According to some[38] the impossibility of hardening bronze like steel by dipping it into water had passed into a proverb so early as the days of Æschylus, but “χαλκοῦ βαφάς” has by others been regarded as referring to the impossibility of dyeing metal.[39] Some of the commentators on Hesiod and Homer speak, however, distinctly as to a process of hardening bronze by a dipping or βαφὴ, and Virgil[40] represents the Cyclopes as dipping the hissing bronze in water— “Alii stridentia tingunt Æra lacu”— but the idea of bronze being hardened or tempered by this process appears to me to have been based on a false analogy between this metal and steel, or even iron. The French chemist, Geoffroy, thought he had succeeded in imitating the temper of an ancient bronze sword, but no details are given as to whether he added more than the usual proportion of tin to his copper, or whether he hardened the edge with a hammer. With regard to the other reasons adduced by Mr. Gladstone, it is no doubt true that χαλκὸς is occasionally spoken of by Homer as a pure metal, mainly, however, it may be argued, in consequence of the same name being applied to both copper and bronze, if not, indeed, like the Latin “æs,” to copper, bronze, and brass. We find, moreover, that tin, for thus we must translate κασσίτερος, is mentioned by Homer; and as this metal appears in ancient times to have been mainly, though not exclusively, employed for the purpose of alloying copper, we must from this fact infer that the use of bronze was not unknown. In the celebrated description of the fashioning of the shield of Achilles by Vulcan—which may for the moment be assumed to be of the same age as the rest of the Iliad—we find the copper and tin mentioned in juxtaposition with each other; and if it had been intended to represent Hephaistos as engaged in mixing and melting bronze, the description could not have been more complete.[41] Χαλκὸς δ̓ έν πυρὶ βάλλεν ἀτειρέα, κασσίτερόν τε. Even the term indomitable may refer to the difficulty of melting copper in its unalloyed condition. But tin was also used in the pure condition. In the breast-plate of Agamemnon[42] there were ten bands of black κύανος, twelve of gold, and twenty of tin. In his shield[43] were twenty bosses of tin. The cows[44] on the shield of Achilles were made of both gold and tin, and his greaves[45] of soft tin, and the border of the breast-plate of Asteropæus[46] was formed of glittering tin. This collocation of various metals, or inlaying them by way of ornament, calls to mind some of the pottery and bronze pins of the Swiss Lake dwellings, which are decorated with inlaid tin, and the remarkable bronze bracelet found at Mœrigen,[47] which is inlaid with iron and a yellow brass by way of ornament.