Note 1 — Chapter III

Iliad, xxiii. 832. All this passage, the conclusion of the funeral games, is regarded as a late addition. It may be, but the poet preserves the distinction between the uses of iron for implements, and of bronze for weapons, which pervades both Epics. When a warrior like Achilles offers a mass of iron for a prize, "we rather expect from him," says Helbig, "an allusion to the military uses of the metal" (Das Homerische Epos, pp. 330, 331, 1887). But Homer does not regard iron as a military metal.