Iron, we repeat, is in the poems a perfectly familiar metal. Ownership of "bronze, gold, and iron, which requires much labour" (in the smithying or smelting), appears regularly in the recurrent epic formula for describing a man of wealth. [Footnote: _Iliad_, VI. 48; IX. 365-366; X. 379; XI. 133; _Odyssey_, XIV. 324; XXI. 10.] Iron, bronze, slaves, and hides are bartered for sea-borne wine at the siege of Troy? [Footnote: _Iliad_, VII. 472-475.] Athene, disguised as Mentes, is carrying a cargo of iron to Temesa (Tamasus in Cyprus?), to barter for copper. The poets are certainly not describing an age in which only a man of wealth might indulge in the rare and extravagant luxury of an iron ring: iron was a common commodity, like cattle, hides, slaves, bronze, and other such matters. Common as it was, Homer never once mentions its use for defensive armour, or for swords and spears. Only in two cases does Homer describe any weapon as of iron. There is to be sure the "iron," the knife with which Antilochus fears Achilles will cut his own throat. [Footnote: _Iliad_ XVIII. 34.] But no knife is ever used as a weapon of war: knives are employed in cutting the throats of victims (see _Iliad_, III. 271 and XXIII. 30); the knife is said to be of iron, in this last passage; also Patroclus uses the knife to cut the arrow-head out of the flesh of a wounded friend. [Footnote: _Iliad_, XI. 844.] It is the _knife_ of Achilles that is called "the iron," and on "the iron" perish the cattle in _Iliad_, XXIII. 30. Mr. Leaf says that by "the usual use, the metal" (iron) "is confined to tools of small size." [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_, xxiii. 30, Note.] This is incorrect; the Odyssey speaks of _great axes_ habitually made of iron. [Footnote: Odyssey, IX. 391.] But we do find a knife of bronze, that of Agamemnon, used in sacrificing victims; at least so I infer from Iliad, III. 271-292. The only two specimens of _weapons_ named by Homer as of iron are one arrow-head, used by Pandarus, [Footnote: _Iliad_, IV. 123.] and one mace, borne, before Nestor's time, by Areithoeus. To fight with an iron mace was an amiable and apparently unique eccentricity of Areithbus, and caused his death. On account of his peculiar practice he was named "The Mace man." [Footnote: Iliad, VII. 141.] The case is mentioned by Nestor as curious and unusual.