THE SWORD IN HERODOTUS.
The Scythians also swore by the emblem of Mars. ‘Their oaths,’ says Herodotus,[806] ‘are accompanied by the following ceremonies. Into a large earthen bowl (κύλιξ) pouring wine, they mingle with it blood of the parties to the oath, who wound themselves superficially with a knife or an awl; then they dip into the bowl an Akinákes, and arrows, and a battle-axe (sagaris), and a javelin (akontion), all the while repeating manifold prayers. Lastly, the two contracting parties drink each a draught from the bowl, as do also the most worthy of their followers.’[807] In the ‘Anabasis,’[808] the Greeks swear by dipping a Sword, and the barbarians a lance, into the victim’s blood.
So far these ancient authors: we must now see how they are confirmed by modern authorities. Dr. Schliemann’s investigations at Mycenæ[809] are the more interesting, as the finds are supposed by him to be synchronous with those of Burnt Troy; and they enable us to compare the former in her prosperity with the latter in her exhaustion. The energetic explorer doughtily supports the use of copper for arms and utensils; and, with whole truth, makes it the staple metal of the heroic ages. As he found no tin at Mycenæ or in the great layer of copper scoriæ at Hisárlik (Troy), while ‘Kassiteros’ is repeatedly mentioned by Homer, he contends that the bronze of the Greek city was imported, and therefore rare and expensive. Unfortunately he did not analyse the thin copper wire which carried the necklace-beads.
THE SWORDS OF MYCENÆ.
Fig. 241.—Gold Shoulder-Belt, with Fragment of Two-Edged Bronze Rapier. (Sepulchre I.)
It is a new sensation to descend with Dr. Schliemann into the old Mycenian tombs where sixteen or seventeen corpses had been simultaneously interred (?). Sepulchre No. I, attributed to Agamemnon and his two heralds,[810] produced a variety of interesting articles, especially the golden shoulder-belt (τελαμών) that decorated the mummy.[811] My photograph shows it attached to a fragmentary two-edged Sword. Between the middle and the southern body lay a heap of broken bronze blades, which may have represented sixty whole Swords: some bore traces of gilding, and several had gold pins at the handle. Two blades lay to the right of the body, and their ornamentation strikingly resembled the description in the ‘Iliad.’[812] The handle of the larger Sword (No. 460) is of bronze, thickly plated with intaglio’d gold; and a broad plate of the same metal, similarly worked, passes round the shoulders of the Sword. The wooden scabbard must have been adorned with golden studs and a long broad plate (fig. 244), shaped somewhat like a man, with a ring issuing from the neck. The other Sword in a similar style of art seems to have been even richer. Dr. Schliemann[813] considers No. 463 (fig. 245) a remarkable battle-axe, of which fourteen were found in the ‘Trojan treasure.’[814] It is evidently a Sword-blade, and the same may be said of Nos. 464, 465 (fig. 244).
At the distance of hardly more than one foot to the right of the mummy-body were found eleven bronze Swords; two were tolerably preserved, and both were of unusual size—two feet ten inches and three feet two inches. The golden plate of the wooden Sword-handle is given in p. 305. These weapons, also, had gold plates attached to the pommels by twelve pins of the same metal with large globular heads. The body at the south end of Sepulchre I. was provided with fifteen bronze Swords, of which ten had been placed at its feet. As a rule, the wooden sheaths had mouldered away, but the gold studs or bosses, which adorned them like the binding of a book, lay along the remains of the warriors who had wielded them. The whetstone (Sepulchre I.) was of very fine sandstone.
Fig. 242.—(Sepulchre I. Mycenæ.)