For ages past, Thebes in Egypt has witnessed the production of opium from the expressed juice of poppyheads. Six centuries ago, the substance was known in Western Europe as _Opium Thebaïcum_, or the ‘Theban tincture.’ Prosper Alpinus states that the whole of Egypt was supplied, at the epoch of his visit, from Sajeth, on the site of the ancient hundred-gated city. And since a large proportion of the upper classes were undisguised opium-eaters, the demand must have been considerable. Now it was precisely in Thebes that Helen, according to Diodorus, received the sorrow-soothing drug from her Egyptian hostess; while the women of Thebes, and they only, still in his time preserved the secret of its qualities and preparation. Can we doubt that the ancient nepenthes was in truth no other than the mediæval Theban tincture? Even stripping from the statement of Diodorus all historical value, its legendary significance remains. It proves, beyond question, the existence of a tradition localising the gift of Polydamna in a spot noted, from the date of the earliest authentic information on the subject, for the production of a modern equivalent. The inference seems irresistible that the two were one, and that, as De Quincey said, Homer is rightly reputed to have known the virtues of opium. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IX. THE METALS IN HOMER. THE undivided Aryans knew very little of the underground riches of the earth. They transmitted to their dispersed descendants no common words for mining, forging, or smelting, none to indicate a metal in general, and only one designative of a metal in particular. This took in Sanskrit the form _ayas_, in Latin, _æs_; it is represented by the German _Erz_, equivalent to the English _ore_; and, after drifting through a Celtic channel, took a new meaning and form as _Eisen_, or _iron_.[310] The original signification of the term was _copper_; and copper seems, in general, to have been the first metal to engage the attention of primitive man. This is easily accounted for. Copper is widely distributed; it frequently occurs in the native state, when its strong colour at once catches the eye; it is easily worked, and displays a luminous glow highly engaging to an unsophisticated taste for ornament. And, because copper was at first the only substance of the kind known, its name was used to determine those of other related substances. Thus, in Sanskrit, iron was called ‘dark blue _ayas_,’ _ayas_ having come to mean metal in general; and a specific sign (possibly that for _hardness_) added, in the Egyptian inscriptions, to the hieroglyph for copper, causes it to denote iron.[311] But in South Africa these positions are exchanged. There iron ranks as the fundamental metal; gold being known to at least one Kafir tribe as ‘yellow,’ silver as ‘white,’