[303] We shall have occasion later to notice more than one point in which this passage departs from the customary Homeric standards.
[304] Except probably in XIV 9 ff., as has been ingeniously pointed out by Mr Lang (Homer and his Age, p. 276 ff.). In the same chapter Mr Lang shows that several features in the Doloneia which have been interpreted as marks of lateness may very well be due to the peculiar circumstances of the situation.
[305] Gemöll, Hermes, XV 557 ff. (cf. XVIII 308 ff.). Cf. also Shewan, Class. Quarterly, IV 73 ff., where this view is rejected.
[306] Mr Lang (Homer and his Age, p. 265 ff.) has called attention to the fact that in v. 261 ff. Odysseus is represented as wearing a cap of a type which appears to have been in use during the Mycenean age. If it could be shown that the article in question was peculiar to that period, the lateness of the book would certainly be open to serious question.
[307] Bronze is mentioned 279 times in the Iliad and 80 times in the Odyssey. In a large proportion of these cases the reference is to weapons. Cf. Helbig, Das homerische Epos, p. 329 ff.
[308] Iron is mentioned altogether 48 times. In nine cases it is spoken of merely as a substance—a possession or article of trade. To these we may add fifteen more in which the word is used metaphorically as a standard of hardness, etc., and one (Od. IX 393) which refers to the testing of iron in water. Iron tools or implements are mentioned thirteen times, apart from the two references to knives given above. We hear also of iron chains (Od. I 204), the iron axle-tree of a (divine) chariot-wheel (Il. V 723), and the iron door of Tartarus (ib. VIII 15); cf. Cauer, Grundfragen der Homerkritik2, p. 281 ff.
[309] Cf. Macalister, Palestine Expl. Fund, Quart. Rep., 1903, p. 199; Lang, Class. Rev. XXII, p. 47.
[310] Cf. Dörpfeld, Troja und Ilion, p. 368.
[311] αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐφέλκεται ἄνδρα σίδηρος. Cf. Burrows, The Discoveries in Crete, p. 214 ff.
[312] Cf. Ridgeway, The Early Age of Greece, p. 294 f. Prof. Ridgeway allows the occasional use of bronze swords, e.g. in the case of Euryalos the Phaeacian (Od. VIII 403-6). But the swords of Paris, Patroclos, Achilles and Odysseus (Il. III 334 f., XVI 135 f., XIX 372 f., Od. X 261 f.) are described in very similar terms (ξίφος ἀργυρόηλον χάλκεον). Further, the tendency of bronze swords to snap off short at the hilt is well illustrated by the case of Lycon in Il. XVI 338 f.