DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0266
ARMS AND WAR 215
hurling the lance or stooping to pick up sling-stones —
even a war-chariot to add to the poet's detail.1
However the interpretation of details may differ, the
scene as a whole is a notable contribution to our resources
for vivifying as well as verifying the image of this A ye^g^
prehistoric world. Rude as it is from the artistic Homeric
point of view, how vividly it brings before us the warPlctures
savagery and horror of ancient war — arraying not army
against army, but tribe against tribe, in a struggle without
herald and without quarter! On slight pretext or none,
the abduction of a woman or the lifting of a flock, a
whole people fly to arms. The offending town is beleag-
uered, and the defense is maintained with the savage fury
of men who feel that all is at stake, cheered on by women
who know too well the doom awaiting them if once the
stronghold be mastered, their husbands and sons put to
the sword, and their homes given to the flames. For war
is but a higher order of hunting, and women the only
game worth taking alive. It is this that nerves the arm of
Hector,, when Andromache would hold him back from
battle 2: —
"Yet doth the anguish of the Trojans hereafter not
so much trouble me, neither Hekabe's own, neither King
Priam's, nor my brethren's, the many and brave that
shall fall in the dust before their foemen, as doth thine
anguish in the day when some mail-clad Achaian shall lead
thee weeping and rob thee of the day of freedom. So
1 See the three additional fragments published by Reichel (Ueber Horn.
Waffen, p. 143). In the oval and longish scratches (not in repousse), at the bot-
tom of the main design, Reichel recognizes " characters of an unknown script,"
while Evans (J. H. S., xiii. 199) takes them for sling-stones and throwing-
sticks — the latter " of a form that strikingly recalls the Australian tombat.
The throwing-stick is also Syriau."
2 Iliad, vi. 450 ff.
hurling the lance or stooping to pick up sling-stones —
even a war-chariot to add to the poet's detail.1
However the interpretation of details may differ, the
scene as a whole is a notable contribution to our resources
for vivifying as well as verifying the image of this A ye^g^
prehistoric world. Rude as it is from the artistic Homeric
point of view, how vividly it brings before us the warPlctures
savagery and horror of ancient war — arraying not army
against army, but tribe against tribe, in a struggle without
herald and without quarter! On slight pretext or none,
the abduction of a woman or the lifting of a flock, a
whole people fly to arms. The offending town is beleag-
uered, and the defense is maintained with the savage fury
of men who feel that all is at stake, cheered on by women
who know too well the doom awaiting them if once the
stronghold be mastered, their husbands and sons put to
the sword, and their homes given to the flames. For war
is but a higher order of hunting, and women the only
game worth taking alive. It is this that nerves the arm of
Hector,, when Andromache would hold him back from
battle 2: —
"Yet doth the anguish of the Trojans hereafter not
so much trouble me, neither Hekabe's own, neither King
Priam's, nor my brethren's, the many and brave that
shall fall in the dust before their foemen, as doth thine
anguish in the day when some mail-clad Achaian shall lead
thee weeping and rob thee of the day of freedom. So
1 See the three additional fragments published by Reichel (Ueber Horn.
Waffen, p. 143). In the oval and longish scratches (not in repousse), at the bot-
tom of the main design, Reichel recognizes " characters of an unknown script,"
while Evans (J. H. S., xiii. 199) takes them for sling-stones and throwing-
sticks — the latter " of a form that strikingly recalls the Australian tombat.
The throwing-stick is also Syriau."
2 Iliad, vi. 450 ff.