark upon the world. For many generations the
Mediterranean was a ‘Phœnician lake,’ and they could boast of a general
θαλασσοκρατία. This enabled their merchants and navigators to diffuse
civilisation from Egypt and Assyria to the farthest West. They were
the carriers of the world. Their ‘round ships’ or merchantmen (γαυλοί)
and their long war-ships pushed far into the Northern and Southern
Atlantic. The topographical lists of Thut-mes III. show a thickly
inhabited country (Brugsch, i. 350–51), and, as Mariette Pasha says, a
map of Canaan, composed of some hundred and fifteen hieroglyphic names,
‘is a synoptical table of the “Promised Land,” made two hundred and
seventy years before the exodus of Moses.’ Among the settlements are
Debekhu, now Baalbak, the Baal-city;[567] Tum-sakhu, the gate or shrine
of Tum, the setting sun, now Damascus; Biarut (_hod._ Bayrut); Keriman
or Mount Carmel and Iopoo, Joppa, or Jaffa. We find the Jordan in the
Egyptian Iarutana, and Shabatuan is the Sabbaticus River of Pliny and
Josephus.[568]
The chief cities of Phœnicia, Tyre and Sidon, were of unexampled
splendour, depôts of the wealth of the East, as early as B.C. 1500. The
arch-Homerid, who curiously enough never mentions Tyre, attributes all
the finest works of art either to the Sidonians or to the gods. The
eastern coast of the ‘Inner Sea’ was a centre of civilisation, a school
of high culture which added beauty to necessary and useful technical
products; and its arts and handicrafts became patterns to the world,
even to Egypt, the mother. We have only a few inscriptions to remind us
of its literature; but nothing can be more touching or more poetical
than the epitaph of Eshmunazar, King of the Sidonians:[569]—‘Deprived
of my fruit of life, my wise and valiant sons; widowed, the child of
solitude, I lie in this tomb, in this grave, in the place which I
built,’ &c. Phœnicia, too, gave not only her letters but her gods to
Greece and Rome. Mulciber, for instance, was evidently Malik Kabir,
the ‘Great King,’ father of the Cabiri, the patron-saints of Palm-land
and the Pelasgi; this deity corresponded with the Egyptian Ptah,
the Demiurgus-god denoted by the Scarabæus, a symbol as common in
Phœnicia as in Nile-land. Melkarth,[570] again, whom Nonnius makes the
Babylonian Sun, was the city-god; farther west he became Herakles, the
Etruscan Erkle: the latter was an important commercial personage in
Phœnicia, for his dog (according to the Greeks) discovered the murex.
Melkarth is the Ourshol of Selden (‘De Diis Syriis’), who derives the
word from ‘Ur,’ light.[571]
Another Syrian people, often occurring upon the Egyptian monuments, is
the Shairetana, whom Layard supposes to be the Sharutinians near modern
Antioch. They inhabited a country upon a river and a lake or sea.
Their armour was a close-fitting cuirass of imbricated metal plates,
worn over a short dress and girt at the waist; the helmet had side
horns, and its upper dome was surmounted by a shaft-and-ball crest.
Their weapons were javelins, long spears, and pointed Swords. The
Tokkari, their neighbours, also carried for offence spears and large
pointed knives or straight Swords. The Rebo had bows and long straight
Swords with very sharp points. The same is the case with Ru-tennu or
Rot-n-n, who often pass in review upon the monuments. They appear to
have contained two divisions: the Ru-tennu-hir (upper Ru-tennu) were
apparently the peoples of Cœlesyria, while the Ruthens or Luthens are
mentioned in conjunction with Neniee (Nineveh), Shinar (Singar), Babel,
and other places in Eastern Naharayn (Mesopotamia).
[Heading: _THE HARPE OF PERSEUS._]
We have no knowledge of the Phœnician Sword except that supplied to us
by the legend of the enigmatical Egypto-Argive hero, Perseus. According
to Herodotus (ii. 91), his quadrangular fane was at Panopolis-Chemmis
in the Theban nome: here his sandal, two cubits long, was shown to
devotees; and the land prospered whenever he appeared, as is the
case when it sees El-Khizr, the Green Prophet of El-Islam. The
Greeks, whom we need not credit, made him the son of Jupiter by the
‘Acrisian maid’ (Danaë); and the Persians,[572] according to the
Greeks, declared his son Perses to be the _heros eponymus_ of their
country, and the ancestor of their Hakhmanish or Achæmenian kings.
His chief exploits were two. At Spanish Tartessus or in Libya (Herod.
ii. 91) he slew, with the aid of a ‘magic mirror’ given to him by
Neith-Athene, the gorgon Medusa, that old Typhonian head, from whose
neck sprang Pegasus and Chrysaor.[573] At Phœnician Joppa (Jaffa)[574]
he slaughtered the sea-monster (κῆτος) and saved ‘Andromeda,’ who is
suspiciously like ‘Anat.’
In both these feats Perseus used a celestial weapon, the Harpé of
Cronos, which Zeus had wielded in his duel with Typhon. The giant or
bad-god had torn it from the grip of the good-god, whom he presently
imprisoned in a cave; and it was not recovered till the captive was
liberated by Thut-Hermes. The Greeks call this Sword Ἅρπη (Harpé),[575]
and the name is evidently the Phœnician Hereba and the Hebrew Chereb;
whilst its description, δρέπανον ὀξὺ (_falx acuta_, sharp sickle),
identifies it with the Khopsh-blade of Egypt. Perseus performed his two
exploits as Hercules slew the Lernæan hydra; and Mercury cut off the
head of Argus (_falcato ense_), using the _harpen Cyllenida_.[576]
This legend has greatly ‘exercised’ commentators. The hero is connected
with Io, Belus, and Ægyptus; while he is evidently related to the
Cypriot Perseuth and the Phœnician Reseph[577] (flame or thunderbolt).
The original fight is the eternal warfare of good, light, warmth,
joy, with their contraries. It begins with Osiris-Typhon; it proceeds
to Assyria, where Bel the Sun-god attacks the Tiamat or marine
monster with the Sapara-Sword or Khopsh. In Persia it becomes Hormuzd
(Ahura-mazda) and Ahriman (Angra-manus): in Jewry it is an affair
between Bel and the Dragon; in Greece between Apollo and Python. The
duello is continued by St. Patrick,[578] who banished for ever snakes
from Ireland; and it makes its final appearance as ‘Saint George
and the Dragon.’ This expiring effort of Egyptian mythology is held
apocryphal by the Roman Catholic Church, and no wonder. Dragons do
not, and never did, exist, except in memory as prehistoric monsters;
moreover, the traveller in Syria is shown three several tombs of
‘Már Jiryús’ the Cappadocian, a saint who has spread himself from
Diospolis-Lydda throughout the world. Under Justinian, the Theseum of
Athens was dedicated to ‘Saint George of Cappadocia,’ and in Cyprus he
had as many temples as Venus. The Saxon teacher thus invoked him:
Invicto mundum qui sanguine temnis,
Infinita refers, Georgi Sancte, trophæa.
He entered the English calendar when Henry II. married Eleanor,
daughter of William of Aquitaine, the Crusader who chose the ‘flos
Sanctorum’ for his patron saint. He is still godfather of the Garter,
established by Edward III. in 1350; and the most feudal of existing
orders wears ‘the George’ on a gold medallion, and celebrates its
festival at Windsor on April 23.
One step in the Saint’s progress has been traced by M. Ch.
Clermont-Ganneau,[579] an Orientalist whose archæological acumen is
unsurpassed even by his industry. A bas-relief group in the Louvre
shows the hawk-headed Horus, mounted and in Roman uniform, piercing
with his peculiar spear (an _hamatum_, or barb-head), the neck of the
crocodile Typhon, Set, Dagon,[580] Python—the Devil. This strongly
suggests that Horus and Perseus, Saint Patrick and Saint George, are
one and the same person.
[Heading: _PHŒNICIAN SWORDS._]
The Hereba-blade has not yet been found in Phœnicia, but Wilkinson
argues (II. ch. vii.) that the beautiful Swords and daggers, buried
with the Ancient Britons and clearly not of Greek or Roman type, are
Phœnician work. Carthaginian blades, however, dug up at Cannæ are now
in the British Museum.[581] That the nations were congeners we see by
the Pœnulus of Plautus, and by such names as Dido (another form of
David) and Elissa (El-Isá, the royal woman); by Sichæus, who derives
from the same root as Zacchæus; by Hannibal and Hasdrubal (containing
the root Ba’al), and by the ‘Suffetes’—magistrates who are the Hebrew
Shophetim or Judges.[582] The mercenary armies of Carthage, whose
conquests are first alluded to by Herodotus (vii. 165), used Swords of
bronze, copper, and tin: Meyrick (i. 7) also mentions brass; and the
highly imaginative General Vallancey compares it with Dowris metal or
‘Irish brass.’ Dr. Schliemann (‘Mycenæ,’ p. 76) picked up, at ‘Motyë
in Sicily,’ Carthaginian piles (arrow-heads) of bronze, pyramidal and
without barbs (γλωχῖνες or _hami_); he found the same style at Mycenæ
(p. 123).
The Swords of the Lycians probably resembled the Egyptian Khopsh; and
the same was the case with the Cilician falchion. The latter peoples
were also armed with the σάρισσα (Sarissa); the lance or spear, sixteen
to twenty feet long, afterwards used by the people of Epirus and the
Macedonian phalanx. It is opposed to the Larissa, the lance of the
European Middle Ages, and to the Narissa affected by the Norrenses.
[Heading: _THE JEWISH SWORD._]
The most remarkable point concerning the Sword amongst the ancient
Hebrews is our practical ignorance of its shape and size. Although
shekels and similar remains have been discovered in fair quantities,
that ‘iron race in iron clad,’ the Jews of old, has not left us a
single specimen of arms or armour. This is the more curious, as we are
expressly told that the blade was buried with its wielder.[583] And
although we are assured (Gen. iv. 22) that Tubal-Cain, son of Lamech
and Zillah, was the first metal-smith, there is no direct mention of
iron arms amongst the Jews till after the Exodus. Gesenius proposes
to make Tubal-Cain a hybrid word, ‘scoriarum faber,’ from the Persian
‘Tupal’ (iron-slag or scoriæ), and ‘Kani’ (_faber_, a blacksmith). He
has been identified with Ptah, Bil-Kan (Assyria), Vulcan, and Mulciber;
and only ignorance of Hinduism prevented mediæval commentators
discovering him under the _alias_ of Vishvamitra, the artificer of
the Hindú gods. Maestro Vizani (A.D. 1588), a famous master of fence,
attributes the invention of the Sword to Tubal-Cain; we should now
place this worthy in the later bronze and early iron age. Unjust
claims to discovery are made by all ancient peoples; and here it would
be hardly fair to adduce Bochart’s ‘Judæi semper mendaces; in hoc
argumento potissimum mentiuntur liberalissime.’
It is, however, amply evident that the Phœnicians and the despised
Canaanites were highly-cultivated peoples, whereas the Jews were not.
The latter are never alluded to in Egyptian hieroglyphs.[584] Even
after they had established their principality upon the bleak and
barren uplands of Judæa, they were dependent for their art upon their
neighbours. Although gold was so abundant in the days of David that he
could collect about one thousand million pounds (one hundred thousand
talents of gold and one million of silver) for building the Temple,
yet Solomon, the Wise King, was obliged to seek stone-cutters and even
carpenters among the Σίδονες πολυδαίδαλοι. Judæa had neither science
nor art; architecture, sculpture, paintings nor mosaics; comfort nor
cookery. The Great Temple that succeeded the Tabernacle of Moses was
mainly the work of Hiram of Tyre, the Siromus of Herodotus (v. 104),
the Hiromus of Dius, Menander and Josephus (‘Apion,’ i. 17, &c.), and
probably a dynastic name, as ‘Haram’ the Sacred.
Another learned master of arms[585] declares that the first weapon
mentioned in Hebrew Holy Writ is the _flammeus gladius_ wielded by the
Cherubim (Gen. iii. 24), the ‘Chereb’ which the Septuagint renders
Ῥομφαία.[586] On the Assyrian monuments the Kerubi (‘cherub,’ which
derives, like the Arabic ‘Karrúb,’ from ‘Karb’ = propinquity) denotes
the colossal figures symbolising the Powers of Good, and guarding the
palace-gates. As they prevented the admission of Evil, they found
their way to the entrance of the Garden of Eden, whence they warned
off sinners and intruders. The ‘flaming Sword,’ which ‘turned every
way to keep the way of the tree of life,’ was, according to some, the
two-pronged blade, the Greek ‘chelidonian,’ which served as a talisman.
Tiglath Pileser I. made one of these forked Swords of copper, inscribed
it with his victories, and placed it as a trophy in one of his castles.
But the Genesitic Sword is probably the weapon-symbol of Merodach, the
Babylonian god and planet Jupiter. This revolving disc represented,
like the Aryan ‘Vajra,’ the lightning or ‘thunderbolt’ with which our
classics armed Zeus-Jovi;[587] and a highly poetical description of it
is given in an old Akkadian hymn. Here it is called among other names
_littu_ (or _litu_), which is, letter for letter, the same as the first
of the Hebrew words translated ‘flaming Sword’ (_lahat ha-Chereb_):
it may also signify the ‘Burning of Desolation.’ M. F. Lenormant[588]
suggests that the true meaning is ‘magical prodigy.’ But it is safer
to stand by the disc-like Sword, which corresponds with the wheels of
Ezekiel’s vision (chap. x. 9, 10). In the Chaldæan battle of Bel and
the Dragon we again find the great flaming Sword, turning all round the
circle when wielded by the deity against the ‘Drake.’ So the Egyptians
had long before depicted the solar god with a glory of solar rays, a
most appropriate symbol; and his enemy, Apophis [Hieroglyphs], the
serpent of Genesis, whom he destroys, is a monstrous reptile bristling
with a dorsal line of four Sword-blades, like flesh-knives, typifying
destruction.
The Hebrews borrowed their metallurgy, like all their early science,
from Egypt. M. de Goguet remarked that they were not destitute of
technological skill if they could calcine the golden calf and reduce
the metal (probably by using natron) to a powder which could be drunk
in water—_aurum potabile_.
The Hebrews called the Sword ‘Chereb’ (חרב, pl. Chereboth), a word that
occurs some two hundred and fifty times in the ‘Old Testament.’ Its
root, like the Arabic ‘khrb,’ means to waste, to be wasted; and the
noun denotes any wasting matter.[589] Mostly it means a Sword (Gen.
xvii. 40; xxxiv. 25, &c. &c.); in other places it is a knife (Josh. v.
2, 3). So we find in Ezekiel (v. 1), ‘Take thee a sharp knife [Chereb];
take thee a barber’s razor’: elsewhere it becomes a chisel (Exod.
xx. 25); an axe or pick (Jer. xxxiv. 4; Ez. v. 1, and xxvi. 9), and,
finally, violent heat (Job xxx. 30). The Arabic ‘Harbah’ signifies a
dart.
We gather from the Hebrew writings that the Sword was originally of
copper: hence the allusion to its brightness and its glittering: this
would be followed by bronze, and lastly by iron, ground upon the
whetstone (Deut. xxxii. 41). It was not of flint; the ‘sharp knives’
alluded to in Joshua (v. 2), were mere silex-flakes like the Egyptian.
The Sword was used by foot-soldiers and horsemen, the latter adding to
the ‘light Sword’ a ‘glittering spear’ (Nahum iii. 3). The ‘Chereb’
was not a large or heavy weapon, and we may safely assume that its
forms were those of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The weight of Goliath’s
Sword is unfortunately not given (1 Sam. xvii. 45), like that of his
spear and his armour; nor are we told anything about the blade which
David refused because he had not proved it (_ibid._ 39). But the ease
with which the son of Jesse drew out of the sheath thereof and used
the Philistine’s ‘Chereb,’ suggests a normal size and weight (_ibid._
51 and xxi. 9). It was much admired, for the victor said, ‘There is
none like that’ (1 Sam. xxi. 9). From the same chapter and verse we
learn that the blade was ‘wrapped up in a cloth,’ still an Eastern
practice, ‘behind the ephod’ or priest’s robe.[590] And the fact of a
man falling upon his Sword (1 Sam. xxxi. 4, 5) shows that the blade
was stiff, short, and straight, like the Egyptian leaf-blade. Ehud the
Benjamite, when about to murder Eglon, King of Moab (Jud. iii. 16),
‘made a two-edged Sword-dagger of a cubit length’ (or eighteen inches),
apparently without a sheath. The frequent mention of the double-edged
Sword (or straight cut-and-thrust?) suggests that there were also
single-edged blades, back-Swords or, perhaps, falchions. It is hard to
understand why Meyrick tells us that the Jews wore the Sword ‘suspended
in front, in the Asiatic style.’ Ehud (_ibid._ 16, 21) girt his weapon
under his raiment upon his right thigh, and drew it with his left hand.
Again, we read, ‘Gird thy sword upon thy thigh’ (Ps. xlv. 3); and as
Joab proceeded to assassinate Amasa (2 Sam. xx. 8), the ‘garment that
he had put on was girded unto him, and upon it a girdle with a sword
fastened upon his loins in the sheath thereof; and as he went forth it
fell out.’ The allusions to the oppressing Sword (Jer. xlvi. 16; l.
25) recall the Assyrian emblem of the Sword and the Dove, which are
both figured in one image. Perhaps we must so understand the Egyptian
Ritual of the Dead: ‘I came forth as his child from his Sword.’
Apparently the Chereb was worn, as by the civilised Greeks and Romans,
only on emergencies and not, like the chivalry of Europe, habitually
in peaceful towns. The Cultellarii or Sicarii, whom Josephus and
Tacitus[591] mention, were mere assassins, like the French Coustilliers
and the English Coustrils or Custrils.
That the Hebrews were not first-rate Sword-cutlers, we may infer from
the history of Judas the Maccabee.[592] A vision of Jeremiah the
Prophet, preceding the victory over Nicanor, had promised him ‘a Sword
of God, a holy Sword,’ not the short Machæra but the large Rhomphæa (2
Mac. xv. 15). After his war with the Samaritans and the Gentiles of
Palestine, ‘Judas took the Sword of Apollonius (the Syrian general) and
fought with it all his life’ (2 Mac. iii. 12).
And yet how general was the use of the Sword in Jewry we gather from
the fact that it assisted in taking the Census: so David, by one
account (2 Sam. xxiv. 9) mustered one million three hundred thousand
‘valiant men that drew the Sword.’[593] The expression ‘girding on
the Sword’ (1 Sam. xxv. 13) denoted adults able to serve as soldiers,
and also noted the beginning of a campaign (Deut. i. 41). It has been
stated that Saul, son of Kish, used the Sword with his left hand, by
virtue of being of the tribe of Benjamin. Of the latter, however, we
learn (Judg. xx. 16) that many were ambidexters, fighting and slinging
with the left as well as with the right. Finally, to be ‘slain by the
Sword’ was evidently as great a misfortune as the ‘straw-death’ among
those muscular Christians, the Scandinavians. The curse of David upon
Joab was that there might never be wanting in his house ‘one that hath
an issue, or is a leper, or that leaneth on a staff, or that falleth on
the Sword’ (a suicide). All this makes the fact the more singular that
no Jewish Sword-blade has ever been found.
Of the weapons used by the tribes neighbouring the ancient Hebrews we
know little. In the famous muster of Xerxes’ army,[594] the Assyrians,
according to Herodotus (vii. 65), used hand-daggers (ἐγχειρίδια)
resembling the Egyptian. The Arabs (vii. 69, 86), like the Indians,
were mere savages armed with bows and arrows; and we may note that
the former mounted only camels, the horse not having been naturalised
amongst all the tribes in the days of the ‘Great King’ (B.C. 485–465).
The Philistine[595] weapons are known to us only by the famous duello
between David and Goliath of Gath (1 Sam. xvii.). The account is
full of difficulties for the ‘reconciler’ of contradictory texts;
for instance, David is Saul’s armour-bearer, and yet unknown at
Court.[596] Nor is it easy to discover where Gath is. It is popularly
identified with Kharbat (ruins of) Gat: this heap of ruins lies west of
castled Bayt Jibrín, the ‘House of Giants’ (tyrants), the Arabic name
corresponding with the Hebrew Bethogabra. The field of fight has been
found in the Wady El-Samt (Elah of St. Jerome), west of Jerusalem. The
people of this part of Palestine, probably descended from the Hyksos
or Canaanites, are a fine tall race, bred to fray and foray by the
neighbourhood of predatory Bedawin:[597] armed to the teeth, they are
adepts in the use of the huge ‘nebút’ or quarterstaff.
The plain of Philistia, which once supported five princely cities,
appears very barren viewed from the sea; but the interior shows
well-watered valleys, and the succession of ruins proves that the
country belonged to an energetic and industrious race. Gaza (‘Azzah),
at the southern extremity, was a place of considerable importance, on
account of its fine port and its trade with the adjacent Bedawin. It
must not be confused with modern Ghazzah.[598]
Goliath, the ‘champion of the uncircumcised’ (Philistines), and
possibly a type of the race, wore armour[599] of ‘brass’ (copper);
unfortunately the materials of his Sword and sheath are not specified.
[Heading: _THE CYPRUS SWORD._]
Leaving Syria, we proceed to Cyprus, which may be considered an
outlying part of Palestine. Its size, its position between the east
and the west, and its wealth in gold, silver, copper, and iron, made
it an important station for the early Pelasgo-Hellenic or Græco-Italic
race which passed westwards, using the Hellespont and the Bosphorus for
ferry-places, and the Ægean Islands for stepping-stones. Thus Cyprus
became the ‘cradle of Greek culture, the cauldron in which Asiatic,
Egyptian, and Greek ingredients were brewed together.’ General Palma
(di Cesnola)[600] has proved, by his invaluable finds, which have
‘added a new and very important chapter to the history of art and
archæology,’ that early Cypriote art was essentially Egyptian, modified
by Phœnician and Assyrian influences, and eventually becoming Greek.
Hence, too, with the dawn of Hellenic civilisation, migrated westwards
some of the fairest classical myths. Cyprus was the very birthplace
of Venus,[601] an anthropomorphism which rendered infinite service to
poetry, painting, and sculpture. Idalium (Dali) was the capital of
Cinyras, Kinnári the harper,[602] the Crœsus of his day; it was the
site of Myrrha’s sin and the death-place of her son Adonis. The latter,
who corresponds with the Tammuz of Palestine and the Assyrian Du-zi
(Son of Life), is made by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxii. 14) an ‘emblem
of the fruits of the earth cut down in their prime.’ Here was the
_atelier_ of Pygmalion, Fa’am Aliyun (_Malleus Deorum_), the hammer of
the gods;[603] and here upon his breathing statue of ivory he begat
Paphos, the king. Finally, here flourished the poets who preceded the
Homerid chief; and here was born Zeno, the Stoic, the ‘Phœnician.’
The history of Cyprus begins soon after the beginning. An inscription
of Thut-mes III. speaks of the ‘false breed of the Kittim’; and the
island is everywhere on the monuments called Asibi. In the cuneiforms
the word is ‘Kittie’: we also find ‘Atnán’: hence, possibly, the
Hellenic ‘Akamantis.’ It is the ‘Chittim’ of the Hebrews (Joseph. ‘A.
J.’ i. 7), and perhaps their ‘Caphtor’; the latter word, however,
appears to be the Egyptian ‘Kefa’ or ‘Keft’ (a palm or Phœnicia),
converted into the son of Javan and grandson of Japhet. ‘Kittim’ and
its congeners survive in the Greek Citium, now Larnaca, from ‘larnax,’
a mummy-case, a coffin. I have already noticed (chap. iv.) the disputed
origin of ‘Kypros’ and ‘Cyprus.’
The Autochthones of Cyprus are supposed upon very slight grounds to
have been ‘Aryans’ from Asia Minor, Phrygians,[604] Lycians,[605]
Lydians, or Cilicians. There must have been an early ‘Semitic’
innervation, as we see by such names as Amathus; this is the Greek form
of Hamath, the ‘high town,’ typically explained by the Hebrew ‘Amath,’
grandson of Canaan. The Phœnicians settled chiefly in the south of the
island and made it an outpost of Tyre and Sidon. Herodotus tells us
that there were also, according to their own account, Ethiopians (vii.
90), by which he means Cushito-Asiatic tribes from the head of the
Persian Gulf.
The staple of Cyprus, from the heroic ages to the Roman days, was the
copper-trade and the manufacture of arms and armour. To the legendary
Tyrio-Cyprian king Cinyras was attributed the invention of the hammer,
anvil, tongs, and other metallurgic tools. This favourite of Venus
was only the _hero eponymus_ of the Phœnician Cinyradæ, who ruled the
isle till subdued by Ptolemy Lagi (B.C. 312). They were opposed to a
Semitico-Cilician family of priests and prophets, the Tamyridæ. Homer
(‘Il.’ xi. 19) describes the breast-plate of worked and damascened
steel (? κύανος) adorned with gold and tin, which King Cinyras sent
to Agamemnon. Alexander the Great highly prized, for its lightness
and temper, the blade given to him by the King of Citium; and we know
that he used it in battle, slaying ‘with his Cyprian Sword’ Rhæsales
the Persian. Demetrius Poliorcetes wore a suit of armour from Cyprus,
which had been tested by darts shot from an engine distant only twenty
paces. In Herodotus (vii. 90) the Cyprian contingent of Xerxes’ army
was weaponed after the manner of the Greeks.
Cyprus would derive her art from the Phœnicians, whose bronze dishes
were found in the Palace-cellars at Nineveh. Gem-engraving, and working
in _pietra dura_, were highly cultivated, as is proved by General
Palma’s works, and by the Lawrence-Cesnola collection, ‘Album of Cyprus
Antiquities.’[606] Glass- and crystal-cutting were well known at a time
when Herodotus (ii. 69) could describe the former only as ‘fusible
stone’—perhaps, however, alluding to paste gems. But Theophrastus, a
century and a half after the historian, mentions glass as reported
to be made by melting a certain stone. I have already alluded to the
peculiar decency and decorum of the glyptic remains in the Isle of
Venus, where the festivals were described as being ultra-Canopic in
character.[607]
[Heading: _CYPRUS WEAPONS._]
The ‘finds’ of Cyprian weapons have little importance; perhaps due care
was not devoted to the subject. Dali (Idalium) produced a fine dagger
with an open ring for ornament between handle and blade, together
with a hatchet and spear-head in copper. Here also was found the
bronze tablet of the Duc de Luynes, the discoverer of the Cypriote
syllabary,[608] which has caused, and still causes, so much discussion.
Alambra yielded a number of copper tools, needles, bowls, mirrors,
hatchets, spear-heads, and daggers (Cesnola, Pl. V.). Among them is a
sickle-shaped implement (_a_), of the shape called a ‘razor’ by writers
on Etruscanism; it may be anything between a razor, a sickle, and a
pruning-hook.[609] A tomb at Amathus supplied copper axes and iron
arrow-heads (p. 280), and another an iron dagger (p. 276). There is
a charming dagger from the Curium treasure (Pl. XXI. p. 312); and we
are told (p. 335) of ‘an iron dagger with part of its ivory handle.’
The straight blade, the flesh-chopper, and the leaf-shaped Egyptian
Swords are found on a patera[610] (p. 329), and the broken statue of
a warrior from Golgoi carries a falchion or flesh-chopper slung under
the quiver to the left side (p. 155). The tombs containing horsemen
in terra-cotta invariably yielded one or two spear-heads seven to ten
inches long, whilst the figures of foot-soldiers were accompanied by a
battle-axe, knife, or dagger. The decapitation of the Gorgon by Perseus
adorns a sarcophagus also found at Golgoi (Pl. X.); and the head of
Medusa (Pl. XXII.) apparently suggested that of the Hindú Kali, with
the tongue lolling out as if gorged with gore. The mediæval finds
of arms seem to have been more important than the ancient. There is
a tempting notice, but only a notice, of the Venetian weapons taken
from the two casements of Famagosta, of old Amta-Khadasta,[611] the
Ammochostos of Ptolemy (v. 14, § 3): especially interesting are the
rapiers, whose handles bore the Jerusalem Cross and the owners’ crests
inlaid with gold.
[Illustration: FIG. 196.—(Plate V.) NOVACULA.]
[Illustration: FIG. 197.—(Prague Museum.) NOVACULA?]
[Illustration: FIG. 198.—(Klagenfurth Museum.) NOVACULA, SICKLE? RAZOR?]
[Illustration: FIG. 199.—SILVER DAGGER.]
[Heading: _TROJAN WEAPONS._]
On the mainland north of Cyprus lies a most remarkable land which,
forming a point of junction, a connecting-link between the East and
the West, was one of the tracks of primitive emigration from Asia
to Europe, and _vice versâ_. This _tête de pont_, commanding the
island-bridge and the various stepping-stones of rock, is the famous
Troas, occupied of old by a branch of the great Phrygian race. Hence
the interest attaching to the excavations of Dr. Henry Schliemann. His
works are too well known to require any detailed notice of the five
(seven?) cities ‘whose successive layers of ruins, still marked by the
fires that passed over them, are piled to the height of fifty (two
and a half) feet above the old summit of the Hisárlik hill.’[612] The
explorer’s labours, according to his editor, have passed through the
‘several stages of uncritical acceptance, hypercritical rejection, and
discriminating belief’: I can only remark that the question of Troy
appears farther from being settled (if possible) than it ever was; we
now know only where it was not. The excavator began by placing his city
of Priam in the second stratum from below, at a depth of twenty-three
to thirty-three feet under the surface; and afterwards raised it to the
third layer. It is regretable that the learned author did not submit
his lively volume ‘Troy’ to a professed archæologist. We should not
have heard so much about the Svasti, a Hittite ornament, nor should we
have been told that the Trojans used ‘salt-cellars or pepper-boxes’ (p.
79); that the Ramayana Epic was ‘composed at the latest eight hundred
years before Christ’ (p. 103), and that the ‘ivory, peacocks, and
apes are _Sanskrit_ words with scarcely any alteration.’[613] When,
therefore, I speak of ‘Troy proper,’ and ‘Trojan stratum,’ I mean only
Dr. Schliemann’s Troy.
The townlet had preserved, at the time of its destruction, the
technological use of stone, which, indeed, was found in the four lower
strata, and even in the Acropolis of Athens. It occurs, however, in
conjunction with gold and silver, copper, bronze, and traces of iron,
but no tin.[614] The people were, like most barbarians, very expert
metallurgists; and if Dr. Schliemann’s diorite be true diorite,[615]
they must have worked with highly-tempered tools. Copper, either pure
or slightly alloyed, was the most common metal: we read of a key, a
large double-edged axe, a vase-foot, nails, clothes-pins (ἔμβολα), a
curious instrument like a horse’s bit (p. 261); a bar, a big ring, a
chauldron (λέβης), a ridge (φάλος) for the helmet-crest (λόφος), two
whole helmets, three crooked knives, and a lance with a mid-rib (p.
279). Upon the so-called ‘great Tower of Ilios’[616] was found a large
mould of mica-schist for casting twelve different articles, axes and
daggers. Thus we learn something about the long copper knives which
the Homeric heroes carry besides their Swords and use in sacrifice:
also we may now reasonably conclude that the Iliad-poets could not,
as has often been asserted, have ignored the fusion and the casting
of metals.[617] Near this important mould appeared a fine lance (p.
279), and long thin bars, either with heads or with the ends bent
round, determined to be hair- or breast-pins. Iron showed only in a
sling-bullet, although Dr. Schliemann often mentions ‘loadstone.’[618]
The ‘upper Trojan stratum’ yielded other moulds for bar-casting and a
four-footed crucible, in which some copper was still visible. The gates
supposed to be the Scæan or left-handed[619] had two copper bolts (p.
302). The so-called ‘Palace of Priam’[620] produced a dozen long thin
pins for hair or dress; and one of a bundle of five, fused together by
fire, had two separate heads, the upper lentil-shaped, and the lower
perfectly round (p. 312). Thick nails, fitted for driving into wood,
were rare; the labour of two years produced only two. Finally, there
were fragments of a Sword, a lance, and other instruments.
[Illustration: FIG. 200.—COPPER SWORD WITH SHARP END, FROM THE
‘TREASURY OF PRIAM.’]
The first article found in the so-called ‘Treasury of Priam’ was a
copper shield (ἀσπὶς ὀμφαλόεσσα), an oval salver measuring in diameter
less than twenty inches. The flat field is surrounded by a rim (ἄντυξ)
an inch and a half high; the umbo (ὀμφαλός)[621] measured two and
one-third by four and one-third across, and this boss was bounded
by a furrow (αὖλαξ) two-fifths of an inch across (p. 324). Thus
Antyx and Aulax, suited for mounting a guard of hide, recall Ajax’s
seven-fold shield, made by Tychius[622] (‘Il.’ vii. 219–223); and
Sarpedon’s targe, with its round plate of hammered ‘Chalcos,’ and its
hide-covering attached to the inner edge of the rim by gold wires or
rivets (‘Il.’ xii. 294–97). Near the left hand of a Lebes-chauldron,
two fragments of a lance and a battle-axe were firmly attached by
fusion. There were thirteen copper lances, from nearly seven inches
to upwards of a foot long, with one and a half to two and one-third
inches of maximum breadth; the shafts had pin-holes for attachment
to the handle; the Greeks and Romans inserted the wood into the neck
of the metal-head of the lance. There was a common one-edged knife
six inches long; and of seven two-edged daggers, the largest measured
ten and two-thirds by two inches. The grips averaged two to two and
three-quarter inches, and the tang-ends, where the pommels should be,
were bent round at a right angle. Doubtless the tang had been encased
in a wooden haft; had it been of bone some trace would have remained,
and the point, which projected about half an inch, was simply turned
to keep the handle in place. This antiquated contrivance is not yet
wholly obsolete, especially when the metal is left naked. The only
sign of a Sword (p. 332) was a fragmentary blade five inches and
two-thirds long by nearly two inches broad, and with a sharp edge
at the chisel-like end. Many golden buttons, not unlike our modern
shirt-studs, were found in the ‘Treasury’; they had probably served
to ornament the belts or straps (τελαμῶνες) of knives, shields, and
Swords.[623]
[Heading: _ALL THE TROYS._]
We gather from Dr. Schliemann’s labours that his ‘Troy,’ at the time
of its destruction, was a townlet still in the local Stone-age; at
the height of the Copper-Bronze Period; and, perhaps, in the earliest
dawn of the Iron-epoch. Apparently it had an alphabet, of which the
Grecian enemy could not boast;[624] and, comparing its remains with
those of Mycenæ, its culture fully equalled, if not excelled, that
of contemporary Hellas. It is curious to observe that the deeper
the diggings, from twenty-four feet downwards, the greater were the
indications of technological skill. According to Herodotus (ii. 118),
the Egyptians bore witness to the power of Troy,[625] yet there is an
utter absence of Nilotic influence in the remains, and Brugsch denies
that there is any allusion to it on the monuments of Egypt. A similar
disconnection with Phœnicia and Assyria appears. The resemblance of the
terra cottas to those found in Cyprus and in some of the Ægean islands
suggests that there was an early relationship between the Phrygian
Trojans and the Phrygian Greeks, both being ‘Indo-Europeans’;[626] and
that the eternal Trojan war was, like the later contest between Russia
and Poland, Federals and Confederates, nothing but a family feud, a
venomous quarrel of rival cousins.
To conclude the ever-interesting subject of Troy. Homer, or the Homerid
so called, describes the city according to current legends, as an
untravelled Englishman of to-day would describe the Calais of Queen
Mary. There is no reason to believe that he saw it, much less that he
painted like the photographing of Balzac. Hence it is a daring more
than sublime, to find the Scæan Gate and the Palace of Priam. Even the
number of superimposed settlements differs. Dr. Schliemann (‘Ilios,’
&c.) proposes seven, while Dr. Wilhelm Dörpfeld[627] reduces the number
to six. These, according to Professor Jebb, are as follows: (1) The
Greek Ilium of the latest or Roman age, extending to about six feet
below the surface. (2) The Greek Ilium of Macedonian age taken by
Fimbria in B.C. 85; it extends over the plateau adjoining Hisárlik.
(3) A Greek Ilium of earlier age, taken by Charidemus (B.C. 359); it
appears confined to the little mound. (4) Another unimportant village;
possibly No. 3 in its earliest form, when the Æolic settlers occupied
Hisárlik: the evidence of the pottery[628] suggests these to have been
the oldest Hellenic remains. (5) Prehistoric city; and (6) a distinct
stratum of ruins also prehistoric. To these Dr. Schliemann adds (7) the
earliest prehistoric buildings founded on the floor-rock fifty-two feet
below the surface and fifty-nine above the present level of the plain.
Finally, Mr. W. W. Goodwin[629] comes to the ‘ultimate conclusion’
about Hisárlik, that it shows only two important settlements. The first
is the large prehistoric city extending over the hill and plateau. The
second is the historic Ilium in its three phases of primitive Æolic
occupation of the Acropolis, the Macedonian city, and the Roman Ilium.
The immediate neighbours of Troy were the Lydians, whom history makes
the forefathers of the ancient Etruscans.[630] Herodotus (i. 94) tells
the tale of Tyrrhenus and his emigration, which, however, differs from
the account of Xanthus Lydius preserved by Nicolaus of Damascus. In
the ‘Iliad’ (ii. 864), the Lydians appear only as Mæonians. They were
a people of Iranian speech, to judge from such words as καν (_canis_,
_kyon_, _svan_, &c., a dog), and ‘Sardis’ from ‘Sarat’ or ‘Sard,’ in
old Persian Thrade and in modern Persian Sál = a year. Apparently their
language had affinities with the Etruscan and Latin; for instance,
Myrsilus, son of Myrsus, the Græco-Lydian name of Candaules (Herod. i.
7), has been compared with Larthial-i-sa; and Servilius from Servius,
the _l_ denoting son (_filius_), shows the same peculiarity. The
Lydians were a civilised people who first coined gold (Herod. i. 94)
and stamped silver (_ibid._);[631] their name will ever be connected
with music. With them twelve was a sacred number; it formed the perfect
Amphictyony of the Ionians, and it survived in the Confederacy of
Etruscan cities (Livy, v. 33). Finally, the tomb of Alyattes[632] is
apparently a prototype of the Etruscan sepulchres; and the peculiarity
of these ‘homes of the dead’ suggests direct derivation from Egypt
rather than coincidental resemblance.
Until late years it has been accepted as an historic fact that the
old colonisers of Tyrrhenia dwelt for years as conquerors in Lower
Egypt. The Tuisa, Tursha, Toersha, and Turisa of the monuments wear
a close-fitting _calotte_ with a tall point, whence a long thin
tassel falls to the back of the neck, like one of the Cyprus caps and
the older style of Moslem Fez.[633] But Brugsch[634] converts the
monumental Tursha into Taurians: he wholly discredits the existence of
a Pelasgo-Italic confederacy in the days of Mene-Ptah I. and of Ramses
III.; and he positively asserts that the Egyptians of the Fourteenth
Dynasty knew nothing of Ilium and the Dardanians, Mysians and Lycians,
Lydians and Etruscans, Sardinians, Greek Achæans,[635] Siculians,
Teucinians, and Oscans.
[Heading: _THE ETRUSCAN SWORD._]
[Illustration: FIG. 201.—THE MARZABOTTO BLADE.]
However that may be, the Etruscans, the _acerrimi Tusci_ of Virgil,
were a people of high culture, to whose inventive and progressive
genius Rome owed her early steps in arts and arms.[636] A flood of
light has been thrown upon this page of proto-historic lore by the
extensive excavations of late years in the Emilian country about
Bologna, the Felsina or Velsina of Tyrrhenia. My late friend, the
learned and lamented Prof. G. G. Bianconi, forwarded to me the
accompanying sketch (fig. 202) of an exceptional iron blade found in
the ruins of Marzabotto.[637] It is described as follows (p. 3) in a
work, printed but not published, by the learned archæologist Count
Gozzadini of Bologna, ‘Di ulteriori scoperte nell’ antica necropoli di
Marzabotto nel Bolognese’[638]:—
‘Within a cell only thirty centimètres deep, and disposed two mètres
distant from one another, lay three skeletons whose heads fronted
eastwards. On each was an iron Sword-blade, sixty-two centimètres long
by four and a half broad near the tang (_spina_), and fining off to an
olive-leaf point; all have the mid-rib or longitudinal spine. Partly
attached by oxidation to one blade is a remnant of the iron scabbard,
slightly convex posteriorly and showing in the upper part a rectangular
projection, perhaps to carry the hook attached to the balteus. The
sheath-front has a mid-rib like the blade, and the wavy mouth is
adapted to the Sword-shoulders. On this face only are two buttons
(_borchie_) in high relief, connected by a band (_listello_). The tang,
twelve centimètres long, shows the length of the hilt, which, being
made of more perishable material, has altogether disappeared.’
The long narrow rapier-blade with the mid-rib is first seen in the
Egyptian bronzes;[639] the step was easy to the harder metal. That the
iron form was common in Etruria as its bronze congener at Mycenæ, is
proved by the discovery of three in a single tomb; moreover, as has
been said, a fourth has been preserved for years in the Marzabotto
collection. All are similar in form, which is highly civilised. The
number of the blades also suggests that they are of native make, not
left by the Boians and the Ligaunians, who, according to the late Prof.
Conestabile, may have buried in the Marzabotto cemetery. The date of
the latter is somewhat uncertain; but it cannot be much more recent
than the burial-ground of Villanova, where Count Gozzadini found an
_æs rude_, and which he dates from the days of Numa, B.C. 700. He is
followed by Dr. Schliemann (‘Troy,’ p. 40), and opposed by that learned
and practical anthropologist M. Gabrielle de Mortillet (‘Le Signe de la
Croix,’ &c. pp. 88–89), who would assign a far earlier epoch.
Count Gozzadini[640] gives a valuable description of a fifth Etruscan
Sword lately discovered at the ‘Palazzino’ farm, parish of Ceretolo and
commune of Casalecchio, some ten kilomètres south-west of ‘Etruscan
Bologna.’ In an isolated tomb, carefully excavated by the proprietor
(Marchese Tommaso Boschi), was found a skeleton, the feet fronting
southwards. On its left, extending higher than the head, was an iron
lance-point,[641] and on the corresponding shoulder a thick armilla of
bronze; other objects, including an Etruscan Œnochoe, two knives wholly
iron, and a chisel of the same metal, lay scattered about the grave
which was not stone-revetted. Close to the right side was an iron Sword
in a sheath of the same metal and wanting the heft: the general belief
was that the weapon had been buried with the wielder.
Count Gozzadini (pp. 19, 20) describes the Sword as follows: ‘Slightly
bi-convex and two-edged, it measures 0·625 mètre from the tang
(_codolo_) to the end of the scabbard; the tang, not including the
part forming the grip, was 0·11 mètre. The breadth is 0·47 mètre at
the shoulders, narrowing to a point, as is proved by the scabbard
diminishing to 0·27 mètre at the end. The handle showed no sign of
cross-bars or guard, which would also have been of iron; and it is
evident that the haft was of some destructible substance which has
wholly disappeared. The probability is that the grip was shaped like
those of the preceding Bronze Age—that is, bulging out behind the
blade for easier hold. The sheath was somewhat more bi-convex than
the Sword; an iron-plate about one millimètre thick, had been turned
over horizontally to unite the edges, which, near one of the sides,
formed a narrow and gradual line of superposition. This scabbard ended
in an ovoid crampet or ferule; and a fragment of plate iron with a
short broad hook, like that generally used for attachment to the belt,
probably belonged to it.’
Here, then, we have again a perfect rapier. The only question is
whether it was Etruscan, or, as supposed by M. G. de Mortillet,
Gaulish.[642] Count Gozzadini argues ably to prove the former
case.[643] He acknowledges that the invading Boii held the city and
country for two centuries (B.C. 358–566), until the Romans expelled
them for ever. But he shows that these peoples did not use such fine
Swords. When treating of the Kelts (chapter xiii.), I shall show that
the long unmanageable slashing Claidab or Spatha of these peoples had
nothing in common with the strong, bi-convex, and thoroughly-civilised
rapier of Ceretolo.
Other blades like that of Ceretolo—long, narrow, and pointed—have
been found in tombs notably Etruscan. Such, for instance, was that of
Cære, now in the Gregorian Museum, Rome. In December 1879 two other
blades were produced by a necropolis in Valdichiana, between Chiusi
and Arezzo, where a long Etruscan inscription was engraved upon the
foot of a tazza. Two similar blades are also portrayed in relief
and colour upon the stuccoed wall of a Cære tomb. Des Vergers[644]
describes them as follows: ‘La frise supérieure est ornée d’Épées
longues à deux tranchants, à la lame large et droite avec garde à la
poignée, se rapprochant de celle que les Romains désignaient par le nom
de _spatha_. Les unes sont nues, les autres dans le fourreau.’ Four
such Swords were also produced at Pietrabbondante in the district of
far-famed Isernia, and are preserved in the National Museum of Naples.
Signor Campanari discovered in an Etruscan tomb a Sword-hilt in bronze
attached to a blade of iron.[645] Finally, the Benacci property near
the Certosa of Bologna also yielded an iron blade and iron chisels like
those of Ceretolo.
The late learned Prof. Conestabile truly asserts, ‘Des Épées de même
forme et de même dimension ont été trouvées dans d’autres localités
étrusques, situées dehors la sphère des invasions Gauloises, notamment
en Toscane.’ It is certain that such blades have been discovered on
both sides of the Alps. As the Romans adopted the Iberic or Spanish
blade; so the Gauls may have substituted for their own imperfect arms
the weapons taken from the Italians; in fact, we know from history
that they did so. Moreover, the Etruscans extended their commerce, not
only over Transalpine regions, but to that vast region extending from
Switzerland to Denmark, and from Wallachia to England and Ireland.[646]
This has been proved by the investigations of many scholars: in
Germany by Lindenschmidt, Von Sacken, Virchow, Kenner, Weihold, Von
Conhausen, and Genthe; by the Swiss Morlot, De Rougemont, Desor, and
De Bonstetten; by the Dane Worsäae; by Gray, Dennis, Hamilton, and
Wyllie in England; by the Belgian Schuermans; and by the Italians
Gozzadini, Conestabile, Garrucci, and Gamurrini. Desor, when receiving
the drawing of an iron Sword with bronze handle discovered at Sion, and
declared by Thioly to resemble exactly those of Hallstadt, declared:
‘De pareilles Épées sont évidemment fabriquées à l’étranger et non dans
le pays: elles nous conduisent donc vers ce grand commerce Étrusque
qui se faisait pendant la première époque de fer, époque sur laquelle
on s’est trompé si souvent.’ Livy,[647] in fact, proves the extent of
arms-manufactory in Etruria, when he relates that in B.C. 205, at which
time the Boiian occupation of Felsina ended, Arezzo alone could furnish
Scipio’s fleet in forty-five days with three thousand helmets, as many
Scuta and lances of three different kinds.
But the rapier was not the only form of Etruscan Sword. In Hamilton’s
‘Etruscan Antiquities,’[648] a human figure carries a cutting Sword
like a ‘hanger,’ wearing the belt at the bottom of the thorax. The
Céramique of Etruria supplies copious illustrations of Swords and other
weapons; but the art is somewhat mixed, and our safest information must
be derived from actual finds.
We are justified by these finds in concluding that the Etruscans
of Italy had from their earliest times a rapier which, for a
cut-and-thrust weapon, is well-nigh perfect. The blade is long, but
not too long; broad enough to be efficient without overweight, and
strengthened to the utmost by the mid-rib which forms a shallow arch.
In chapter xi. I shall compare the Etrurian Sword with that of Mycenæ;
the latter is a marvel of its kind, but it is made of a far inferior
metal—bronze.