Note 190 — Chapter XX · STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS AS EXHIBITED IN GRECIAN LEGEND.

Hesiod, Opp. Di. 150-420. The examination of the various matters of antiquity discoverable throughout the north of Europe, as published by the Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen, recognizes a distinction of three successive ages: 1. Implements and arms of stone, bone, wood, etc.: little or no use of metals at all; clothing made of skins. 2. Implements and arms of copper and gold, or rather bronze and gold; little or no silver or iron. Articles of gold and electrum are found belonging to this age, but none of silver, nor any evidences of writing. 3. The age which follows this has belonging to it arms of iron, articles of silver, and some Runic inscriptions: it is the last age of northern paganism, immediately preceding the introduction of Christianity (Leitfaden zur Nördischen Alterthumskunde, pp. 31, 57, 63, Copenhagen, 1837).

The Homeric age coincides with the second of these two periods. Silver is comparatively little mentioned in Homer, while both bronze and gold are familiar metals. Iron also is rare, and seems employed only for agricultural purposes—Χρυσόν τε, χαλκόν τε ἅλις, ἐσθῆτα θ᾽ ὑφαντήν (Iliad, vi. 48; Odyss. ii. 338; xiii. 136). The χρυσοχόος and the χαλκεὺς are both mentioned in Homer, but workers in silver and iron are not known by any special name (Odyss. iii. 425-436).

“The hatchet, wimble, plane, and level, are the tools mentioned by Homer, who appears to have been unacquainted with the saw, the square, and the compass.” (Gillies, Hist. of Greece, chap. ii. p. 61.)

The Gauls, known to Polybius, seemingly the Cisalpine Gauls only, possessed all their property in cattle and gold,—θρέμματα καὶ χρυσὸς,—on account of the easy transportability of both (Polyb. ii. 17).