“He chose twelve gorgeous shawls, twelve single cloaks,
As many rugs, as many splendid robes,
As many tunics; then of gold he took
Ten talents full; two tripods, burnished bright,
Four caldrons; then a cup of beauty rare,
A rich possession, which the men of Thrace
Had given, when there he went ambassador;
E’en this he spared not, such his keen desire
His son to ransom.”—[Ed.]
[292] The diadem discovered by Dr. Schliemann can scarcely have been the κρήδεμνον of Homer, which was a large veil or mantilla, such, for instance, as the sea-goddess Ino gives to Ulysses, to buoy him up on the water (Od. v. 346). This diadem would rather seem to be, as Mr. Gladstone has suggested, the πλεκτὴ ἀναδέσμη, which Andromache casts from her head in her mourning for Hector, where the order of the words implies that it was worn over the κρήδεμνον. Il. XXII. 469-471:—
Τῆλε δ’ ἀπὸ κρατὸς βάλε δέσματα σιγαλόεντα,
Ἄμπυκα κεκρύφαλόν τε ἰδὲ πλεκτὴν ἀναδέσμην
Κρήδεμνόν θ', ὅ ῥά οἱ δῶκε χρυσέη Ἀφροδίτη.
“Far off were flung the adornments of her head,
The net, the fillet, and the woven band,
The nuptial-veil by golden Venus given.”—[Ed.]
Our illustration ([Plate XIX]., Nos. 276, 277) represents one diadem as set up by Dr. Schliemann, and the other as it might have been worn on the head of a Trojan lady.—[Ed.]
[293] These objects are more fully described, and figured, in the following pages.
[294] See [Plate XX]., Nos. 279, 280, for a representation of the fillet and ear-rings. The four “ear-rings” remind us, both by their form and material, of the “beautifully twined tassels of solid gold” which fringed the Ægis of Athena: Iliad, II. 448, 449:—
Τῆς ἑκατὸν θύσανοι παγχρύσεοι ἠερέθονται,
Πάντες ἐϋπλεκέες, ἑκατόμβοιος δὲ ἕκαστος.
“all around
A hundred tassels hung, rare works of art,
All gold, each one a hundred oxen’s price.”
Again, when Hera adorns herself to captivate Jove, her zone is fringed with a hundred tassels, and her ear-rings are described in terms corresponding exactly to the triple leaves seen on some of Schliemann’s (Iliad, XIV. 181-3):—
Ζώσατο δὲ ζώνην ἑκατὸν θυσάνοις ἀραρυῖαν,
Ἐν δ’ ἄρα ἕρματα ἧκεν ἐϋτρήτοισι λοβοῖσιν
Τρίγληνα μορόεντα· χάρις δ’ ἀπελάμπετο πολλή.
“Her zone, from which a hundred tassels hung,
She girt about her; and, in three bright drops,
Her glittering gems suspended from her ears;
And all around her grace and beauty shone.”—[Ed.]
[295] Some of these are shown on [Plate XX]., No. 278.