FIGURES ON ANCIENT BRONZES FOUND IN THE TYROL.
Fig. 14.—From The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (Dennis, G.).
We know from Homer that the Trojans had a pretty taste in tweeds, and that their waistcoats in particular were subjects of favourable remark:—
They enter’d each a bath, and by the hands
Of maidens laved, and oil’d, and cloath’d again
With shaggy mantles, and resplendent vests,
Sat both enthroned at Menelaus’ side.
Time does not alter the radical characteristics of any race, and the outstanding qualities of the Britons—the traditional “remnant of Droia,” are still very much to-day what they were in the time of Diodorus the Sicilian. “They are,” said he, “of much sincerity and integrity far from the craft and knavery of men among us.”[120] So great was the Trojan reputation for law and order that the Greeks who owed their code of laws to Crete paid Minos the supreme compliment of making him the Lord Chief Justice of the World of Shades. It will probably prove that the droits, laws, rights, or dues of “Dieu et mon Droit” are traceable to those of Troy, as also perhaps the Triads or triple axioms of the Drui or Druids. To put a man on trial was originally perhaps to try or test him at the sacred tree: the triadic form of ancient maxims had doubtless some relation to the Persian Trinity of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word, and these three virtues were symbolised by the trefoil or shamrock. The Hebrew for law is tora or thorah, the Hill of Tara in Ireland (middle-Irish, Temair), is popularly associated with the trefoil symbol of the Trinity (Welsh, Drindod); that three, trois, or drei was associated by the game of Troy is obvious from Virgil’s reference to the “triple groups dividing,” and that the trefoil was venerated in Crete would appear from Mr. Mackenzie’s statement: “Of special interest, too, is a clover-leaf ornament—an anticipation of the Irish devotion to the shamrock”.[121]
The primitive trysts were probably at the old Trysting Trees; trust means reliability and credit and truce means peace. Among rude nations the men who carried with them Peace, Law, and Order must naturally have been deemed supermen or gods, hence perhaps why in Scandinavia Tyr meant god. Our Thursday is from Thor—a divinity who was sometimes assigned three eyes—and our Tuesday from Tyr, who was supposed to be the Scandinavian Joupiter. The plural form of Tyr meant “glorious ones,” and according to The Edda, not only were the Danes and Scandinavians wanderers from Troy or Tyrkland, but Asgard itself—the Scandinavian Paradise—preserved the old usages and customs brought from Troy.[122]
Homer by sidelights indicates that the Trojans were nice in their domestic arrangements, took fastidious care of their attire, and were confirmed lovers of fresh air. Thus Telemachus—