CHAPTER V.

THE SECOND CHALCITIC AGE OF ALLOYS[242]—BRONZE, BRASS, ETC.: THE AXE AND THE SWORD.

The use of copper, I have said, would be essentially transitional; and the discovery of smelting one kind of metal would lead immediately to that of others and to their commixture. Moreover, when casting and moulding began to be a general practice, unalloyed copper difficult to smelt, and when melted thick, sluggish, and pasty, would not readily run without some mixture into all the sinuosities of the mould. In this chapter I propose to notice the second chalcitic age—that of the earliest combinations of metals, their workers, and their application to weapons.

J. P. Rossignol, following the opinion of the symbolists and mysticists, as the Baron de Saint Croix,[243] Creuzer, Freret, and Lobechs,[244] assigns a Divine origin—after the fashion of the day—to metallurgy, making it resemble in this point Creation, articulate language,[245] and the discovery of corn and wine. So he understands the θεολογούμενα (subjects of a theological nature) alluded to by Strabo (x. 3, § 7). It is the old hypothesis of supernatural agency in purely natural matters, a kind of luxus-wonder, as the Germans call useless miracles, which had waxed stale, even in the days of Horace—‘parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens.’ He considers the Curetes and Corybantes, the Cabiri (Kabeiroi) of Lemnos and Imbros, and the Idæi Dactyli of Crete, the Telchines of Rhodes, and the Sinties, Sinti, or Saii of Thrace (Strabo, xii. 3, § 20) as metallurgic δαίμονες, or genii prisoned in human form, and typifying the successive steps of the art. In these days we hardly admit the _intersit_ of a deity when human nature suffices to loose the knot; nor do we believe that our kind began by worshipping types. Man has always worshipped one thing, himself, and himself only, either in the flesh or in the ghost—that is, in the non-flesh or the objective nothing—till he arrived at the transcendental Man, the superlative, the ideal of Himself.

[Heading: _THE GOD-SMITHS._]

How little of fact is known about the mysterious tribes above mentioned becomes evident by a glance at the classics. All six are supposed to be Asiatics, worshippers of Rhea (the earth), the great mother of the gods and queen of the metal workers. Yet Strabo explains Curetes from Greek terms κόροι (boys), κόραι (girls), κουρά (tonsure), and κουροτροφεῖν (to bring up the Boy, i.e. Jupiter). Similarly their brethren, the nine Corybantes, were termed from their dancing gait and negro-like butting with the head, κορύπτοντας. They inhabited Samothrace (Samothracia alta): this venerable and holy island, in hoar antiquity a general rendezvous of freemasonry, or rather of free-smithery, forms a triangle with metallic Thasos and with volcanic Lemnos.

The three or four Cabiri[246] bear a Semitic name, Kabir = the great or the old. They seem at first to have represented Ptah-Sokar-Osiris,[247] and Herodotus (iii. 37) mentions their temple at Memphis. They became in Phœnicia the earliest boatmen or primordial shipbuilders, identified by some with the Sesennu or Egyptian Octonary; by others with the seven planets or the stars of Typho, our Great Bear;[248] and by others, again, with the seven Khnemu (gnomes) or pygmy-sons who waited upon their father Ptah-Vulcan. They inhabited Lemnos, where Hephæstus, when expelled, like Adam, from the lowest heaven, took refuge among the Pelasgi (Diod. Sic. lib. v.): hence the latter preserved their worship. Damascius (‘Life of Isidorus’) says: ‘The Asclepius of Berytus is neither Greek nor Egyptian, but of Phœnician origin; for (seven) sons were born to Sadyk, called Dioscuri and Cabiri, and the eighth of them was Esman (i.e. Octavius, No. 8), who is interpreted Asclepius.’[249]

The Idæan Dactyli (fingers or toes) who occupied ‘fountful Ide’[250] consisted of five brothers, representing the _dextra_ or lucky hand (science, art), and five sisters for the _sinistra_ or unlucky (witchcraft, ill omens). The names of these ‘hands’ (iron-workers) were Kelmis (fire or heat = the smelter), Damnameneus (the hammer, or who governs by strength, Thor), Hercules (force, animal or mental), and Akmon (the anvil or passive principle). Hence Pyracmon the Cyclop, one of the seven architect brothers who, according to Strabo (viii. 6), came from Lycia and built the ‘Cyclopean Wall’ in the Argolid. These Cyclopes[251] (monocular giants) worked metal, and under their magic hands,

Fluit æs rivis aurique metallum; Vulnificusque chalybs vasta fornice liquescit.

By later writers, the Cyclopes, who

... Stridentia tingunt Æra lacu (_Æn._ viii. 445, _Georg._ iv. 172),

were held to be Sicilians.

The Telchines (fascinators, from θέλγειν, to charm) are mentioned as metallurgists by Stesichorus the Sicilian (nat. B.C. 632): they were the sons of Thalassa, i.e. they came from beyond the sea; they colonised Telchinis, and they made arms and statues of the gods like the Dædalides or artist families of later Athens. The Sinties (plunderers) from τὸ σίνεσθαι (to pill), who, according to Hellenicus of Lesbos (nat. B.C. 496), were pirates besides being coppersmiths (χαλκυές), and who were eventually murdered by their wives, represented the ancient Lemnians. So Homer (‘Od.’ viii. 290) speaks of the ‘barbarous Sintian men’ who received Vulcan when kicked out of Paradise. A modern school of Tsiganologues would identify them with prehistoric Gypsies, who have still a tribe called Sindi; but this theory would bring the arts from India westwards, whereas the current flowed the clean contrary way. Finally, Herodotus (i. 28), initiated in the mysteries, makes the Chalybes[252] or iron-workers, neighbours (and congeners?) of the Phrygians.

It is not difficult to see the general gist of such legends. All these tribes probably came (like Pelops, Tantalus, and Niobe) from the same place, Phrygia, the fertile plateau of Asia Minor, and its Katakekaumene or volcanic tract. It was, as far as we know, the first western centre which developed the ‘Aryan’ or non-Semitic element of the old Egyptian tongue. It also formed the _point de départ_ of the European[253] (miscalled ‘Indo-European’) branch of the family that owned the Arya-land (Airyanem-vaejo), whose ethnic centre was the barbarous region about Ray, Heri, or Herat.[254] Hence, says Herodotus (iii. 2), the Egyptians owned the Phrygians to surpass them in antiquity. The emigrants would pass to the islands Samothrace, Lemnos, Thera,[255] the Cyclades and Crete; to Greece, Thessaly and Epirus, Attica, Argos, and the farthest south, where ‘Pelops the Phrygian,’ son of King Tantalus, colonised the Morea and founded the Pelopid race. Then they would find a home in Italy, Hetruria, and Iapygia (or Messapia), Peucetia and Daunia, and finally they would settle in Iberia, Spain, and Portugal, where the Briges or Brygi (Phrygians) have left their names in the Braganza of the present day.

These Proto-Phrygians and Phrygo-Europeans, of whom several tribes returned to Asia, were the prehistoric metal-workers. The smith (from _smitan_, to strike) was sacred in the dawn of history; and the Sword-maker was not inferior to him. Those who have witnessed the awe and reverence with which savages and barbarians regard a European mechanic at his forge will see exemplified the emotional feeling which led to the human becoming the superhuman.[256]

[Heading: _ALLOYS._]

The first step in κρατέρωμα (hardening of metals) was, according to Hesychius, Μίξις χαλκοῦ καὶ κασσιτέρου (the mingling of copper and tin). The alloy was known generically as chalcos (base metal), specifically as χαλκὸς μέλαινος (black chalcos). The Latins persisted in terming it simply _æs_; e.g. _æs inauratum_ (gilt bronze). Our word bronze derives from _brunus_ (fuscous, sombre, brown); _brunum æs_. Hence the Low Latin (A.D. 805) _brunea_, _brunia_, or _bronia_, a lorica or thorax; and the Low Greek πόρτας μπρούτξινες (pronounce broutzines), ‘portals of bronze.’ The word is also derived from the Basque or Iberian _bronsea_.

Tin, one of the least durable of metals, at the same time readily fused and one of the easiest to treat metallurgically, was called by the Greeks κασσίτερος, and by the Latins _cassiteron_,[257] whence probably the Arab. قصدير, and the Sanskrit कस्तीर. The Hebrew name is בדיל (Badíl = a substitute, a separation, an alloy). Hut (white metal) in Egyptian includes silver and tin: in Coptic it is Thram, Thran, or Basensh. Kalaí (Linschoten’s ‘Calaem’) is the popular term for tin in India: the word is Arabic rather than Turkish. Tenekeh (tin-plate) in Arabic is an evident congener of the Assyrian [Cuneiform] ‘Anaker,’ and it remarkably resembles the Scandinavian Din, German Zinn, and our Tin. As we find ‘Teyne’ in Chaucer and old writers, ‘tin’ may come from its easy ‘thinning’ or beating out. The later Latins changed the _plumbum album_ or white lead of Pliny (iv. 30) to _stannum_: whence our word derived through the neo-Latin. The origin of Kassiteron, Kasdír, Kastira, is disputed, and philologists remark that Cassi is a British (Keltic) prefix, as in Cassi-belanus. Tin was found in the Caucasus, in India, in Southern Persia (Drangæ Country); in Tuscany, in Iberia (Spain and Portugal),[258] in Sweden, Saxony, Bohemia, Hungary, and notably in England. There are still deposits near the modern Temeswar (Pannonia), and the granite hills of Gallicia and Zamora are not exhausted. It is now produced in Russia, Greenland, the Brazil, and the United States. Wilkinson would fetch the alloy of ancient Egypt from Spain, India, Malacca, or even from Banca,[259] between Sumatra and Borneo; the Banca tin-mines, long worked by the Chinese were first visited by the Portuguese in 1506. But compounds of tin and copper were common in Egypt at the time of the Sixth Dynasty (B.C. 3000). Tin is mentioned as early as B.C. 1452 in the Book of Numbers (xxxii. 22), with gold and silver, ‘brass’ (copper, especially pyrites), iron, and lead[260] (‘oferet’). In B.C. 760 the prophetic books, called from Isaiah (i. 25) and from Ezekiel (xxii. 18, 20), make tin an alloy of silver.

The Egyptians would derive their metals in the first place from Upper Egypt; and their first Kheft or mines of gold (_khetem_) and copper lay in the Thebaid. Secondly, they would resort to the land of Midian on the eastern flank, and running south of the long narrow gulf, El-Akabah: this grand range of Ghats or Coast Mountains was in those days a noted mining centre, and it has still a great industrial future. Thirdly, by means of the Phœnicians, who apparently taught the Greeks metallurgy which they learned in Egypt, they would import their tin from Southern France, Spain, and England.[261]

[Heading: _TIN._]

It is a disputed question whether the Phœnicians discovered the tin-stones and the stream-tin of the Cassiterides,[262] or whether the ore was worked by the ‘Welsh of the Horn’—the barbarians of Cornwall and Devonshire, who in those days were probably confined to small coast-clearings.[263] Herodotus, indeed, knows nothing (iii. 115) of ‘any islands called the Cassiterides (tin islands) whence the tin comes.’ These Silures or Scilly Islands were evidently mere depôts, not sites of production. The Phœnicians kept their secret well, and lost their ships rather than betray it; so says Strabo (iii. 5, § 11), whose Cassiterides appear to be the Azores.[264] The age when the trade was first opened is disputed; some place it B.C. 1500, others[265] reduce it to B.C. 400. Diodorus Siculus (v. 21–2) tells us that tin was found and run into pigs near the Belerium Promontory (Land’s End); thence it was carted to Ictis (Vectis, not the Isle of Wight, but Saint Michael’s Mount and Love Island);[266] and lastly horsed across Gaul to the Rhone. There is in the Truro Museum[267] a pig of tin, flat above and reniform below (the shape of the mould), two feet eleven inches by eleven inches broad, with a particular mark; it has been suggested that this is Phœnician. ‘Cassiter Street’ in Bodmin is supposed to retain the classical name. The second Thursday before Christmas Day is called in Cornwall (Kern-Walli, Cornu Galliæ) ‘Picrous Day,’ from the man who discovered the ‘streaming’ (or washing) of ‘stean’ or tin. Strabo gives a bad account of the people of the twelve Cassiterides and their Cornishmen, the latter ‘resembling the Furies we see in tragic representations.’ These pleasant persons would find stream-tin, almost fit for use, lying upon the surface by the side of copper pyrites—the latter harder than tin, but still comparatively soft and ductile. Both ores were easily fused, while iron was comparatively difficult and tedious to smelt; and the two (copper and tin) combined were not only more fusible, but they also continued longer in the fluid state, facilitating casting and moulding. Hence Worsäae believes that England was an ancient centre of bronze, whence the alloy was diffused throughout Europe. It is usually stated that the bronze-using period in England began between B.C. 1400 and 1200, and lasted eight to ten centuries, the invasion of Cæsar taking place during the early ‘Iron Age.’

The great bronze manufacture which we have first to consider is Egypt. The exact average proportion of the alloy is hard to ascertain,[268] the tin varying from ten to twenty per cent., and the copper from eighty to ninety per cent. A dagger analysed by Vauquelin gave copper eighty-five, tin fourteen, and iron one per cent. Wilkinson’s bronze chisel, nine and a quarter inches long, and weighing one pound twelve ounces, found in a quarry at Thebes, contained in one hundred parts 94·0 copper, 5·9 tin, 0·1 iron; consequently its edge is at once turned by hard stone. He repeatedly mentions bronze chisels (ii. ch. vii. &c.), and he seems to suspect that they were sheathed and pointed with steel. Of course, he was puzzled to explain how the ‘bronze or brass blades were given a certain degree of elasticity.’[269]

The result of Egyptian metallurgy is admirable, both in material and finish. At what period bronze was introduced we ignore; a cast cylinder, however, bearing the name of Pepi, dates from B.C. 3000 in the Sixth Dynasty of Middle Egypt, which includes Nitaker (Nitocris). Knives appear in the sculptures dating from before that time. A bronze dagger in the Berlin Museum, found by Sig. Passalacqua in a tomb at Thebes, retains a spring which might be of steel. My friend, Mr. W. P. Hayns, of the Alexandrian Harbour Works, showed me a specimen brought from Thebes by the late Mr. Harris, made of bronze still slightly elastic. The total length measures one foot, of which the blade is half; the latter, slightly leaf-shaped, has a minimum breadth of one inch and three-twelfths, and one inch at the shoulder. The tang, which is prolonged to the handle-end (four inches), has a minimum width of five-twelfths. The grip of two plates, hippopotamus hide (?), probably boiled, and not unlike wood, has twenty-six ridges for firmer hold, and there are bronze rivets at the sixth and the twenty-third ridges: it is without pommel, the end being simply rounded off.

It is held that mummies of the Eleventh Dynasty were buried with bronze sabres; and there is a bronze dagger of Thut-mes[270] III. (Eighteenth Dynasty), circa B.C. 1600. As late as Mene-ptah II. of the Nineteenth Dynasty (B.C. 1300–1266), we read in the list of his loot, after the Prosopis battle, of bronze-armour, Swords, and daggers. Among the Etruscans, before the foundation of Rome, bronze statues were known; and Romulus is said to have placed a statue of himself, crowned by Victory, in a bronze quadriga taken at Comertium. According to Pausanias (iii. 12, § 8), Theodorus of Samos invented casting in bronze (B.C. 800–700): this author discredits the Arcadian legend that Neptune dedicated a bronze statue to Poseidon (the Sidonian?) Hippios (Wilkinson, ii. chap. vii.). But the Samians cast a bronze vase in B.C. 630.

The importance of the Uchatius re-discovery, that is, of hardening bronze as well as copper by hydraulic pressure, not by phosphorus,[271] becomes evident by Wilkinson’s reflections. ‘We know of no means of tempering copper, under any form, or united with any alloys for such a purpose’ (as hollowing out hieroglyphics). He suggests that the old Egyptian letters, sometimes exceeding two inches in depth, and the alt-reliefs nine inches high, on granite coffins, may have been worked with wheel-drill and emery powder.[272] The Egyptians had also the secret of gilding bronze, as many of their remains prove; moreover, they produced by acids a rich patina of dark and light greens.

[Heading: _METALLURGY IN ASSYRIA._]

The Assyrians rivalled in metallurgy their ancient instructors the Egyptians: and the art passed eastwards to Persia, which inherited Assyrian and Babylonian civilisation. Diodorus Siculus, following Ctesias the oft-quoted contemporary of Xenophon, describes immense works of bronze decorating the gardens of Semiramis. In Assyria, again, the proportion of the alloy greatly varied. Layard[273] quotes the following assays of Assyrian bronze:

No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 Copper 89·51 89·85 88·37 84·79 Tin 0·63 9·78 11·33 14·10 ————— ————— ————— ————— 90·14 99·63 99·70 98·89

No. 1 shows the proportions found in a bronze dish from ‘Nimroud’; No. 4 in a bell; and the fore-leg of a bull[274] yielded 11·33 tin to 99·70 copper. The Mesopotamians were able to cast their bronze extremely thin, which is no small difficulty; they fashioned it into weapons, temple utensils, and domestic articles, and they skilfully ‘elaborated it by chasing and by curious ornamental tracery.’ They used it in their most sumptuous decorations, as the thrones prove; and the beautiful workmanship of their vases shows abnormal skill in the toreumatic treatment of bronze. Gilt specimens of bronze from Nineveh are in the British Museum.

Dr. Schliemann questions the popular assertion that the age of Hesiod and of Homer ignored alloys and fusion, knowing only plating, the plates being hammer-wrought (‘Od.’ iii. 425). This explorer found the strata of copper and lead scoriæ at the so-called Troy from twenty-eight to twenty-nine and a half feet deep. He notes also small crucibles and a mould of mica-schist (twenty-six feet deep), which was probably intended for bronze casting. He finds no iron; but copper and its alloy, bronze, are abundant. M. Damour of Lyon[275] analysed the drillings of two ‘copper’ battle-axes from ‘Ilium,’ in fact, from ‘Priam’s Treasury’; they contained 0·0864 and 0·0384 parts tin to 0·9067 and 0·9580 copper. Nearly the same proportion of alloy was found in a common two-edged axe dug at a depth of three and a quarter feet, and therefore in the remains attributed to a Greek colony. Dr. Percy analysed, with the following results, the handle of a bronze vase and a Sword:

Copper (mean) 86·36 Tin (mean) 13·06 ————— 99·42

The specific gravity (at 60° F.) was 8·858. The extreme proportions of the alloy in other articles were 10·28 tin to 89·69 copper (a usual ratio in ancient bronzes[276]), and 0·09 tin to 98·47 copper, the latter being almost pure.

Mongez, of the Institut, describing a bronze Sword found in France, gives the proportions as 87·47 per cent. of copper to 12·53 of tin. Analyses of Greek bronzes in the British Museum yielded 87·8 per cent. copper to 12·13 tin. A bronze knife has been found in the Palafittes (Pile-villages) of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.[277] Worsäae (‘Primæval Antiquities’) makes the Bronze Period in Denmark and Northern Europe begin about B.C. 500 to 600, and last some 1,100 years. It is not found among the Normans. But it was developed in Ireland and Scotland, in China and Japan, in Mexico and in Peru: Cieza de Leon notes the admirable bronze work of the Ynkarial empire.

A Peruvian chisel, analysed by M. Vauquelin, contained 0·94 copper to 0·06 tin. In other tools the proportion of the latter metal varied from two to four, six and even seven per cent. As a rule the people used only half the proper proportion of tin, which they called Chayantanka—a name suggesting the Old-World ‘Tanuk.’ Humboldt mentions a cutting tool found near Cuzco with ninety-four per cent. of copper and six of tin. Rivero (i. 201) notices in Peru brass (?) hammers and bellows-nozzles, axes, adzes, bill-hooks, and other tools, of bronze as well as copper. The Mexicans cast their tin ingots in T-shape. The Peruvians hardened copper also with silver for quarrying-tools and crow-bars. Velasco (ii. 70) tells us that when the Ynka Huasca was being led to prison by order of his brother, a woman secretly gave him a bar of metal, ‘silver with bronze, brass, or an alloy of silver, copper, and tin’ (Bollaert, p. 90); by means of this he cut through the jail wall during the night. Hutchison (ii. 330) mentions a buckler from Ipijapa in Ecuador, and Ewbank (p. 454) notices an old Peruvian bronze knife.[278]

[Heading: _PROPORTIONS OF ALLOYS._]

The admirable bronzes of China and Japan are well known in the English market, and Raphael Pumpelly,[279] who studied direct from the native workmen, has printed interesting notes on the ornamental alloys, or Mokume, applied to Swords and other articles. Damask-work is produced by soldering alternately thirty to forty sheets of rose-copper, silver, _shakdo_ (copper one to gold ten per cent.), and _gui shi bu ichi_ (silver and copper). The mass is then cut into deep patterns with the reamer. An alloy of silver (thirty to fifty per cent. of copper) produces the favourite tint, a rich grey colour, and this becomes a bluish black like niello by being boiled after polishing in a solution of sulphate of copper, alum, and verdigris. Dr. Percy (p. 340) describes the liquation of argentiferous copper in Japan.[280]

We owe to Dr. George Pearson[281] sundry experiments in alloys, which first determined that the norm of the Old World and the best proportion for weapons and tools are one tin to nine copper.

Fusing the metals, he found:

1 tin : 20 copper (5 per cent.) produces a dark-coloured bronze with the red fracture of the pure metal.

1 tin : 15 (6½ per cent.) gives a stronger alloy and obliterates the colour.

1 tin : 12, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 gradually increases hardness and brittleness.

1 tin : 2 makes a mixture almost as brittle as glass.

The following table[282] shows the alloys now in common use, and the purposes to which they are applied:

Tin Copper Per cent. Copper 11 108 = 90·76 Cannon, statues, machine brasses. 11 99 = 90 ‘Gun-metal’ proper (cannon). 11 84 = 84·44 ‘Gun-metal,’ machinery bearings. 11 72 = 86·75 Harder composition. 11 60 = 84·50 Not malleable. 11 44 = 80 Cymbals, Chinese gongs. 11 48 = 81·35 Very hard, culinary vessels. 11 36} = {76·69} ‘Bell-metal.’ 12 36} {75·00} 11 24 = 68·57 Yellowish, very hard, sonorous. 11 4 = 26·66 Very white,[283] specula.[284]

The most popular alloy of copper, next to bronze, is brass, which is harder and wears better than the pure metal. Originally, as now, it was a mixture of copper and zinc, popularly called spelter (old _speautre_, _speauter_, _spiauter_, _spialter_).[285] The proportions greatly varied, one part of the latter to two of the former being the older ratio, and the density increasing with the amount of copper from 8·39 to 8·56.

Beckmann tells us, in his valuable ‘History of Inventions,’[286] ‘in the course of time an ore which must have been calamine (carbonate of zinc) or blende[287] (sulphuret of zinc), was added to copper, and gave it a yellow colour. The addition made it harder, more fusible and sonorous, easily subject to the lathe, more economical to work, and a worse conductor of heat than the pure metal.’ We have few specimens of old art-works in ‘brass’ proper, although zinc was discovered by analysis in an ancient Sword, chiefly copper.[288] Gibel assures us that zinc occurs only in Roman alloys, the bronze of the Greeks containing nothing beyond copper, tin, and lead. The Romans also could varnish or lacquer brass, but it is not known whence they derived the art. Percy notes (p. 521) that brass was produced ‘early in the Christian era, if not before its commencement.’ He quotes in proof a large coin of the Cassia Gens (B.C. 20) which contained copper 82·26 and zinc 17·31; a Vespasian (Rome, A.D. 71), an imperial Trajan (Caria, circ. A.D. 110), a Geta (Carian Mylasa, A.D. 189–212), a Greek Caracalla (A.D. 199), and many others. In modern times zinciferous ore was imported by the Portuguese from the East a century before it was common throughout Europe.[289] In the early seventeenth century the Dutch captured one of their craft laden with spelter, and the secret became known. Bishop Richard Watson says (1783) the cargo was _calaem_, which he connects with ‘calamine’: the latter, like the German _Galmei_, derives from _cadmia_.

Amongst the moderns _æs_ gave rise to _airain_. The French _leton_, _laton_, _latton_, or _laiton_ (_cuivre jaune_); the Italian _lattone_, _lottone_, and lastly _ottone_, and the Spanish _lata_ and _laton_, German _Latun_, and English _latten_ (thin sheet brass), the _latoun_ of Chaucer (‘Pardoner’s Prologue,’ 64), are either from _luteum_, yellow (metal), or from the plant _luteum_ (_Reseda luteola_), used to stain chrysocolla.[290] Our _brass_ is probably the Scandinavian _bras_, cement; and the German _Mosch_, _Meish_, and _Messing_, from _mischen_ = _miscere_.[291]

[Heading: _ORICHALCUM._]

It may be advisable to notice the ὀρειχάλκον[292] of the Homerids and Hesiod, which Strabo also calls ψευδάργυρος (false silver), and _aurichalcum_, and which the perverse ingenuity of commentaries has made so mysterious.[293] In the poetic phase, which loves the vague, this ‘mountain-copper’ was a mythic natural metal, ranking between gold and silver, and chimerical as was the _chalcolibanon_[294] of the Apocalypse (i. 15, ii. 18). The name does not occur in Pindar or the Dramatists. Plato (the ‘Critias,’ § ix., treating of Atlantis,[295] America) makes _oreichalc_, ‘now known only by name,’ the most precious metal after gold. Pliny (xxxiv. 2) tells us truly enough that _aurichalcum_ no longer exists.

The next application of the word was to ruby copper (?), a suboxide whose beautiful crystals are formed in the natural state. Pollux and Hesychius the grammarian (D.D. 380) define it as copper (χαλκός) resembling gold; and Cicero puts the question whether, if a person should offer a piece of gold for sale, thinking he was disposing of only a piece of orichalcum, an honest man ought to inform him that it was really gold, or might fairly buy for a penny what is _worth a thousand times as much_.[296] Buffon compares it with tombac, or Chinese copper containing gold.[297] Beckmann (_s. v._ ‘Tin’) notes _aurichalcum_ or Corinthian brass in Plautus, ‘Auro contra carum.’ Festus speaks of ‘orichalcum (copper), stannum (zinc or pewter?), cassiterum (tin), and aurichalcum (brass).’ The same signification occurs in Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (fourth century); in Primasius, Bishop of African Adrumetum (sixth century), and in Isidore, Bishop of Seville (seventh century). Albertus Magnus (thirteenth century), the Dominican monk, in treating ‘De Natura et Commixtione Æris,’ describes how _cuprum_ became _aurichalcum_.

Strabo is mysterious. In one place he tells us that the Cyprian copper alone produces the Cadmian stone, copperas-water, and oxide of copper. In another (lib. xiii.) he says, ‘There is a stone near Andeira which, being burnt, becomes iron. It is then put into a furnace, together with some kind of earth,[298] when it (the stone? the earth? or both?) drops or distils a ψευδάργυρος (mock silver, zinc?), which, with the addition of copper, produces what is called _the mixture_, and which some term _oreichalcum_.’ Pseudargyros, also found in the neighbourhood of Tmolus, would here seem to mean zinc or _Cadmia fossilis_ (natural calamine or carbonate of zinc). Pliny (xxxiv. 22) confuses with cadmia, furnace calamine, and a particular ore of copper opposed to calchitis. When Dioscorides (v. cap. 84) seems to allude to artificial or furnace-calamine, an impure oxide of zinc, he may mean the more modern _tutiya_ (Avicenna), _toutia_, _thouthia_,[299] _cadmie des fourneaux_, or tutty. Reduced to powder, and mixed with an equal quantity of wetted charcoal by way of fondant or flux, it is melted with copper to form brass. The Avocat de Launey (1780) and Bishop Watson both agree that Strabo’s orichalcum is brass.

Lastly, aurichalcum was made synonymous with _electrum_, natural or artificial. The word Ἤλεκτρος[300] is popularly derived from Helios, as rivalling the sun in sheen. According to Lepsius it is the ‘usem’-metal of Thut-mes III.; Brugsch (i. 345) understands by ‘usem’ brass, and thinks Asmara or Asmala equivalent to the Hebrew _hasmal_ or _hashmal_ = _electrum_. In Bunsen (v. 757) Kasabet and Kakhi are brass (_aurichalcum_), and Khesbet is a metal connected with Kassiteros = tin. The alloy was known to Hesiod (‘Scut.’ 142) and to the ‘Odyssey’[301] (iv. 73), not to the ‘Iliad.’ Sophocles (‘Antig.’ 1037) applied ‘Sardian electrum’ to gold, not to silver. Herodotus (iii. 115), in the historic age (B.C. 480–30), gives the name of the mythical metal to the ‘tears of the Heliades,’ which the Latins called _succinum_ (_succum_), the Low-Latins _ambrum_, the Arabs _anbar_, and we Amber. Pliny (xxxiii. 23), repeated by Pausanias (v. 12, § 6), notes two kinds, natural (‘in all gold ore there is some silver’[302]) and artificial; in the latter the proportion of silver must not exceed one-fifth. The staters of Lydian Crœsus, held by the Greeks to be the most ancient of coins, were, according to Böckh, of electrum, three parts gold and one part silver. Lucian applies the term to glass (ὕαλος); and, lastly, it was taken for brass and confounded with aurichalcum.[303]

I would suggest that this aurichalcum might also be the ‘Dowris bronze’ of Ireland, so called because first observed at Dowris, near Parsonstown, King’s County. Wilde (p. 360) supposes with others that the gold-coloured alloy depended upon the admixture of a certain proportion of lead, and compares it with the Cyprus copper termed by the Romans _Coronarium_ (used for theatrical crowns), which was coated with ox-gall.[304] Of this _or molu_ there are many articles in the Dublin Museum, preserving their fine golden-yellow lustre: they had probably been lacquered or varnished like modern brasses; and the patina might be some gum-resin. When much tarnished, they were cleaned by holding over the fire, and then by dipping in a weak solution of acid, as is done with modern castings. Two specimens, a Sword and a dagger-blade, were analysed (pp. 470, 483), and proved to contain copper 87·67 to 90·72, tin 8·52 to 8·25, lead 3·87 to 0·87, with a trace of sulphur in the Sword.[305] The specific gravities were 8·819 to 8·675. In a spear-head (p. 512), besides copper, tin, and lead, iron 0·31 and cobalt 0·09 were found.

There were other alloys of which we read but know little; such were the _æs ægineticum_, _demonnesium_, and _nigrum_; the _æs deliacum_, whose secret was lost in Plutarch’s day, and the Ταρτήσσιος χαλκὸς[306] from Southern Spain, probably shipped at Gibraltar Bay. _Ollaria_ or pot-copper (brass) contained three pounds of _plumbum argentarium_ (equal parts of tin and lead) to one hundred pounds of copper. _Æs caldarium_ could only be fused. Finally, _græcanicum_ (Greek-colour) was mould or second-hand copper (_formalis seu collectaneus_) with ten per cent. of _plumbum nigrum_ (lead) and five per cent. of silver lead (argentiferous galena?).

[Heading: _THE CELT AND THE SWORD._]

Metal, when first introduced, must have been rare and dear; the large modern Sword, axe, or mall would hardly have been imitated in copper, bronze, or iron. The earliest attempts at developing the celt[307] would have produced nothing more artful than a cutting and piercing wedge of the precious substance (fig. 85). As smelting and moulding improved, the pointed end would develop into the knife, the dagger, and the Sword; and the broad end would expand to the axe. This composite weapon, uniting the club with the celt or hand-hatchet, and appearing in Europe with the beginning of the Neolithic period, plays a remarkable part in history, ancient, mediæval, and even modern; whilst its connection with the Sword is made evident by the ‘glaive.’[308] The expansion of the edge and of the flanges developed two principal forms. For cutting wood the long-narrow was found most serviceable: where brute force was less required, the weapon became a broad blade with a long crescent-shaped edge.

[Heading: _THE AXE AND THE SWORD._]

The Akhu or war-axe was, as we might expect, known to ancient Egypt in early days, and became an _objet de luxe_. A gold hatchet and several of bronze were found buried as amulets in the coffin of Queen Askhept, the ancestress of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Again, a bronze weapon occurred with a mummied queen of the Seventeenth Dynasty (B.C. 1750). Useful in war, the implement, probably when in the stone period, rose to be a symbol of the Deity: hence, doubtless, the _hâches votives_ of the later Bronze Age without edge to serve for work or weapons, and intended only for religious use. The two-headed weapon was that outward and visible sign of Labrandian Jove, so called from the λάβρα, which in the Lydian tongue was synonymous with πέλεκυς. The emblem appears on the medals of three Carian kings, the most notable being Mausolus (or Mausollus), dating from B.C. 353. According to Plutarch (_De Pythiæ Oraculis_) the Tenedians ‘took the axe from their crabs, ... because it appears that the crabs alone have the figure of the axe in their shells.’ Hence the double-headed weapon on the coins of Tenedos is a votive or sacrificial, rather than a warlike, symbol. The Tenedian Apollo also held the axe, which some regarded as the symbol of Tennes. Aristotle and others maintained that a certain King of Tenedos decreed that adulterers should be slain with the axe, and his carrying out the law upon his own son gave rise to the proverb, Τενέδιος πέλεκυς, denoting a rough-and-ready way of doing business.

Although the πέλεκυς is mentioned by Homer (‘Il.’ and ‘Od.’) as a weapon as well as a tool, the Greeks, like the Assyrians, did not much affect it. The Romans, who worshipped Quirinus in spear-shape, bound the securis in a bundle of rods (_fasces_), bore it as a badge of office, and placed it on consular coins. The weapon was lowered in the salute, and thus, perhaps, arose our practice of dropping the Sword-point, which is unknown to the East. The axe with expanded blade upon Trajan’s column is in the hands of a workman. Possibly the classics of Europe despised the weapon because it was proper to the _securigeræ catervæ_ of the effeminate East. As early as the days of Herodotus (I. chap. i. 215) the σάγαρις, the Armenian _sacr_, and the Latin _securis_, made either of gold or chalcos, was the favourite weapon of the Amazon[309] and the Massagetæ[310] horseman. In Ireland the axe plays a part in the tales of Gobawn Saer: this goblin-builder completed the dangerous task of finishing off a royal roof of cutting wooden pegs, throwing them one by one into their places, and driving them in by flinging the magic weapon at each peg in due succession.

From Egypt the axe passed into the heart of Africa. Here it still serves, before and after use, as a medium of exchange; and this circulation from tribe to tribe explains the various forms that have overspread the Dark Continent. The Nile Valley again sent it eastward through Hittite-land and Assyria to Persia and India, where the crescent-shaped battle-axe has long been a favourite. The varieties of form and colour are noticed by Duarte Barbosa[311] when describing the ‘Moors’ of Hormuz Island. It was adopted by the Turkish horseman, who carried it at his saddle-bow. Klemm (‘Werkzeuge und Waffen’) notices that it was a favourite Scandinavian weapon slung by a strap to the back; and most of the deaths recounted in ‘Burnt Njal’ are the result of it. The Norman long-hefted axe is common on the Bayeux tapestries. A Scandinavian war-axe of the early seventeenth century was found on the battle-field of Norwegian Kringelen; the handle is recurved so as to fit the back socket. In Germany it was generally used during the fifteenth century; in England during the sixteenth; and in the seventeenth it became obsolete throughout Europe, except among the Slavs and the Magyars. The German processional axe shows its latest survival; blade and handle are of one piece of wood, ornamented with the guild-devices, and so modified that the original weapon can hardly be recognised. Similarly the Bergbarthe (mine-picks) of the German Bergmänner (miners) were used, according to Klemm, for the defence of cities, notably of Freiberg in 1643; and, made of brass as well as iron, they are still carried in State processions. The axe, like the spear, demarked boundaries. The charter given by Cnut (Canute) to Christ Church, Canterbury, grants the harbour and dues thereof on either side as far as a man standing on deck at flood-tide could cast a taper-axe, and the custom of throwing the tool to mark boundaries has been retained in some parts of the country to our day. It was with a battle-axe that the Bruce of Bannockburn clove the skull of an English champion to the chin. Monstrelet tells us that during the wars of Jeanne d’Arc (Patay fought in A.D. 1429) the English carried hatchets in their girdles.

The Axe[312] was adopted by the Franks, as well as by the Scandinavians and the Germans, especially the Saxons. Hence the two-edged axe when affixed to long staves, forming a spear, became the Icelandic Hall-bard[313] (hall-axe?), the Teutonic Alle-barde (‘all-cleaver’), and the ‘Pole-axe,’ called from Poland (= Polje, the plain-country). This modification was universal in Northern Europe during the first ages of Christianity. The earliest shape (middle fourteenth to early sixteenth centuries) was a broad and massive axe, mounted on a thick and solid spear; in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the blade became more slender and hollow-edged, and the head longer and more taper. The Swiss introduced the Halbert to France in the middle fifteenth century: in the seventeenth century it was conventionalised, the axe resumed its original aspect, and the spear grew to leaf-shape. In this form it was retained by the subalterns and sergeants of the British army till abolished with the pig-tails of ‘Shaven England.’ It is not wholly forgotten on ceremonious occasions in certain European Courts, and during all its changes it has ever retained its cousinly likeness to the broadsword.

[Heading: _AXE AND SCYMITAR._]

I have shown how the stone celt might become a metal knife, and thence develop into the straight Sword. By noting the modifications it is as easy to see that the axe might have produced the scymitar. The earliest form would be a broad lance-head inserted into a common club (_a_), as is still practised in many parts of Africa. The next improvement (_c_) would convert the tool into an arm by increasing the cutting surface; and another step (_d_) would make it lighter by reducing the blade to a triangle of mere barbs, ⊣. Then (_e_) we have the Khond or Circar battle-axe, and the Silepe of the South African Basutos who, virtually discovered by Dr. Livingstone, have become so troublesome of late years.[314] This T-shaped blade, perpetuated in the ‘Baïonette Gras,’ was used in Switzerland and in Venice till the sixteenth century, according to Meyrick and Demmin. Afterwards the straight back next to the staff would be formed into two small and graceful crescents (_f_); and the weapon became far better fitted for the requirements of cavalry. This shape is world-wide, and was used in England _temp._ Elizabeth. A congener of the glaive was the _Francisque à lance ouverte_, the broad-bladed ‘taper-axe,’ used for throwing as well as for striking. According to the Abbé Cochet, this weapon took its name from the Franks. The Francisque is termed a ‘defensive weapon’ in the illustrated treatise ‘Armes et Armures.’[315] The Saxons preferred to it the Sahs, Seax or Scramasax-knife, similarly used. The Francisque is rare in the Saxon graves compared with the spear and knife, but it is more common than the Sword.[316]

[Heading: _THE BILL AND VOULGE._]

The Bill[317] (A.-S. _byll_, Irish _biail_, _securis_) was introduced into England _temp._ Henry VI. about the fifteenth century, when it was allied in form to the Halbard. Skinner considers it a _securis rostrata_ (beaked axe). It was long a favourite in Scandinavia, and the illustration represents the weapon of Gunnar, the Icelandic champion, which sang before battle, as also did the Sword of Sigurd.

The glaive of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was followed by the Guisarme, Gisarme, or Bisarme. This long blade, with a slender spear-point projecting from the back, is still used by the Chinese; and the Despots of Dahome borrowed it, like other quaint arms and customs, from Europe. The _Voulge_, an intermediate form of the halbert and the glaive, and probably a descendant of the former, was a battle-axe much used by the Swiss in the fourteenth century. The war-scythe of the same period figured by Demmin, and the scythe-Sword—a formidable-looking, but unhandy weapon—were adopted by the Hungarian rebels as lately as in 1848. Allied with these mediæval forms is a vast variety of shapes known as the Spetum (Spiedo or Spit), the Ronçeur or Ranseur, and the military fork. They were probably known to the Ancients, and reintroduced into Europe by the peasantry who, compelled hastily to arm themselves, would use the handy flails, sickles, and scythes. A well-arranged and complete collection is still wanted to show the links connecting them with a common prototype.

The interest of these weapons is chiefly connected with the various forms of curved broadsword. The leaf-shaped metal-blade for thrusting, which appears to be one of the earliest forms, and which is preserved by the Somal and other barbarians, is, I have said, evidently a spear-head fixed in a wooden handle.

Briefly to describe the Sword of the Early Bronze Age, during which, by the by, cremation became almost universal in Europe. The weapon is to a certain extent North European, and seems to have travelled up the valleys of great rivers: Denmark has yielded two hundred and fifty to six Italian bronze blades.[318] They are as a rule of fair length, averaging about seventy-five centimetres: the profile is either leaf-shaped, sub-leaf-shaped, or straight, ending in a bevelled point. The hilt is of two kinds: either tanged or untanged: the tang is broad, long, and pierced, with one or more holes for riveting; in this case the handle was of wood, bone, or horn. Many hefts, however, as will afterwards appear, are cast in a single piece with or without guard; and the latter often disappears in a hollow triangular base, a crescent or horse-shoe containing the shoulders with the concavity of the arch towards the point; this also served in many weapons to receive the rivets. The pommel is of various patterns, frequently a cone, oval, globe, or dome with steps or with melon-like ridges.[319] In others, especially amongst the old Kelts and Germans, it ended with a crutch or crescent whose cusps were, in the richer kinds, adorned with spirals.