Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 223 



metichus I planted here a colony of Greek mercenaries to keep 

 in check the encroachments of his restless neighbours. 



We may therefore conclude that the people upon whom 

 the company of Odysseus made a descent, and who are 

 represented as rich in cattle and possessing chariots and 

 horses, were the Libyans of the district of Marea 1 , those stout 

 herdsmen, who, according to Strabo, were well able to ward off 

 Greek pirates. 



This conclusion gains support from a chariot found in 

 a tomb in the Necropolis of Thebes, and now in the Archaeo- 

 logical Museum at Florence. Egyptologists hold that it cannot 

 be later than the. fourteenth century B.C. and that it is not 

 of Egyptian manufacture, but rather imported from some 

 northern country. The vehicle (Fig. 69) has four-spoked wheels 

 and is of remarkably light construction, in this respect coin- 

 ciding completely with chariots of very light weight recorded 

 in Egyptian documents, and with the ordinary Egyptian chariots 

 seen on the monuments of the xixth dynasty, such as that 

 of Seti I, the predecessor of Rameses II here figured (Fig. 68). 



The body of the chariot 2 consists of a floor, in length about 

 thirty-three inches, in breadth about sixteen inches, and is 

 formed by two parallel bent rods, pinned together with lumps 

 of wood or bone in between, leaving intervals for leather mesh- 

 work, which was lashed in through ten holes in each of the 

 parallel rods, while the back-piece is formed of a fairly solid 

 board about four inches broad, to the front of which, through 

 holes, the leather meshwork is lashed, and underneath which 

 the butt of the pole is fastened, which does not project behind, 

 but is morticed into the back-piece of the body. The latter 

 is supported by the pole and by the projections of the frame, 

 which rests on sockets attached to the axletree. The front 

 of the body consists of three bent rods, meeting and lashed 



1 Bidgeway, Early Age of Greece, i. pp. 215-16. 



2 The description here given is from the very careful notes made for me 

 by my friend B. S. Conway, Litt.D., Professor of Latin, Victoria University, 

 Manchester, who made most careful observations and measurements on the spot, 

 but as the chariot is hermetically sealed up inside a glass case the measure- 

 ments are approximate. 



