We learn from Pausanias[10] what these arms of the heroes were, for he explains how in the heroic times all weapons were of bronze, and quotes Homer’s description of the axe of Pisander and the arrow of Meriones. He also cites the spear of Achilles in the temple of Pallas, at Phaselis, the point and ferrule of which only were of bronze; and the sword of Memnon in the temple of Æsculapius, at Nicomedia, which was wholly of bronze. In the same manner Plutarch[11] relates that when Cimon disinterred the remains of Theseus in Scyros he found with them a bronze spear-head and sword. There is, indeed, in Homer constant mention of arms, axes, and adzes of bronze, and though iron is also named, it is of far less frequent occurrence. According to the Arundelian marbles,[12] it was discovered only 188 years before the Trojan war, though of course such a date must be purely conjectural. Even Virgil preserves the unities, and often gives bronze arms to the heroes of the Æneid, as well as to some of the people of Italy— “Æratæque micant peltæ, micat æreus ensis.”[13] |5| The fact that in the Greek[14] language the words χαλκεύς and χαλκεύειν remained in use as significant of working in iron affords a very strong, if not an irrefragable argument as to bronze having been the earlier metal known to that people. In the same way the continuance in use of bronze cutting implements in certain religious rites—as was also the case with some stone implements which I shall subsequently mention—affords evidence of their comparative antiquity. The Tuscans[15] at the foundation of a city ploughed the pomærium with a bronze plough-share, the priests of the Sabines cut their hair with bronze knives, and the Chief Priest of Jupiter at Rome used shears of the same metal for that purpose. In the same manner Medea has attributed to her both by Sophocles and Ovid[16] a bronze sickle when gathering her magic herbs, and Elissa is represented by Virgil as using a similar instrument for the same purpose. Altogether, if history is to count for anything, there can be no doubt that in Greece and Italy, the earliest civilized countries of Europe, the use of bronze preceded that of iron, and therefore that there was in each case a Bronze Age of greater or less duration preceding the Iron Age. It seems probable that the first iron used was meteoric, and such may have been that “self-fused” mass which formed one of the prizes at the funeral games of Patroclus,[17] and was so large that it would suffice its possessor for all purposes during five years. Even the Greek word for iron (σίδηρος) may not improbably be connected with the meteoric origin of the first known form of the metal. Its affinity with ἀστήρ, often used for a shooting star or meteor, with the Latin “_sidera_” and our own “star” is evident.