[29] Proceedings British School of Athens, vol. ix. p. 386, citing the difference of colour, and we may add of decorative design, on the part of the costume above, and the part below the girdle. This difference could not always occur in a dress all of one piece. For example, see the female figures incised on the fragments of a corslet of bronze plates at Olympia (Bronzen, plate lix.). But this question is sub judice; it is argued that the difference of pattern and colour in upper and lower parts of the dress is a decorative caprice of the artist, and corresponds to nothing that he saw in women's costume. It is impossible to deny that Ariadne in the archaic Corinthian piece of gold-work has come to see the Minotaur killed, wearing her skirt, and leaving her bodice in her bedroom (Roscher's Lexikon, ii. 2. 3007, fig. 2).
[30] History of Ancient Pottery, vol. ii. p. 200.
[31] Cf. B.S.A., vol. xii. p. 323, fig. K.
[CHAPTER X]
BRONZE AND IRON. WEAPONS AND TOOLS
The Aegean civilisation, till its last age of decadence in art, knew nothing about the use of iron for weapons or tools: at least no such relics have been discovered. Homer, on the other hand, is thoroughly familiar with iron as a commodity. A recurrent formula describes wealthy men as rich in gold, bronze, women, and iron.[1]
Iron, bronze, slaves, and hides were bartered for wine, at the siege of Troy, when a large trading fleet came in from Lemnos, sent by Euneos, son of Jason and Hypsipyle, a princess of that island.[2] Lemnos seems to have been rich in wine, which provoked the heroes to utter gabes (as in the Chansons de Geste) about their future triumphs in the war.[3]