ARMS AND WAR

199

I

Ml

f:

These swords are often
three feet long or more,
with a straight two-edged
blade of rigid metal rather
broad at the heel and taper-
ing thence to the point.
Thus they are obviously
adapted not to the cut but
to the thrust; and for the
thrust exclusively we see
them employed in the en-
counters represented in My-
cenaean designs (e. g., Fig.
75).1 Among these swords
we find none with a hilt
of solid bronze, though in
some instances the bronze
runs back in a shank which
is then mounted with wood
to serve as a handle. As a
rule, the hilt is of a dif-
ferent substance (as wood,
bone, ivory) and ends in
a hemispherical knob or

lying by the body at the northern extremity ;" (2) " hardly more than one foot
to the right of the body, 11 bronze swords ; " (3) " with the body at the south
end of the sepulchre, 15 bronze swords, ten of which lay at his feet ; " (4) be-
tween this body aud the middle one, " a heap of more or less broken bronze
swords, which may have represented more than 60 entire ones." Grave IV.
yielded "46 bronze swords more or less fragmentary." On the other hand, it
is a surprising fact that not a sword nor a trace of one has been found in any
of the prehistoric settlements at Troy (IUos, p. 483) ; and Helbig (Die Italiker
in der Poebene, p. 20, 78) notes there " an almost complete absence of weapons
which correspond to the ordinary notion of a sword."

1 The Homeric swordsman, on the contrary, prefers the stroke ; according
to Helbig (Das Homerische Epos, p. 332) there are 24 instances against 11 of
the thrust.

Figs. 86-88
Bronze Swords (earliest to latest form)