Note 916 — Chapter IV · INDUSTRY: SMITHS, CUTLERS, ARMOURERS, THE ART OF MINING, CHARCOAL-MAKING, ETC.

Herod. vii. 61. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 11. 11. Dioscor. i. 114. The Parthian kings, we are told, addicted themselves with pride to the forging and sharpening of arrow-heads: it may be presumed, because the bow was the national weapon of their country. Plut. Demet. § 20. The arrow-heads of the Indians were of unusually large dimensions. Plut. Alexand. § 63. That the arrow-heads of the ancient Scythians were of bronze appears from the following relation of Herodotus. Ariantas, a king of Scythia, desirous of ascertaining the number of his subjects, commanded them, on pain of death, to bring him each an arrow-head. His people obeyed the order; and when he had satisfied himself respecting their number, he ordered a huge vessel to be cast with the bronze, which, in the age of the Father of History, still existed at a place called Exampæos, between the Borysthenes and the Hypanis. It was six inches thick, and contained six hundred amphoræ. iv. 81.