Curiously enough, I find extremely little metal in the débris of the Greek colony. Half-a-dozen scythe-shaped knives, a double-edged axe, about two dozen nails, a cup, a few lances and arrows, are pretty nearly all that I discovered. I have described these objects in my memoirs as made of copper; but upon a more careful examination they have been found to be bronze, and pure copper is no longer met with in the Greek colony. The only objects of iron which I found were a key of curious shape, and a few arrows and nails, close to the surface. From Homer we know that the Trojans also possessed iron, as well as the metal which he calls κύανος, and which, even in antiquity, was translated by χάλυψ (steel). I am sure, however, that I have not discovered even a trace of this metal, either among the Trojan ruins or among those of any of the other nations which preceded the Greek colony on the hill.[50] Yet articles of iron and steel may have existed: I believe positively that they did exist: but they have vanished without leaving a trace of their existence; for, as we know, iron and steel become decomposed much more readily than copper. Of tin, which Homer so repeatedly mentions, I found of course no trace: this metal, as we know, is corroded very rapidly even when lying in a dry locality. Lead is found in the ruins of all the different nations which have inhabited the hill; but, among those which preceded the Greek settlement, it is found principally in lumps of a hemispherical form. I find it first in general use only in the Greek colony, where it was employed as a means for uniting stones in building.
PLATE III.
To judge from the area of the Ilium of the Greek colony,[51] it may have possessed 100,000 inhabitants. It must in its best days have been very rich, and the plastic art must have attained a high degree of perfection here. Accordingly the site of the town, which is covered with abundant relics of grand buildings, is strewn with fragments of excellent sculptures, and the splendid block of triglyphs—6½ feet in length and 2 feet 10 inches in height, with a metopé which represents Phœbus Apollo with the four horses of the Sun—is one of the most glorious masterpieces that have been preserved from the time when Greek art was in its zenith. I discovered it in the depths of the temple of Apollo, and it now adorns my garden at Athens. In describing this treasure of art in my memoir of the 18th of June, 1872,[52] directly after having discovered it, I made the remark that it must have belonged to the time of Lysimachus, that is to say to about the year 306 B.C. I sent a plaster cast of it to the Museum of Casts in Munich, and the Director of the Museum, Professor H. Brunn, who is certainly one of the greatest authorities in the world respecting the plastic works of antiquity, wrote me the following communication with regard to it. “Even photographs furnish no adequate means of judging of plastic works, and, in the present case, the cast alone has quite convinced me that this work must be judged much more favourably than it has been in the ‘Archäologische Zeitung.’ I do not venture to speak decidedly about the triglyphs: the history of the Doric style after the time of the Parthenon and the Propylæa is still utterly obscure: yet the straight cutting of the channellings can certainly be referred to pre-Roman times. Of external criteria the halo of rays is the only one. According to the investigations of Stephani,[53] this first occurs about the time of Alexander the Great. For the special form of long and short rays, we have the coins of Alexander I., of Epirus and of Ceos (Carthæa), mentioned by Curtius. The most recent example that I have as yet found is the Hades vase of Canosa, in our Museum, which belongs at latest to the second century before Christ; hence the extreme termini for the relief would be about the end of the fourth and the middle of the second centuries. The composition, as a work of art, shows the greatest skill in solving one of the most difficult problems. For the team of four horses ought not to move on the surface of the relief, but to appear as if it came out of it in a half-turn. This has been attained principally by making the right hinder thigh of the horse in the foreground pressed back while the left foot steps forward, and moreover this same horse is slightly foreshortened, and the surface of the thigh lies deeper than the upper surface of the triglyphs, while, on the other hand, the surfaces of the withers and of the neck are higher, and the head, in conformity with the rules of Greek reliefs, is again almost parallel with the base. For this reason there is no indication of a chariot, which has to be imagined as concealed by the foremost horse. Moreover the position of the god is half turned forwards, slightly following that of the head, and here also the arm is again strongly turned inwards, but not so as to bring the position in conflict with the rules of relief. If the encroachment of the head on the upper border of the triglyph is considered inaccurate, I find in this a very happy thought, which may remind us of the differently conceived pediment of the Parthenon, where only the head and shoulders of Helios rise out of the chariot still under the ocean. Helios here, so to speak, bursts forth from the gates of day and sheds the light of his glory over all. These are beauties peculiar only to Greek art in the fulness of its power. The execution corresponds perfectly with the excellence of the ideas, and thus I do not hesitate to place the relief nearer to the commencement than to the end of the above limited space of time. If, therefore, for other reasons, you believe it to belong to the time of Lysimachus, I, from an archæological point of view, have no objection to make against the supposition, but I rejoice to see our treasure of monuments enriched by an original from those times.”