[342]. Iliad, xxi. 591-94; cf. Blümner, Technologie, Bd. iv. p. 53.
Elsewhere in the Iliad, tin is employed ornamentally, as it was on the pottery of the ancient pile-dwellers of Savoy.[[343]] But the poet is much more sparing of it than he is of either gold or silver. Even his imaginary stores appear to be strictly limited. ‘Relucent tin,’ however, bordered the breastplate presented by Achilles to Eumelus as a consolation-prize in the Patroclean games; the chariot of Diomed was ‘overlaid with gold and tin’;[[344]] the cuirass of Agamemnon was inlaid with parallel stripes, and the buckler of Agamemnon decorated with bosses of tin.
[343]. Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, p. 402.
[344]. Iliad, xxiii. 503.
The metal was also turned to account by Hephæstus for the purpose of adding to the effect and variety of his delineations on the Shield of Achilles. But we get no hint as to how it came into Achæan hands; no rich man’s treasure contains it; and it drops completely out of sight in the Odyssey.
Tin corrodes so readily that its extreme archæological rarity is not surprising. None has been found, either at Mycenæ or in any part of the stratified débris at Hissarlik.[[345]] Lead, on the other hand, has been disinterred from all the Trojan cities, and was in use at Mycenæ, both pure, and alloyed with silver. Among the objects brought to light there was a leaden figure of Aphrodite, doubtless an idol,[[346]] and a vessel in stag-shape composed of silver mixed with half its weight of lead.[[347]] The latter substance is unmentioned in the Odyssey, but is twice familiarly alluded to in the Iliad. Its cheapness and commonness can be gathered from the circumstance incidentally disclosed, that poor fishermen attached pieces of it as weights to their lines.[[348]] Its quality of softness comes in to illustrate the ease with which the spear of Iphidamas was turned by the silver in the belt of Agamemnon.[[349]]
[345]. Schliemann, Troy, pp. 31, 162.
[346]. Schuchhardt and Sellers, op. cit. p. 67.
[347]. Schliemann, Mycenæ, p. 257.
[348]. Iliad, xxiv. 80.