DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0173
Chap. V.] Recent Discoveries and tJie Homeric Poems. 151
The Mycenaean age was in a literal sense the age of
gold. Gold was used for cups and for seals, for masks for
the dead and breastplates ; and the very garments in
which the dead were swathed were covered with plates of
gold. Iron was all but unknown, and was probably
regarded as more valuable than gold itself. Homer also is
fond of speaking of gold, but he does not talk of garments
of gold, save in the case of the gods, and in his time the
iron age had in the literal sense begun ; iron was used for
swords,* axes and ploughshares. The iron Dorians had
got the better of the golden Achaeans, and Greece had
passed out of the period of royalty and legend into the
period of chieftaincy and actuality. Greek nationality had
begun to be formed, and the seeds of the future greatness
of the race were being sown in poverty and warfare.
Somewhat later, in the middle of the sixth century, the
iron men of Sparta, wishing for gold to plate the face of a
statue of Apollo, knew not where to seek it, save at the
hands of Croesus in that very region whence Pelops is
said to have come.
To Dr. Schliemann beyond all others we owe it that
we have succeeded in passing the abyss which the Greeks
themselves did not succeed in passing, the gap which
divides the Hellas of history from heroic Greece. We
have discovered an archaeological record of the rise of the
Hellenic nation, a record which will probably become every
year more full and more trustworthy. We may hope, at
least in part, to abandon the purely sceptical tone in which
Grote speaks of the ages which preceded the first
Olympiad, and by degrees to trace the outlines of the
material condition, the manners and the ethnic connections
of the peoples of prehistoric Hellas. The dream that
Homer narrates actual events may never be realized, and
* It has, however, been doubted whether the passages which speak
of iron swords are not interpolations.
The Mycenaean age was in a literal sense the age of
gold. Gold was used for cups and for seals, for masks for
the dead and breastplates ; and the very garments in
which the dead were swathed were covered with plates of
gold. Iron was all but unknown, and was probably
regarded as more valuable than gold itself. Homer also is
fond of speaking of gold, but he does not talk of garments
of gold, save in the case of the gods, and in his time the
iron age had in the literal sense begun ; iron was used for
swords,* axes and ploughshares. The iron Dorians had
got the better of the golden Achaeans, and Greece had
passed out of the period of royalty and legend into the
period of chieftaincy and actuality. Greek nationality had
begun to be formed, and the seeds of the future greatness
of the race were being sown in poverty and warfare.
Somewhat later, in the middle of the sixth century, the
iron men of Sparta, wishing for gold to plate the face of a
statue of Apollo, knew not where to seek it, save at the
hands of Croesus in that very region whence Pelops is
said to have come.
To Dr. Schliemann beyond all others we owe it that
we have succeeded in passing the abyss which the Greeks
themselves did not succeed in passing, the gap which
divides the Hellas of history from heroic Greece. We
have discovered an archaeological record of the rise of the
Hellenic nation, a record which will probably become every
year more full and more trustworthy. We may hope, at
least in part, to abandon the purely sceptical tone in which
Grote speaks of the ages which preceded the first
Olympiad, and by degrees to trace the outlines of the
material condition, the manners and the ethnic connections
of the peoples of prehistoric Hellas. The dream that
Homer narrates actual events may never be realized, and
* It has, however, been doubted whether the passages which speak
of iron swords are not interpolations.