But these ornaments were already of obsolete forms. Three of the four kinds mentioned find no place elsewhere in Homeric descriptions, and would probably have struck Homeric ladies as quaint and old-fashioned. They can, however, be more or less plausibly identified with compound spiral brooches and other decorative objects from pre-Hellenic, pre-Etruscan, and Scandinavian tombs.[[395]]
[395]. Gerlach, Philologus, Bd. xxx. p. 491; Helbig, op. cit. p. 279.
The armour of Agamemnon was of foreign manufacture. Cinyras, king of Cyprus, of semi-mythical fame as a metallurgist, had sent it to him, perhaps as a pledge of benevolent neutrality,[[396]] at any rate, more through fear than love. It was of a highly decorative character, being inlaid and embossed with gold and tin, silver and enamel. Fundamentally, of course, it was, like all Homeric armour, of bronze. Something further will be said about it in the next Chapter.
[396]. Cf. Gladstone, Studies in Homer, vol. i. p. 189.
The Baldric of Hercules, seen by Odysseus in Hades, constituted, one must admit, an incongruously substantial article of equipment for the thin remnant of a hero owning the sway of Persephone. Yet the horrified and shrinking glance with which it is regarded brings it wonderfully into harmony with the sombre vision of the great eidolon, pursuing, in the under-world, a career of shadowy destruction. The golden shoulder-belt in question was from the hand of an unknown but exceptionally gifted artist. It was of chased, or repoussé work, and showed no diversity of colouring or material.
Also a wondrous sword-belt, all of gold,
Gleamed like a fire athwart his ample breast,
Whereon were shapes of creatures manifold,
Boar, bear, and lion sparkling-eyed, expressed,
With many a bloody deed and warlike gest.