Lucretius[170] is explicit upon the priority of copper—[171] Posterius ferri vis est ærisque reperta, Sed prior æris erat quam ferri cognitus usus. Ære solum terræ tractabant, æreque belli Miscebant fluctus et volnera vasta ferebant.—V. 1286. He justly determines its relation to gold— Nam fuit in pretio magis æs, aurumque jacebat, Propter inutilitatem, hebeti mucrone retusum.—V. 1272. And he ends with the normal sneer at his own age— Nunc jacet æs, aurum in summum successit honorem.—V. 1274. Virgil, a learned archæologist, is equally explicit concerning the heroes of the Æneid and the old Italian tribes— Æratæ micant peltæ, micat æreus ensis.—Æn. vii. 743. And similarly Ennius— Æratæ sonant galeæ: sed ne pote quisquam Undique nitendo corpus discerpere ferro.[172] Even during her most luxurious days Rome, like Hetruria, retained in memoriam the use of copper (or bronze?) for the sclepista or sacrificial knife. When founding a city they ploughed the pomœrium with a share of æs. The Pontifex Maximus and priests of Jupiter used hair-shears of the same material, even as the Sabine priests cut their locks with knives of æs. The Ancile or sacred shield was also of æs. Pope, and other writers of his time, translated copper and bronze by ‘brass’ (copper and zinc); and in older English ‘native brass’ was opposed to ‘yellow copper’ (_cuivre jaune_). The same occurs in the A. V. Tubal Cain (the seventh in descent from Adam) is ‘an instructor of every artificer in _brass_ and iron’[173] (Gen. iv. 22). Moses is commanded to ‘cast five sockets of _brass_ for pillars’[174] (Exod. xxvi. 37). Bezaleel and Aholiab, ‘artists of the tabernacle,’ work in _brass_ (Exod. xxxi. 4). We read of a ‘land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig _brass_’ (Deut. viii. 9). Job tells us, ‘Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and _brass_ is molten out of the stone.’[175] Hiram of Tyre was ‘cunning to work all works in _brass_’ (casting and hammer-wrought), for Solomon’s Temple, which dates from about two centuries after the time of the Trojan war (B.C. 1200). In Ezra (viii. 27) the text mentions ‘two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold;’ and the margin reads ‘yellow or shining _brass_.’ Nor is the old word quite forgotten: we still speak of a ‘_brass_ gun.’