Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 Excerpt:... battle-axe. Not so, however, with defensive armor. Our survey shows that in the earlier period, at least, this consisted (strictly speaking) of the great shield alone; for the breastplate is never met with, save on late monuments like the Warrior Vase, and greaves and helmet, made as they were of leather or cloth, differed but little if any from the gaiters and cap worn in time of peace, and hardly formed a distinctive part of the wargear,--helmet crests and horns alone excepted. Nor were offensive arms of every kind as common as Odyssey, xxi. 420 ff. 2 By Montelius in Archiv filr Anthropologic, 1892. » Iliad, xv. 711. one might suppose. In the Acropolis graves at Mycenae, abounding as they did in metals, the spear-heads found were but few, while in the later tombs sword-blades as well as spear-heads are, as a rule, of rare occurrence. Arrowheads, on the other hand, are comparatively abundant. Now it is true that we cannot safely reason from the absence of funeral offerings, for the survivors, as we have seen, often removed from the tomb the best of these, arms undoubtedly included. Still, the fact of their absence, taken together with the paucity of defensive armor and with the evidence of certain monuments (notably the Siege Scene), justifies the conclusion that sword and spear were arms for the few, not for the mass. While princes wore the sword with its richly ornate blade and sheath and belt, and their picked men bore shield and spear, the rank and file doubtless fought simply with bow and sling. Thus we may conceive a Mycenaean army marching out to battle. The chief mounted on his chariot (as we see him on the stelae that marked his tomb and the A Mycesignet he wore) fares forth in panoply--with naean army his great emblazoned shield, his plumed...