The Greek name for iron, _sideros_, is equally destitute of known affinities. It has, indeed, sometimes been deemed cognate with the Latin _sidus_, a star, on the ground that meteoric, or star-sent iron was the earliest form of the metal made available for human purposes; but modern philologists do not see their way to admitting the connexion. The coincidence is impressive, yet may, none the less, be wholly misleading. The Homeric poems testify to everyday experience of the powers and faculties of iron. In the Iliad, knives are made of it, and rustic implements of all sorts; iron-tipped arrows are sped from tough bows; iron axes perform the rough work of the forest and farm-yard. The Odyssean functions of the metal cover a still wider range. The iron age, just beginning in the first Epic, has pretty well made good its footing in the second. Thus, Beloch[351] has pointed out that, while _chalkos_ is mentioned 279, _sideros_ only 23 times in the Iliad, the proportion has become, in the Odyssey, 80 to 29; and his detailed analysis partially supports the conclusion that iron comes most prominently into view in the latest portions of both poems. Yet no amount of skill in critical carving can divide off a section of either in which ignorance of the metal prevails. The differences are only in degrees of acquaintanceship. Footnote 351: _Rivista di Filologia_, t. ii. p. 55. The diversity in this respect between the Odyssey and Iliad can be perceived at a glance by contrasting the weapons Odysseus left behind him at Ithaca with those he wielded before Troy. The first set were of iron, probably of steel, the existence of which is implied in the practice of tempering by immersion in cold water, referred to in connexion with the feat of plunging a hot stake into the vast orbit of the Cyclops’ solitary eye. And from the burning eye-ball the fierce steam Singed all his brows, and the deep roots of sight Crackled with fire. As when in the cold stream Some smith the axe untempered, fiery white, Dips hissing; for thence comes the iron’s might; So did his eye hiss, and he roared again.[352] Footnote 352: _Odyssey_, ix. 391-95 (Worsley’s trans.). Iron or steel has even reached, in the Odyssey, the stage of proverbial familiarity as the material for arms. _Sideros_ stands for sword in a maxim which may be translated ‘Cold steel masters the man,’[353] signifying that when weapons are at hand, bloodshed is not far off. In the Iliad, on the contrary, swords and spears are invariably of bronze; and the commentators’ _caveat_ marks the lines presenting the iron-headed arrow of Pandarus, and the iron mace of Areithöus. The passage, too, is not exempt from their suspicions, in which Achilles offers, as prizes in the Funeral Games, a ‘massy clod’ of freshly-smelted iron, and two sets of iron axe-heads. Footnote 353: _Ib._ xvi. 294.