THE SWORD IN ANCIENT GREECE: HOMER; HESIOD AND HERODOTUS: MYCENÆ.
‘Homer and Hesiod,’ says Herodotus,[715] ‘lived, as I hold, not more
than four hundred years before my time.’ This would date them between
B.C. 880–830. The contemporaneity of the bards, their cousinship, and
even their existence, has been copiously doubted: some place Hesiod
before, others two hundred or three hundred years after—
Blind Milesigenes thence Homer called;
and we have come to look upon Homer as one of the Homeridæ, the _heros
eponymus_ of the bards who produced the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey.’
Assuming, with Dr. Schliemann, the date of the Trojan war at about B.C.
1200,[716] Homer, according to the ‘Father of History,’ would flourish
about four centuries and a half after the wars he sang.
‘I wish I could have proved Homer to have been an eye-witness of
the Trojan war. Alas, I cannot do it! At his time swords were of
universal use, and iron was known, whereas they were totally unknown at
Troy.[717] Besides, the civilisation he describes is later by centuries
than that which I have brought to light in the excavations. Homer
gives us the legend of Ilium’s tragic fate as it was handed down to
him by preceding bards, clothing the traditional facts of the war and
destruction of Troy in the garb of his own day.’[718]
Metallurgically speaking, the sacred Bards and Heroes of Hellas,
whose works formed the Holy Writ of Greece,[719] lived at the height
of the Copper and in the beginning of the Iron Ages. Metal, not yet
cast (χωνευτόν), would be worked in primitive fashion with the hammer
(σφῦρα = σφυρήλατον),[720] and there were two manners of hammer-work,
the Holosphyraton, in solid mass, and the Sphyraton or plate-work.
Casting and soldering were invented (for the Greeks), according to
Pausanias[721] and Pliny,[722] shortly after Homer’s day by the Samians
Rhœcus and Theodorus. The latter, who lived between B.C. 800 and 700,
may have introduced core-casting, so well known to Egypt and Assyria.
The joints would be united by the normal mechanical means,[723] and the
ornamental house-plates would be attached to the walls and floors with
nails and studs. The idea of the firmament being a copper dome vault
is known to Pindar as well as to the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey.’[724]
Tartarus, below Hades,[725] had a similar threshold, and Atlas in
Euripides had copper shoulders.[726]
Ornamentation (δαιδάλλειν) was applied with gravers, burins, and
similar instruments; to domestic implements (cups and goblets, craters
or bowls, cauldrons and tripods); to sacred vases for the temple; and
to trumpets,[727] arms, and armour. Besides the brazier (χαλκεὺς) we
find the gold caster (χρυσοχοός) who gilds the bull’s horns.[728]
The Homeric bards[729] and Hesiod are well acquainted with iron
(σίδηρος),[730] and with steel in its various forms—Cyanus, Adámas,
and Chalyps. The former mentions seven metals, the Haft-Júsh (‘seven
boilings’), which he, like the Persians, had learned from Egypt.
Quenching in water, or tempering, was well known to the ‘Odyssey,’ as
we learn from the sputtering of Polyphemus’ eye[731]:—
And as when armourers temper in the ford
The keen-edg’d poleaxe, or the shining sword,
The red-hot metal hisses in the lake, &c.[732]
And he would, doubtless, know that steel is softened by simple
exposure to gradual heating. _Síderos_ is common wrought iron; so we
find σιδήρεον for the Iron Age[733] and σίδηρος πολιός,[734] which
should be translated, not ‘hoary,’ but ‘iron-grey.’ The ‘black’
(dark-blue) ‘Cyanus’ κύανος mentioned by the ‘Iliad,’[735] would be
a fusible or artificial steel made to imitate the true blue-stone or
lazulite (Theophrastus, 55).[736] The adamas (ἀδάμας) of Hesiod,[737]
who specifies the iron of the Cretan Idæi Dactyli, would be a white
and tempered metal; while χάλυψ (steel in general) either named or was
named by the well-known Chalybes. That the harder substance was not
rare, we see by the injunction,[738] ‘Do not, at a festive banquet of
the gods, pare from the five-pointed branch (hand) with bright steel,
the dry from the fresh’: i.e. don’t cut your nails at dinner. So at
the Battle of the Ships,[739] Homer studs a great sea-fighting Xyston
(pole), twenty-two cubits long, with spikes of iron; and elsewhere
speaks of a ‘cyanus-footed table.’[740]
Yet copper was _the_ metal for arms and armour. While the shield of
Hercules was made of alabaster (not ‘gypsum’), ivory, elektron (the
mixed metal) and (pure) gold, the hero is armed with a ‘short spear
tipped with gleaming copper’;[741] and he fastens around his shoulders
a ‘Sword, the averter of destruction,’ which the context suggests to
be of the same material. The ‘fair-haired Danaë’s son, equestrian
Perseus,’[742] bears a Sword of copper with iron sheath hanging by a
felt-thong (μελάνδετον ἄορ).[743] The seven-hide shield of Ajax[744]
was χάλκεος, of copper—not ‘brass-bound’ as Lord Derby has it. The
lambs’ throats are cut with the ‘cruel copper’ (χαλκός),[745] and
Diomede pursues Venus with the same weapon.[746] Hephaistos makes for
Achilles a shield of gold and silver, copper and tin;[747] and canny
Diomede’s armour[748] is of copper, which he changes for gold, ‘the
value of a hundred beeves for the value of nine.’
In the ‘Iliad’ close-handed combat succeeds to missile-using. As
Strabo remarks,[749] Homer makes his warriors begin their duellos by
weapon-throwing and then take to their Swords. But the latter is _the_
weapon, rivalled only by the hand-spear. Hence the Egyptian-taught
Argives are insulted as arrow-throwers;[750] and Diomede reviles his
foe as ‘an archer and woman’s man.’[751] The taunts are still known to
savage tribes of modern day.
The Homeric Sword has five names. The first is _Chalcos_ (copper,
and perhaps base metal), used like the Latin _ferrum_. The second
is _Xiphos_, a word still generic in Romaic poetry and prose; the
diminutive being _Xiphidion_. The third is _Phásganon_, pronounced
Phásg_h_anon,[752] and the fourth is _Aor_. Thrace,[753] a famous
manufactory of art-works even in early ages, produced the best
and largest of these blades; we find a Thracian Xiphos, possibly
of steel, ‘beautiful and long,’ in the hands of the Trojan prince
Helenos;[754] and Achilles at the funeral games offers as a prize
a Thracian Phásganon, fair and silver-studded.[755] This hero[756]
was drawing his mighty Xiphos[757] from the sheath (κολεός, _culeus_,
_vagina_, scabbard) to assault Agamemnon, when at Athene’s instance,
‘still holding his heavy hand upon the silver hilt, he thrust back the
great Sword into the scabbard.’ The Xiphos with silver studs or bosses
occurs in sundry places,[758] and one, with a gold hilt and a silver
scabbard fitted with golden rings, belongs to Agamemnon. Dr. Schliemann
explains the epithet Πάμφαινον[759] by the line of gold bosses lying
near one of the Swords; they were broader than the blade and covered
the whole available space along the sheath. Thus the Homerid’s Helos
(ἥλος), usually rendered ‘stud’ or ‘nail,’ was applied to the bosses,
or buttons, that break the mid-rib or that stud the blade near the
handle.[760] Paris slings on a copper silver-studded Xiphos.[761]
Menelaus, with the same weapon, strikes off his enemy’s Phalos—the
helmet-ridge bearing the Lóphos-tube which confines the Hippouris or
horse-tail crest. Patroclus, when arming himself,[762] hangs from
his shoulders the silver-studded Xiphos of copper (ξίφον ἀργυρόηλον,
χάλκεον); and Achilles has a large-hilted Xiphos.[763] Peneleos and
Lycon,[764] having missed each other with the spear, ran on with the
Xiphos, which is here again called Phásganon; but Lycon’s weapon broke
at the hilt (καυλός = _caulis_), and the Xiphos of Peneleos ‘entered,
and only the skin retained it; the head hung down and the limbs were
relaxed.’ On the shield of Achilles[765] Hephaistos[766] figures youths
wearing the golden Xiphos slung from silver belts.
[Illustration: FIG. 240.—TWO-EDGED BRONZE SWORD AND ALABASTER KNOB
(MYCENÆ).]
Opposed to the Xiphos, a straight ‘rapier blade,’ as we shall presently
see, was the φάσγανον or dirk, probably a throwing-weapon like the
Scax and Scramasax. The two are often confounded in the dictionaries.
Phásganon is supposed to be _quasi_ Σφάγανον, a euphonic transposition,
like the verb φασγάνειν (to slay with the Sword). The root is evidently
Σφαγ, which appears in σφάγη (slaughter) and in σφάγειν (to slay):
there is also a form φάσλανον for σφάλανον. This is a two-edged
leaf-shaped blade (φάσγανον ἄμφηκες):[767] Thrasymedes gives one to
Diomede, and with it Rhesus is slaughtered in his sleep. The word
frequently occurs: black-hilted Phásgana, with massive handles, are
mentioned,[768] and the common Phásganon is found in ‘Odys.’ xi. 48;
in Pindar (N, 1. 80), and in the Tragedians. In another passage,[769]
however, it becomes a large (μέγα) Phásganon.
The fourth term is ἄορ,[770] usually set down, like the English
‘brand,’ as poetical; it is not used in Romaic and the Neo-Greek
dictionaries ignore it. The Aor seems to mean a broad, stout, strong
blade. With the sharp Aor (ἄορ ὀξὺ) drawn from his thigh, Ulysses digs
the furrow one cubit wide,[771] and Hector cuts in two the ashen spear
of Ajax.[772] Automedon draws a long Aor.[773] This, too, is the weapon
of earth-shaking Neptune, the ‘dreadful tapering Sword’ (τανύηκες
ἄορ),[774] ‘thunder-bolt-like, wherewith it is not possible to engage
in fatal fight, for the fear of it restrains mankind.’[775] Phœbus
Apollo has a golden Aor (χρυσάωρ).[776] Here we see the vague meaning
of the poetic word, like our ‘hanger,’ for it now means the god’s
golden bow and quiver carried on the shoulder.
Homer’s fifth is the Μάχαιρα, hung by a single belt close to the
Sword-sheath, and used for sacrifices and similar uses. It afterwards
became a favourite with the Lacedæmonians; it was then a curved
blade, as opposed to the Xiphos or uncurved. Again, in Plutarch and
other writers, the Machæra seems to mean—like Spatha—a long straight
blade. Homer does not mention the κοπὶς, but Euripides uses it[777] in
conjunction with Machæra.
[Heading: _THE SWORD IN HOMER._]
We must not expect to see the Sword so frequently drawn in the
‘Odyssey,’ which, _pace_ Mr. Sayce, appears later than the ‘Iliad.’
We note in it more character and less movement; more unity and
less digression, and, finally, less fighting and more amenity and
civilisation. But ‘Othyssefs,’ the ‘man with whom many were wroth,’
has been a soldier, and he does not forget his old trade. Besides,
commerce was still armed barter, and voyaging was enlivened by piracy.
Copper, or base metal, continues to be the basis of metallurgy, and
the hero owns it in quantities, besides gold, silver, and electrum.
Euryalus tells Alcinous that he will appease the guest (Ulysses) with
an all-copper brand (ἄορ παγχάλκεον), whose hilt (κώπη) is silver, and
whose scabbard is of newly sawn ivory.[778] The suitors would slay
Telemachus with the sharp copper.[779] In the final struggle, the
catastrophe of the poem, Eurymachus, drawing his sharp Sword of copper,
calls upon his friends to do the same, and to shield themselves with
the tables against the fast-flying shafts. In the ‘Frogs and Mice,’ the
spear is a good long needle; the ‘all-copper work of Mars.’[780]
Wrought iron is prominent in the ‘Odyssey’ as in the ‘Iliad.’
Athene-Mentes[781] sails over the dark sea to Temesa (Temessus) for
copper, and also brings back shining iron (αἴθωνα σίδηρον). Menelaus
does the same.[782] The ‘cruel iron’ balances the ‘cruel copper.’[783]
The ‘long-pointed iron,’ so fatal to the Trojans, is apparently the
spear, which began the duels. Prudent Penelope places the bow and
the grey iron (πολιόν τε σίδηρον) ready for the suitors;[784] and
the Palace contains store of wrought iron (πολύκμητος σίδηρος).[785]
The axe (πέλεκυς), sharpened on both sides,[786] is of copper; but
the hatchets, through whose rings or handle-holes (στειλειὴ) the
copper-tipped arrows must be shot, are of iron.[787] ‘Iron,’ we are
told, ‘of itself draws on a man’[788] (Tacit. ‘Hist.’ i. 80), a
sentiment repeated elsewhere in the same words.[789] And the Sword
is alluded to in more than one place without the material being
specified.[790]
In the ‘Hymn to Hermes,’[791] Mercury the god ‘vivisects’ the mountain
tortoise with a scalpel of grey iron (γλυφάνῳ πολιοῖο σίδηρου). The
Glyphanus was a carving-tool, a chisel, or a knife for reed-pens.
The dispute whether the so-called Homeric poems were written or were
orally preserved still awaits sentence. We twice find the word γράφειν,
but its primary meaning is ‘to mark,’ ‘to cut,’ and, lastly, ‘to
write.’ Thus Ajax,[792] when inscribing (ἐπιγράψας) the lot, might
simply have scraped upon it ‘Ajax his mark.’ Yet there is nothing
against writing, and there is much in its favour. For instance—
Γράψας ἐν πίνακι πτυκτῷ θυμοφθόρα πολλά (σήματα).[793]
‘Having on tablet writ’ can mean nothing else. Pliny[794] accepts this
writing given to Bellerophon on codicilli or tablets.[795] Horace, who
was not only a great poet, but a masterful genius, mentions writing
in Homer’s day, and makes the early inscriptions laws cut into wood
(_leges incidere ligno_). Herodotus[796] tells us that he himself saw
Cadmeian (that is, old Phœnician) characters; and the tradition is
that Danaus introduced letters from Egypt, which, I repeat, produced
the one alphabet the world knows. Dr. Schliemann (‘Troy,’ Appendix by
the Editor) found at seven and a half mètres (twenty-five feet) below
the surface of the so-called Homeric Troy, many short inscriptions
in ‘ancient Cypriote characters,’ and as many Greek epigraphs were
discovered at Mycenæ. Evidently the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey’ might
have been cut in rude Phœnician characters upon wooden tablets or
scratched on plates of lead. Professor Paley would date the literary
Homer from B.C. 400; but that is a different phase of the subject.
Herodotus is the outcome of Homer, or, if you please, of the Homerids
and of Æschylus. The work of this prose rhapsodist, besides being a
history, a logography, a record of travel, and a study of ethnology and
antiquity, is at once an Epic and a Drama. It is epic in the heroic and
romantic tone; in the unity of action, a mighty invasion-campaign;
and in the frequent digressions which aid, if they retard, the one
primary object. It is a tragedy in the scenic displays (the review
of Xerxes, for instance), in the action of Destiny, the circle of
Necessity, the Nemesiac hypothesis, and the jealousy of the gods (_Deus
ultor_); while the catastrophe is represented in ‘Calliope’ by the
destruction of the Persian host, the home-return of the victors, and
the lurid scenes at the close. It ends with an epigram, a kind of _Vos
plaudite_: ‘The Persians ... chose rather to dwell in a churlish land
and exercise lordship, than to plough the plains and be slaves of other
men’—a sentiment which would ‘bring down the house’ in the Highlands.
All is written with a distinct purpose, and the sensible chronology is
derived from Egypt. There is something poetical, too, in the enormous
numbers. The magnificent-impossible host of five millions two hundred
and eighty-three thousand two hundred and twenty men,[797] and the
one thousand three hundred and twenty-seven triremes to be defeated
and destroyed by a handful of nine thousand Greeks and three hundred
and seventy-eight ships, is highly imaginative. The philosophic and
sceptical modern mind will hardly be satisfied till the details are
confirmed by the contemporary evidence of inscriptions, for instance,
the Behistun, which is a running commentary upon ‘Thalia.’ Hellas ever
was, and is, and will be, by virtue of her mighty intellect and her
preponderating imagination, ‘Græcia mendax.’ Eastern history tells us
nothing about the marvellous Persian invasion. We may fairly believe
that there was a great movement headed by some powerful Satrap,[798]
who determined to crush the wasp’s nest to the West; but we can go no
farther. It is simply incredible that the Great King, who at the time
was Lord Paramount of the civilised world, should lead to so little
purpose millions of warriors—men, the flower of Asia, whose portraiture
is the most favourable of any we possess, and whom the Father owns to
have been not a whit inferior in prowess to the Greeks.[799] And for
this view I duly apologise to ‘Herodotus and his shade.’
The poet-historian gives an interesting description of the Sword
amongst the Scythians whom the Greeks and Persians call Sacæ (Shakas)
or Nomades.[800] To judge from Hindú legend—for instance, that of
Shak-ari, ‘foe to the Shakas,’ a title of the historical Vikramáditya
(A.D. 79)—the Sacæ were ‘Turanians’—Mongols or Tartars. When he makes
them worship Ares-Mars, he probably derives the idea from their adoring
the emblem of war, an iron dirk (ἀκινάκης σιδήρεος].[801] ‘A blade
of antique iron,’ he tells us, ‘is placed on the summit of every
such mound (a flat-topped pile of brushwood three furlongs square),
and serves as the image of Mars; yearly sacrifices are made to it.’
The victims were cattle, horses, and one per cent. of war-prisoners.
‘Libations of wine are first poured upon their heads, after which
they are slaughtered over a vase, and the vessel is then carried up to
the top of the pile and the blood poured upon the Akinákes.[802] In
the Scythian graves of Russian Cimmeria (the Crimea) and of Tartary,
the Swords are mostly bronze. Dr. M‘Pherson, however, found one of
iron (1839) in the great tomb of Kertch, the old Milesian Panticapæum,
so called from its river, Anticapes;[803] it was a short dagger-like
thrusting blade, resembling the old Persian, with mid-rib and curved
handle. In the days of Attila, a Sword, supposed to be one of the
ancient Scythian weapons alluded to by the Greek, was accidentally
found, and was made an object of worship.[804] Janghíz (Genghis) Khan
when raised to the throne repeated this sacrificial observance, which,
however, can scarcely be called a ‘Mongolic custom.’[805] It seems
common to the Sauromatæ (northern Medes and Slavs), the Alans, the
Huns, and the tribes that wandered over the Steppes.
[Heading: _THE SWORD IN HERODOTUS._]
The Scythians also swore by the emblem of Mars. ‘Their oaths,’ says
Herodotus,[806] ‘are accompanied by the following ceremonies. Into a
large earthen bowl (κύλιξ) pouring wine, they mingle with it blood of
the parties to the oath, who wound themselves superficially with a
knife or an awl; then they dip into the bowl an Akinákes, and arrows,
and a battle-axe (_sagaris_), and a javelin (_akontion_), all the while
repeating manifold prayers. Lastly, the two contracting parties drink
each a draught from the bowl, as do also the most worthy of their
followers.’[807] In the ‘Anabasis,’[808] the Greeks swear by dipping a
Sword, and the barbarians a lance, into the victim’s blood.
So far these ancient authors: we must now see how they are confirmed
by modern authorities. Dr. Schliemann’s investigations at Mycenæ[809]
are the more interesting, as the finds are supposed by him to be
synchronous with those of Burnt Troy; and they enable us to compare
the former in her prosperity with the latter in her exhaustion. The
energetic explorer doughtily supports the use of copper for arms and
utensils; and, with whole truth, makes it the staple metal of the
heroic ages. As he found no tin at Mycenæ or in the great layer of
copper scoriæ at Hisárlik (Troy), while ‘Kassiteros’ is repeatedly
mentioned by Homer, he contends that the bronze of the Greek city was
imported, and therefore rare and expensive. Unfortunately he did not
analyse the thin copper wire which carried the necklace-beads.
[Heading: _THE SWORDS OF MYCENÆ._]
[Illustration: FIG. 241.—GOLD SHOULDER-BELT, WITH FRAGMENT OF TWO-EDGED
BRONZE RAPIER. (Sepulchre I.)]
It is a new sensation to descend with Dr. Schliemann into the
old Mycenian tombs where sixteen or seventeen corpses had been
simultaneously interred (?). Sepulchre No. I, attributed to Agamemnon
and his two heralds,[810] produced a variety of interesting articles,
especially the golden shoulder-belt (τελαμών) that decorated the
mummy.[811] My photograph shows it attached to a fragmentary two-edged
Sword. Between the middle and the southern body lay a heap of broken
bronze blades, which may have represented sixty whole Swords: some
bore traces of gilding, and several had gold pins at the handle. Two
blades lay to the right of the body, and their ornamentation strikingly
resembled the description in the ‘Iliad.’[812] The handle of the larger
Sword (No. 460) is of bronze, thickly plated with intaglio’d gold; and
a broad plate of the same metal, similarly worked, passes round the
shoulders of the Sword. The wooden scabbard must have been adorned with
golden studs and a long broad plate (fig. 244), shaped somewhat like a
man, with a ring issuing from the neck. The other Sword in a similar
style of art seems to have been even richer. Dr. Schliemann[813]
considers No. 463 (fig. 245) a remarkable battle-axe, of which
fourteen were found in the ‘Trojan treasure.’[814] It is evidently a
Sword-blade, and the same may be said of Nos. 464, 465 (fig. 244).
At the distance of hardly more than one foot to the right of the
mummy-body were found eleven bronze Swords; two were tolerably
preserved, and both were of unusual size—two feet ten inches and three
feet two inches. The golden plate of the wooden Sword-handle is given
in p. 305. These weapons, also, had gold plates attached to the pommels
by twelve pins of the same metal with large globular heads. The body at
the south end of Sepulchre I. was provided with fifteen bronze Swords,
of which ten had been placed at its feet. As a rule, the wooden sheaths
had mouldered away, but the gold studs or bosses, which adorned them
like the binding of a book, lay along the remains of the warriors
who had wielded them. The whetstone (Sepulchre I.) was of very fine
sandstone.
[Illustration: FIG. 242.—(Sepulchre I. Mycenæ.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 243.—A LONG GOLD PLATE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 244.—NOT BATTLE-AXES.]
[Illustration: FIG. 245.—SWORD BLADES. (Sepulchre I. Mycenæ.)]
The fourth Sepulchre was almost as interesting in its supply of
Swords. Excavating from east to west, the explorer came upon a heap of
more than twenty bronze blades, most of them with remnants of wooden
scabbards and handles. The flat, round pieces of wood, and the small
shield-like or button-like disks of gold with intaglio-work, seemed to
have been glued in unbroken series along both sides of the sheath; and,
the largest being at the broad end with a gradual diminishing in size,
they determined the width. The wooden hilts bore similar plates of
intaglio’d gold; the remaining space had been studded with gold pins,
and gold nails were fixed in the large pommels of wood or alabaster.
The quantity of fine gold-dust left no doubt that the handles and
scabbards had been gilt. The smith evidently did not possess the
knowledge of gilding silver: he first plated the metal with copper and
then the copper with gold. The golden cylinder (No. 366), adorned at
both ends with a broad border of wave-lines, and the field filled with
interwoven spirals, all intaglio-work, probably belonged to a heft of
wood. Along the middle runs a row of pin-holes; there are four flat
pin-heads, and in the centre is the head of a larger stud by which it
is attached.
Sepulchre IV. also yielded forty-six bronze Swords, more or less
fragmentary. Of these ten were short and single-edged: their solid
metal measured when entire from two to two feet three inches in
length. The handles are too thick for mounting in wood, and the tangs
end in rings for suspension to the ‘Telamon’ or to the girdle (ζώνη,
ζωστήρ). The chopper-shaped blade (fig. 246), evidently of Egyptian
derivation, is broken at the point, which may incline either way,
probably inwards. The other (fig. 246) is the normal leaf-shape. Dr.
Schliemann believes[815] that they explain the Homeric φάσγανον, which
he makes ‘perfectly synonymous with Xiphos and Aor.’ Here I venture to
differ with him, holding the Phásganon probably to have been the short
Egyptian Sword, used like the boomerang-blade for throwing as well as
cutting.
[Illustration: FIG. 246.—(Sepulchre IV. Mycenæ, p. 279.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 247.—BRONZE LANCEHEAD (?), p. 279.]
[Illustration: FIG. 248.—TWO-EDGED BRONZE SWORD AND DAGGER. (Sepulchre
IV. Mycenæ.)]
The double-edged weapon with the long narrow tube (αὐλός) was judged
to be a dagger-knife, the hollow being intended to save weight; to me
it appears a lance-head, and the attached ring seems to prove its use
(fig. 247). The fragmentary two-edged blade of bronze (_a_ fig. 249)
shows a mid-rib broken by serrations intended either for ornament or
for jagging the wound: the same toothings appear in another weapon
(_b_ fig. 249), which is supposed to be a dagger. No. 446 is a short
two-edged blade showing at the shoulders, on either side, four large
flat head-pins of gold. A gold plate extends all along the middle part
of the blade on both sides, and fragments of the wooden sheath are
visible in the middle as well as at the end.
[Illustration: FIG. 249.—TWO-EDGED BRONZE SWORDS AND ALABASTER KNOB.
(Sepulchre IV. Mycenæ.)]
We now come to the most startling part of the collection. It proves
indubitably, if Dr. Schliemann’s conclusions be correct, and if the
blades[816] do not belong, as they may do, to a later date, that the
highest form of Sword, which became the fashion during our sixteenth
century, was known in B.C. 1200. It is a curious comment upon the fact,
how soon perfection was reached in the ‘White Arm,’ compared with the
slow progress of firearms, which had to await the invention of the
self-igniting cartridge. Plate No. 445 (p. 281) gives a two-edged blade
with a mid-rib, in fact the rapier, which can be used only for the
point. It measures two feet seven inches (_a_ fig. 250), and at the
top are attached remnants of its wooden scabbard. The lower end of its
neighbour (_b_ fig. 250) is adorned with three flat golden pin-heads
on either face. No. 448, measuring two feet ten inches long, is very
well preserved; by its side lies its alabaster pommel (fig. 249). No.
449 has retained part of its heft, which is gold-plated and attached by
gold pins. Vertical lines of intaglio work run along the blade and give
it a truly beautiful aspect.
Dr. Schliemann (p. 283) notices the length, in some cases exceeding
three feet, compared with the narrowness of these grand blades. He
adds, ‘So far as I know, Swords of this shape have never been found
before.’ I would refer him to the Villanova (Etruscan) blade described
in chapter viii.
The fourth Sepulchre also yielded three shoulder-belts of gold. No. 354
measures four feet one and a half inch long by one and seven-eighths
inch in width (fig. 241). On either side of the band is a narrow
edging made by turning down the gold plate: the field is occupied by
a row of rosettes, six oval petals surrounding a central disk and the
whole encircled by dots or points. At one end are two apertures in the
shape of hour-glasses; these served to attach the clasp to the other
extremity, as is shown by the small hole and two cuts (p. 308). The
second ‘Telamon,’ a plain band four feet six inches long by two to two
and one-third inches broad, was, the discoverer suggests, possibly
made for the funeral: it is too thin and fragile for general wear. To
some blades were still attached particles of well-woven linen, which
the discoverer considers to have been sheaths (p. 283). The natives of
India and of other hot-damp regions retain, I have said, the custom of
bandaging their blades with greased rags. We are also shown (p. 304) a
gold tassel probably suspended to a belt of embroidered work.
[Illustration: FIG. 250.—RAPIER-BLADES OF MYCENÆ.]
[Illustration: FIG. 251.—WARRIOR WITH SWORD.]
The first of the tomb-stones found in the Acropolis above the
sepulchres (p. 52) shows (very imperfectly) a hunter standing in a
one-horse chariot: he grips in his right a long broadsword. The second
tomb-stone (p. 81) has a naked warrior, who holds the horse’s head
with his right, and raises in his left a double-edged blade (fig.
251): Dr. Schliemann finds the figure ‘full of anguish’ (p. 84); the
head is in profile, and the body almost fronts the spectator. The
huntsman-charioteer holds in his left a sheathed Sword of the long
dagger type, ending in a large globular pommel. Many such articles
were found in the tombs, and the author (p. 225) draws attention to
the size of the ‘knob’ upon the signet ring. Mostly they were of
wood or alabaster (p. 281) with golden nails, and frequently plated
with precious metal. I would suggest that the perforated ball of
polished rock-crystal (No. 307) found in Sepulchre III., and the
large-mouthed article (No. 308) coloured red and white inside, were
also Sword-pommels.
The Treasury supplied ‘five unornamental blades of copper or bronze,’
with rings of the same metal. The large Cyclopean house, which the
energetic discoverer would identify with the Palace of the Atreidæ,
yielded a straight, two-edged, thrusting-blade of bronze: the shoulders
were pierced with four holes, and there are as many in the tang for
attaching the handle (fig. 252). The heft was of various substances,
wood, bone, and ivory, amber, rock-crystal, and alabaster, and it
was often plated with metals, especially the most precious. Of the
latter, six specimens are given (pp. 270–71), all highly decorated
with intaglio work of circles and spirals, rope-bands, and shell-like
quaquaversal flutings.
The general opinion that Homer ignored soldering[817] gives unusual
interest to a large bronze dagger found in No. III. Sepulchre, six
mètres and a half below the surface (p. 164). Two blades are well
soldered together in the middle (fig. 253). The same art appears (p.
280) in the attachment of two long narrow plates of thick bronze.
Crickets (_cicadæ_) and other ornaments were also found of gold worked
in _repoussé_ and composed of two halves soldered together.
[Illustration: FIG. 252.—BRONZE SWORD FOUND IN THE PALACE (p. 144).]
[Illustration: FIG. 253.—BRONZE DAGGER. TWO BLADES SOLDERED.]
The goldsmiths of Mycenæ were true artists. They had work in plenty;
Dr. Schliemann estimates the metallic value of his finds at five
thousand pounds. An admirable bit of work (p. 251) is the goat
standing, like that of Assyria and Istria, with gathered legs upon the
top of a pin.[818] Another (No. 365) is the lion-cub, apparently cut
and tooled. As in modern India, the circles, spirals, and wave-lines
are excellently executed, and so is the gold-plating upon buttons of
wood (pp. 258–59). The old Greek city, too, had a peculiar treatment
of the whorl, which, combining two and even three—either _dextrorsum_
or _sinistrorsum_—about a common centre, and making the lines of at
least two continuous, deserves to be called the ‘Mycenæ spiral.’ This
ornament passes from the gold trinkets and the tomb-stones of the
Acropolis to the ‘Treasuries’ of much later date.
An intaglio of gold is especially interesting, because it represents
a Monomachía or duel. He to the proper right, a tall beardless or
shaven warrior, without helmet, and clad only in ‘tights’ and ‘shorts,’
bears the whole weight of his body upon his left leg, extending the
right, as in a lunge, and is about to plunge his straight and pointed
dagger-blade into the throat of his bearded foe (p. 174). A signet-ring
displays a gigantic warrior who has felled one opponent, put to flight
a second, and is stabbing a third with a short broad straight blade.
The vanquished man attempts to defend himself with a long Xiphos (p.
225). Perhaps the subject may be Theseus clearing out the thieves. A
gold button shows a square formed by four sacrificial chopper-knives of
Egyptian shape (p. 263, No. 397).
The characteristics of the Sepulchres are the orientation of the
remains, the heads lying to the East, and their imperfect cremation.
The latter is familiar in Hindú-land, although the people hold the
fire-funeral to be a fire-birth, when the vital principle called ‘soul’
or ‘spirit’ has been purged of its earthly dross. The regular layers
of pebbles, which by ventilating the floor would give draught to the
flames, have also been noticed in ancient Etruria.[819] The only
_viaticum_ or provisions for the dead were unopened oysters: the rest
was probably burnt. The utensils are jugs and vases of terra cotta
(plain and painted), copper tripods and cauldrons, urns and kettles,
and cups and goblets, the latter one- and two-handed. The ornaments, of
gold and electrum, are foil-work and plates upon wood, beads of glass
and agate, studs and buttons, crosses and breast-covers, lentoid gems
and masks, crowns and diadems. The weapons, all of bronze,[820] are
axes and arrows, lances, knives, daggers, and Sword-blades; while gold
and alloys are abundant. We may fairly say that iron is absent from the
Acropolis of Mycenæ as well as from the Burnt City of the Troad. And
there is a remarkable similarity in the pattern and construction of
sundry articles, especially the gold tubes with attached spirals.
Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries have been subjected to much adverse
criticism.[821] As far as they go, they prove that the warriors of
Mycenæ used three varieties of Swords—the Xiphos, the Phásganon, and
the Kopis.
[Heading: _THE SWORD IN GREECE._]
The ξίφος of Mycenæ is the long, straight, rapier-shaped,
cut-and-thrust (_cæsim et punctim_) blade; its only guard is a
cross-bar, which, like the scabbard, is beautifully ornamented. The
word Xiphos is still applied in Romaic to a straight Sword opposed to
Spati (Σπάτι),[822] the sabre, the broadsword.
The φάσγανον or dirk which Meyrick (Pl. IV. fig. 16), and sometimes
perhaps the Ancients, confound with the Xiphos, is a straight blade,
mostly leaf-shaped and showing its descent from the spear. It is
rarely longer than twenty inches. In Romaic poetry the word is still
applied to knives and Sword-daggers like the Yataghan. My idea that the
Phásganon was used for throwing does not derive from the classics, but
from the similarity of the blade to the Seax and the Scramasax.
[Illustration: FIG. 254.—PHÁSGANON.]
[Illustration: FIG. 255.—GREEK PHÁSGANA.]
[Illustration: FIG. 256.—SHORT SWORD (PHÁSGANON) OF BRONZE, FOUND IN A
CRANNOG AT PESCHIARA, AND PROBABLY GREEK.]
The Κοπίς, which Meyrick makes an Argive weapon, and which English
translators render simply by ‘Sword,’ has been derived by me from the
Egyptian Khopsh, whose ‘inside cutting curve’ it imitates, merely
flattening the bend. Writers on hoplology have mostly ignored its
origin. They follow Xenophon, who speaks of it as being used by the
Persians and Barbarians; and Polybius, who assigns its use to the
Persians before the Greeks—apparently an anachronism. They remark that
on vases it is the weapon of the Giants, not of the Gods, and that the
Amazons wield it against Hercules. Hence Señor Soromenho[823] would
assign its origin to the Arabs, and Colonel A. Lane-Fox to the Roman
legionaries. The latter authority, indeed, contends that its form is
‘obviously derived from the straight, leaf-shaped, bronze sword, of
which it is simply a curved variety.’ Here, I think, he reverses the
process. Specimens of the Kopis are rare; one was found in a tomb, said
to be Roman, between Madrid and Toledo, and another of the same find is
in the British Museum.
[Illustration: FIG. 257.]
[Illustration: FIG. 258.—KOPIS WITH POMMEL.]
[Illustration: FIG. 259.—KOPIS WITH HOOK.]
[Illustration: FIG. 260.—KUKKRI BLADE OF GURKHAS.]
The peculiarity of the Kopis is, I have said, its cutting with the
inner, not the outer curve, and thus suggesting the use of the point
and the ‘drawing cut’ instead of the sheer cut. This peculiarity was
inherited from Egypt, and long appeared in Greek blades. It is well
shown in the fragment of a bronze Kopis-like broadsword from the
collection of Don Giovanni Bolmarcich, the Arciprete of Cherso: the
relic was found in the Island of Ossero with an immense variety of
bronzes, Greek,[824] Roman, and prehistoric or proto-historic. General
Pitt-Rivers has a bronze Sword-blade from Corinth—a very fine specimen.
The handle has an =H= section, the pommel measuring two and a quarter
inches across, and the grip three and a half inches in length. There
is no tang; the blade springs from the shoulders, which are prominent;
the length is twenty-seven inches, and the section that of the Toledo
rapier. It is, however, slightly leaf-shaped. In the Armeria Real of
Turin (section Beaumont to north-west), two Greek blades are shown in a
glass case. One is especially interesting. The total length, all being
in one piece, is three feet and a half; the blade has a mid-rib; there
is a straight simple cross-bar at the shoulders, and the hilt ends in a
crutch, like the Hindú antelope-horns and the scroll-hilt of the Danish
Swords.
The inside edge has been preserved from days immemorial by the
Abyssinian Sword;[825] an exaggerated sickle or diminutive scythe.
It reappears in various parts of Africa, as shown by Barth’s Travels
(chap. ii. 37 &c.). His ‘Danísko,’ which he translates ‘hand-bill,’
is used by the people of a highly interesting province—‘Adamáwa.’ The
general weapon in the neighbourhood is the ‘goliyo’ or bill-hook of
the Marghi, and the Njiga of the Baghirmi. It is a heavy and clumsy
‘Khopsh’ of the boomerang type.[826]
[Illustration: FIG. 961.—THE DANÍSKO.]
The inside edge characterises, to a certain extent, the Albanian
yataghan, and the Flissa of the Kabáil (Kabyles); and it is thoroughly
well developed in the formidable Korá or Kukkri of the Gurkha or
Nepaulese mountaineers, whose edge swells out to a half-moon.
The Mycenæ finds do not enlighten us upon the subject of the Ἄορ
and other forms of the Greek Sword. We know nothing of the Thracian
Ῥομφαία, the Rumpia of Gellius (x. 25), which the A. V.[827] translates
‘Sword.’ Most writers hold it to be a Thracian lance, like the European
‘partisan;’ and Smith’s ‘Dictionary of Antiquities’ describes it as a
long spear resembling the Sarissa, with a Sword-like blade. This comes
from Livy (xxxi. 39), who tells us that in woodlands the Macedonian
phalanx was ineffectual on account of its _prælongæ hastæ_, and that
the Rhomphæa of the Thracians was a hindrance for the same reason. But
in modern Romaic usage it denotes the flammberg (_flamberge_), or that
form of the wavy blade which the Church places in the hands of the
angelic host. It is always carried by ‘Monseigneur Saint Michel, the
Archangel, the first knight who in the quarrel of God battled with the
Dragon, the old enemy of mankind, and drove him out of heaven.’[828]
Mycenæ supplied no specimen of the χελιδὼν (_gladius Chelidonius_), the
broad blade with a bifurcated swallow-tailed point. It is mentioned
by Isidore (xviii.) and by Origen (chap. vi.); and I have alluded to
it in Chapter VII. We are unable to specify the shape of the Athenian
Κνήστεις (_Knesteis_) or the Lacedæmonian ξυίναι (_Xyinæ_), which
Xenophon calls ξυήλαι (_Xuelæ_). They may have been, to judge from
their use, thick cut-and-thrust daggers, in fact _Coupe-Choux._ Nor do
we know what kind of blade was carried by the Xystophori (ξυστοφόροι)
in addition to the _Xyston_: the latter was either the footman’s spear
(δόρυ) or the horseman’s lance; in the ‘Iliad,’ as has been seen, it is
a long pole studded with iron nails.
[Illustration: FIG. 262.—GREEK XIPHOS (Jähns).]
According to history, the Greek infantry Sword was a straight two-edged
blade, rather broad, and of equal width from hilt to point, which was
of bevelled shape. For cavalry they preferred the sabre or cutting
weapon.[829] Iphicrates (B.C. 400), when improving arms and armour,
must have found spear and Sword too short, for he ‘doubled the length
of the spear and made the Swords also longer’ (Diod. Sic. xv. 144;
Corn. Nepos, xi.). Plutarch (in ‘Lycurg.’) tells us that a man in the
presence of Agesilaus jeered at the Spartan blade, which measured only
fourteen to fifteen inches long, saying that ‘a juggler would think
nothing of swallowing it’;[830] whereto the great commander replied,
‘Yet our short Swords can pierce our foes.’ And when a bad workman
complained of his tool, the Spartan suggested with dry heroism, ‘You
have only to advance a pace.’
Dodwell[831] relates that an iron blade found in a tomb at Athens was
two feet five inches long, including its handle of the same metal. Most
of our museum specimens, both of bronze and iron, are of fair average
dimensions. That of Mayence measures nineteen and a half inches (_a_
fig. 265), and that of the Museum of Artillery thirty-two. The Pella
blade in the K. Antiquarium, Berlin, is only twenty-one centimètres,
including four for the heft.
[Illustration: FIG. 263.—GALLO-GREEK (60 cents. long).]
[Illustration: FIG. 264.—GALLO-GREEK.]
[Illustration: FIG. 265.—MAYENCE BLADE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 266.—GALLO-GREEK BLADE AND SHEATH.]
The Swords called Gallo-Greek,[832] with bronze blades and sheaths
(figs. 263, etc.), are of moderate length—twenty-five inches.
Pausanias[833] alludes to perhaps a shorter weapon (ταῖς μαχαίραις τῶν
Γαλατῶν). And we are told that when Manlius invaded Galatia he found
the Swords were _prælongi gladii_.[834]
The Greek fashion of carrying the Sword apparently varied with the
times, and, perhaps, with the length of the weapon: it is easy to draw
a dagger from the right, but awkward to unsheathe a full-sized blade.
Some writers make the Greeks carry the weapon on the right, and others
on the left: Homer seems purposely to leave his description vague,
e.g.:—
Ἢ ὅγε φάσγανον ὀξὺ ἐρυσσάμενος (or σπασσάμενος) παρὰ μηροῦ.
Drawing the grided dirk fro’ the sheath which hung by his
thigh-side.[835]
The words _parà merou_ are similarly used elsewhere,[836] but which
thigh is not specified. Hector’s sharp Sword hangs below his loins
both huge and strong, and brandishing it he rushes to his death by
Achilles’ spear.[837] The Trojan, too, strikes Ajax,[838] who carried
his weapon after Assyrian fashion, ‘where the two belts cross upon his
breast, both that of the shield and that of the silver-studded Sword.’
The ‘Parazonium’ dagger, with its metal scabbard, was usually attached
to the Sword-belt[839] on the other side. Shaped like an ox-tongue
(‘Anelace,’ or _Langue-de-bœuf_), and measuring twelve to sixteen
inches long, it was common to Greece and Rome; I have shown its origin
in Egypt.
[Illustration: FIG. 267.—BRONZE PARAZONIUM (16⅘ inches long).]
The part played by the Hellenes upon the great stage of the world’s
history was their development of civil life—of citizenship. As a
nation, they wanted the life-long practice of arms and training for
warfare, brought to absolute perfection by the Romans. Their annual
games, as shown by the Pindaric Odes, were mostly trials of speed and
agility. They had the Bibasis or gymnastic dance, and, to mention no
other, the Pyrrhic or Sword-dance, like all ancient and many modern
peoples; but these mimicries soon became in the cities mere women’s
work. They wore side-arms at home only during the Panathenaic fêtes,
where orchestral actions and attitudes were displayed; and they had not
those military colonies like the Romans, where every man was a soldier
and every soldier was a veteran. Their _gymnasia_ and _palæstræ_
were schools for calisthenics, which the sturdier Italians held in
contempt. They were, like the gymnastic-grounds of the Spartan girls,
mere hot-beds for growing beauty and good breeders; for attaining
the perfection of form duly to be transmitted. This process, indeed,
began with the bride, who furnished her nuptial chamber with the
finest possible models in painting and statuary. Hence every well-bred
citizen at Athens, every ‘gentleman,’ was expected to be handsome.
The Beautiful, the Good, and the Holy grew to be almost synonymous.
Physical man was raised to his highest expression, till he became the
mythological, ideal god-man. This anthropomorphism found its final
stage in Phidias; the Parthenon was its expression, and Olympus its
culmination.[840] Since the ancient man-breeding and man-shaping system
was abandoned, and the race became intimately mixed with foreign blood,
chiefly Slav and Hebrew, the reverse has become noticeable: a Greek of
the classical type is now rarely seen.
[Illustration: FIG. 268.—‘HOPLITES’ (HEAVY ARMED).[841]]
[Illustration: FIG. 269.—GREEK COMBATANTS WITH SWORD AND LANCE.]
Then came the intellectual age of Greece. Already in B.C. 450
Protagoras the Sophist, of the Cyrenaic school, had made ‘man the
measure of all things.’ The individual becomes a duality; as Aristotle
expresses it, the animal life is one of sensation, the divine life of
intelligence. And this change of view gradually extinguished the holy
fire of art.
The Hellenes, even in their best times, did not pay that attention to
the use of arms which was a daily practice with the more practical
Romans. They had no gladiatorial shows, the finest _salles d’armes_
in the world. The ὁπλοδιδακταὶ (ὁπλοδιδασκολοὶ) or army _maîtres
d’armes_, and professors of the noble arts of offence and defence,
were not required by law in Lacedæmon. They practised the Sword, as
we learn from Demosthenes; he compared the Athenians ‘with rustics
in a fencing school, who after a blow always guard the hit part and
not before.’[842] Yet they preferred the pentathlum, the pancration,
and military dancing; the fencing-room was a secondary consideration.
Indeed, Plato objected to the useless art of Sword-exercise, because
neither masters nor disciples ever became great soldiers—a stupendous
Platonic fallacy![843]
Nor did Hellas greatly prize herself upon mere arms. The soldier at
Athens and amongst all the Ionian and kindred races occupied, it is
true, an honourable position; in the four castes[844] he followed
the priestly, and he preceded the peasants and the mechanics. But
the Hellene was essentially a citizen—a politician. He chose his
magistrates and pontiffs, and he could aspire to become one himself.
He spent his life in the Agora, canvassing laws and constitutions,
treaties and alliances. His minor delight was gossip, euphuistically
expressed by ‘hearing new things.’ Hellas soon learned that her _forte_
lay in literature, poetry, oratory, and philosophy, in engineering,
and in the fine arts. She excelled the world in the exquisite rules of
proportion; in the breadth of idea, and in the clearness and perfection
of the literary form: these arts she bequeathed as a heritage to
mankind, who have nowhere and never surpassed her. While the grand old
Kemites built for eternity, and subjected even size[845] to solidity,
Hellas elaborated the principle of Beauty and carried it to its very
acme. Her spoilt children were avid of novelty: they constructed every
possible system of cosmogony, of astronomy, of geology (except the
right one); and they ‘paraded their knowledge,’ as Bacon says, ‘with
fifes and drums.’ Hence their teachers of the Nile Valley told them
‘they were ever children’; and hence they excelled their teachers.
This is not the place to discuss Greek tactics, nor is there anything
new to say about them: authors are contented with borrowing from the
treatises of Ælian and Arrian, who lived in the days of Hadrian. I will
only remind the reader that even during the ‘Iliad’-ages the Greek
army had its scheme of battle. Nestor advises his warriors to keep
their ranks in action after the wont of their forbears; and in two
places[846] we have allusions to a rude phalanx or oblong rectangle of
civilised Egypt and Khita-land. Xenophon[847] tells us that the army of
Agesilaus appeared all bronze (χαλκὸν) and red (φοίνικα); the latter
survives in our most inappropriate British scarlet. For the heavy-armed
Hoplite-swordsmen and the light Peltasts, who had apparently no Swords,
the student will consult any ‘Dictionary of Antiquities.’
Another unpleasant feature in Greek warfare was its indifference to
human life, so much regarded by the Romans. The former preserved their
old barbarous practice of putting to death their war-prisoners; whilst
even during the first Punic War the latter had a system of exchange
combined with a money-payment for any number in excess on either side.
Greece rarely appears in arms except in defensive warfare (as against
the Persians), in civil wars between citizens and citizens, and in
semi-civil wars, as between the Athenians and the Spartans, the
Dorians, Ionians, and Æolians. A glance at any of their campaigns—the
‘Anabasis,’ for instance—gives us their measure as soldiers; and what
else can we expect from a race whose typical men were Themistocles
and Alcibiades? They were too clever by half; too vain, too restless,
too impulsive (ever ‘shedding tears’), too self-assertive to become
disciplined men-machines. They were always ready for a revolt, for a
change of officers; and it must have been a serious thing to command
them. In this point, perhaps, they are rivalled by the Frenchman, one
of the best soldiers in Europe, and also one of the most difficult
to manage. Great captains—Turenne and Napoleon Buonaparte, for
instance—shot their recalcitrants by the dozen till the survivors
learned to ‘tremble and obey.’[848] Like the French, too, and the
Irish, the Greeks had more dash than firmness. They gained victories by
the vigour and gallantry of their attack, but they did not distinguish
themselves in a losing game. Here England excels, and hence Marshal
Bugeaud said, ‘She has the best infantry in the world; happily they are
not many.’ We must make them so.
Hellas owed her successes in foreign wars mainly to the barbarous
condition of her neighbours. The Romans and all the peoples of Asia
Minor, save her own colonies,[849] were far behind her when, after the
fashion of the equestrian races of Northern Asia, she had exchanged
the chariot for the charger;[850] and when she borrowed from Egypt the
arts of warfare by land and sea, the paraphernalia of the siege, the
best of arms and armour, and even the redoubtable phalanx. But she
lost pre-eminence, physical and moral, when the rival races rose to
be her equals, and even her superiors, in weapons, organisation, and
discipline. She began with beating, and she ended with being thoroughly
beaten by, the Romans.
Greek literature does not abound, like Roman and Hebrew, in perpetual
allusions to the Sword: it refers more frequently to the spear and
bow. Yet Athenæus ennobles the end of his curious _olla podrida_ (the
‘Deipnosophists’) with some charming lines alluding to the Queen of
Weapons. The first passage begins with:—
I’ll wreathe my sword in myrtle bough,
The sword that laid the tyrant low,
When Patriots burning to be free
To Athens gave equality.[851]
The second is the song of Hybrias the Cretan:—
My wealth is here, the sword, the spear, the breast-defending
shield,
With this I plough, with this I sow, with this I reap the field;
With this I rape the luscious grape and drink the blood-red wine,
And slaves at hand in order stand, and all are counted mine![852]
And here arises a curious question. Do races, as is generally assumed,
decline and fall like nations and empires? Does the body politic obey
the law of the body corporal? Do peoples grow old and feeble and barren
after their most brilliant periods of gestation? Or rather do they not
cease to be great, and to bear great men, because their neighbours have
grown to be greater, and because genius is repressed by unfavourable
media? I cannot see that Time has greatly changed the peasant of the
Romagna, the mountaineer of the Peloponnesus, the Persian become a
Parsi in Bombay, or the modern soldier of the Nile Valley, who, under
Ibrahim Pasha, defeated the Turks in every pitched battle. But the
conditions of Italy, Greece, Persia, and Egypt, are now fundamentally
altered: they are no longer superior to their surroundings; they are
environed by races stronger than themselves. Hence, perhaps, what is
popularly called their degeneracy.