The general opinion that Homer ignored soldering[817] gives unusual interest to a large bronze dagger found in No. III. Sepulchre, six mètres and a half below the surface (p. 164). Two blades are well soldered together in the middle (fig. 253). The same art appears (p. 280) in the attachment of two long narrow plates of thick bronze. Crickets (cicadæ) and other ornaments were also found of gold worked in repoussé and composed of two halves soldered together.
The goldsmiths of Mycenæ were true artists. They had work in plenty; Dr. Schliemann estimates the metallic value of his finds at five thousand pounds. An admirable bit of work (p. 251) is the goat standing, like that of Assyria and Istria, with gathered legs upon the top of a pin.[818] Another (No. 365) is the lion-cub, apparently cut and tooled. As in modern India, the circles, spirals, and wave-lines are excellently executed, and so is the gold-plating upon buttons of wood (pp. 258–59). The old Greek city, too, had a peculiar treatment of the whorl, which, combining two and even three—either dextrorsum or sinistrorsum—about a common centre, and making the lines of at least two continuous, deserves to be called the ‘Mycenæ spiral.’ This ornament passes from the gold trinkets and the tomb-stones of the Acropolis to the ‘Treasuries’ of much later date.
An intaglio of gold is especially interesting, because it represents a Monomachía or duel. He to the proper right, a tall beardless or shaven warrior, without helmet, and clad only in ‘tights’ and ‘shorts,’ bears the whole weight of his body upon his left leg, extending the right, as in a lunge, and is about to plunge his straight and pointed dagger-blade into the throat of his bearded foe (p. 174). A signet-ring displays a gigantic warrior who has felled one opponent, put to flight a second, and is stabbing a third with a short broad straight blade. The vanquished man attempts to defend himself with a long Xiphos (p. 225). Perhaps the subject may be Theseus clearing out the thieves. A gold button shows a square formed by four sacrificial chopper-knives of Egyptian shape (p. 263, No. 397).
The characteristics of the Sepulchres are the orientation of the remains, the heads lying to the East, and their imperfect cremation. The latter is familiar in Hindú-land, although the people hold the fire-funeral to be a fire-birth, when the vital principle called ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ has been purged of its earthly dross. The regular layers of pebbles, which by ventilating the floor would give draught to the flames, have also been noticed in ancient Etruria.[819] The only viaticum or provisions for the dead were unopened oysters: the rest was probably burnt. The utensils are jugs and vases of terra cotta (plain and painted), copper tripods and cauldrons, urns and kettles, and cups and goblets, the latter one- and two-handed. The ornaments, of gold and electrum, are foil-work and plates upon wood, beads of glass and agate, studs and buttons, crosses and breast-covers, lentoid gems and masks, crowns and diadems. The weapons, all of bronze,[820] are axes and arrows, lances, knives, daggers, and Sword-blades; while gold and alloys are abundant. We may fairly say that iron is absent from the Acropolis of Mycenæ as well as from the Burnt City of the Troad. And there is a remarkable similarity in the pattern and construction of sundry articles, especially the gold tubes with attached spirals.
Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries have been subjected to much adverse criticism.[821] As far as they go, they prove that the warriors of Mycenæ used three varieties of Swords—the Xiphos, the Phásganon, and the Kopis.
THE SWORD IN GREECE.
The ξίφος of Mycenæ is the long, straight, rapier-shaped, cut-and-thrust (cæsim et punctim) blade; its only guard is a cross-bar, which, like the scabbard, is beautifully ornamented. The word Xiphos is still applied in Romaic to a straight Sword opposed to Spati (Σπάτι),[822] the sabre, the broadsword.
The φάσγανον or dirk which Meyrick (Pl. IV. fig. 16), and sometimes perhaps the Ancients, confound with the Xiphos, is a straight blade, mostly leaf-shaped and showing its descent from the spear. It is rarely longer than twenty inches. In Romaic poetry the word is still applied to knives and Sword-daggers like the Yataghan. My idea that the Phásganon was used for throwing does not derive from the classics, but from the similarity of the blade to the Seax and the Scramasax.
Fig. 254.—Phásganon.