Note 803 — Chapter XI · THE SWORD IN ANCIENT GREECE: HOMER; HESIOD AND HERODOTUS: MYCENÆ.

Rawlinson’s Herodotus, 60. The learned commentator quotes Müller, Hist. Græc. (iv. 429), Amm. Marcellinus (xxxi. 2), Jornandes (De Reb. Geticis, cap. xxxv.), Niebuhr’s Scythia (p. 46, E. Tr.), &c. In vol. iii. 60, he gives a ground-plan of the tomb, whose chief place also yielded a gold shield, a whip, a bow, a bow-case, five statuettes, and an iron Sword. The space by the side contained a woman’s bones, with a diadem and ornaments in gold and electrum. Other barrows in Russia and Tartary showed bodies resting upon sheets of pure gold weighing forty pounds, with bronze weapons and ornaments set with rubies and emeralds. Herodotus’ description of the scalping (ἀποσκυθίζειν, iv. 64) would apply to the North American ‘Indians’ of our day; and the sending a messenger to Zalmoxis, god of the Getæ (iv. 94), is the practice of modern Dahome and Benin.