Page:Troja by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/99

brooches. I may still further mention that a bronze brooch with a spiral head was found in the ancient cemetery on the Kattenborn road in the district of Guben.^[1]

I think it not out of place to observe here that we do not find in Homer any special word to designate metals; but we find in the poems the verb μεταλλάω,^[2] with which is connected the later substantive μέταλλον, which the ancients acknowledged to be derived from μετ᾿ ἄλλα. Consequently μεταλλᾶν signified "to search for other things," and μέταλλον the research, the spot where researches were made, and the object of research itself.^[3] From this was developed the more special signification of mines, shafts in which metals, minerals, &c., were searched for; and thence the expression μέταλλα was transferred to the minerals, and especially metals, obtained from the mines.^[4]

Having discussed at great length in Ilios (pp. 253–260) the interesting question, whence the Trojans obtained their gold, I may here add that Mr. Calvert has called my attention to a passage in Strabo not noticed by me, according 'to which Demetrius of Scepsis received from Callisthenes and some other authors the legend, "that the wealth of Tantalus and the Pelopids was derived from the mines in Phrygia and the Sipylus; that of Cadmus, from those in Thrace and the mountain of Pangaeus; that of Priam, from the gold-mines of Astyra near Abydos, of which a little has remained until now, and of which the numerous heaps of earth thrown out, as well as the underground