[349]. Ib. xi. 237.
Tin and lead made part of the booty taken in the land of Midian by the Israelites, as well as of the Asiatic tribute paid to early Egyptian conquerors. But the lead disposed of by the Achæans of the Iliad was most likely brought by the Phœnicians from southern Spain; and the surmise is plausible that the Homeric word, molubdos—lead—-otherwise isolated and unexplained, may have been transferred, by the same agency, from the perishing Iberian to the vigorous Greek tongue.[[350]]
[350]. Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities, p. 217.
The Greek name for iron, sideros, is equally destitute of known affinities. It has, indeed, sometimes been deemed cognate with the Latin sidus, a star, on the ground that meteoric, or star-sent iron was the earliest form of the metal made available for human purposes; but modern philologists do not see their way to admitting the connexion. The coincidence is impressive, yet may, none the less, be wholly misleading.
The Homeric poems testify to everyday experience of the powers and faculties of iron. In the Iliad, knives are made of it, and rustic implements of all sorts; iron-tipped arrows are sped from tough bows; iron axes perform the rough work of the forest and farm-yard. The Odyssean functions of the metal cover a still wider range. The iron age, just beginning in the first Epic, has pretty well made good its footing in the second. Thus, Beloch[[351]] has pointed out that, while chalkos is mentioned 279, sideros only 23 times in the Iliad, the proportion has become, in the Odyssey, 80 to 29; and his detailed analysis partially supports the conclusion that iron comes most prominently into view in the latest portions of both poems. Yet no amount of skill in critical carving can divide off a section of either in which ignorance of the metal prevails. The differences are only in degrees of acquaintanceship.
[351]. Rivista di Filologia, t. ii. p. 55.
The diversity in this respect between the Odyssey and Iliad can be perceived at a glance by contrasting the weapons Odysseus left behind him at Ithaca with those he wielded before Troy. The first set were of iron, probably of steel, the existence of which is implied in the practice of tempering by immersion in cold water, referred to in connexion with the feat of plunging a hot stake into the vast orbit of the Cyclops’ solitary eye.
And from the burning eye-ball the fierce steam
Singed all his brows, and the deep roots of sight
Crackled with fire. As when in the cold stream