ALLUSIONS TO BRONZE IN ANCIENT WRITERS. 5 



d priori improbability that a compound and comparatively 

 expensive material like bronze should have been in general 

 use before such a common metal as iron, we must, of course, 

 seek elsewhere for evidence that it was so. 



Hesiod, who is supposed to have written about 900 B.C., 

 and who is the earliest European author whose works have 

 come down to us, appears to have lived during the transition 

 between the Bronze and Iron Ages. He distinctly states 

 that iron was discovered later than copper and tin. Speaking 

 of those who were ancient, even in his day, he says that they 

 used bronze, and not iron. 



rots 8 rjv ^d\Kca /xev rev^ea. ^d\KOL Se re o?KOt, 

 ^aA/<a) 8 elpydfovTO jtxeAas 8 OVK ecr/ce crt'S^pos. 



It is also significant that the word x a ^ KVLV > fro m x a ^ KO<s > 

 bronze, means to work in metal. Moreover, the forms of early 

 weapons indicate that those in iron were copied from bronze, 

 not those in bronze from iron. Hesiod's poems, as well as those 

 of Homer, show that nearly three thousand years ago the value 

 of iron was known and appreciated. It is true that, as we 

 read in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Eoman Antiqui- 

 ties, bronze " is represented in the Iliad and Odyssey as the 

 common material of arms, instruments, and vessels of various 

 sorts; the latter (iron) is mentioned much more rarely." While, 

 however, the above statement is strictly correct, we must 

 remember that among the Greeks the word iron (0-1877/00$) was 

 used, even in the time of Homer, as synonymous with a sword, 

 and that steel also appears to have been known to them under 

 the name of aSapxs, and perhaps also of KUCU/OS, as early as the 

 time of Hesiod. We may, therefore, consider that the Trojan 

 war took place during the period of transition from the Bronze 

 to the Iron Age. 



In the Pentateuch, excluding Deuteronomy, bronze, or, as 

 it is unfortunately translated, brass, is mentioned thirty-eight 

 times, and iron only four times. 



