[Illustration: Fig. 2. Scene from Clazomenae Sarcophagus in British Museum.]
It is unnecessary to consider in detail the confused and lifeless descriptions of these events, but a word must be said of the events themselves. The combat between armed men is depicted on a sixth-century sarcophagus from Clazomenae, now in the British Museum (Fig. 2).[12] Here, among chariots in full course, or preparing for the race, we see pairs of warriors fighting. They are armed with helmet, spear, and shield, and between each pair stands a youth playing the pipes to show the nature of the fight. At either end stands a pillar bearing a bowl for the prize, while against the pillar rests a naked figure leaning dejectedly upon a staff, the spirit apparently of the dead man in whose honour the games were held. The armed combat was alien, however, to the spirit of the Greeks; we hear of it, indeed, in later times at Mantinea and at Cyrene, but it found no place in any of the great Greek festivals.[13] It was probably connected exclusively with funeral rites, a substitute for human sacrifices. In the earlier part of the book Achilles slays twelve Trojan captives upon the pyre of his friend; in the latter part armed warriors fight in his honour. The one scene is but the later doublet of the other.
The description of the archery competition is simply ludicrous. The first prize is for the man who hits a dove fastened by a cord to the top of a mast, while the second prize is for the man who performs the infinitely harder feat of severing the cord. The choice of ten double axes for the first prize and ten single axes for second suspiciously suggests a reminiscence of the more serious competition with Odysseus’ bow in the _Odyssey_, where the twelve axe-heads to be shot for are part of the treasures that Odysseus had once won as prizes.[14] In the _Odyssey_ the bow holds an honourable place, but in the _Iliad_, though a few heroes are famed for their skill in archery, the bow is rather the weapon of the soldiery, and especially of the Trojans, and skill with it is regarded by the Achaean noble who fought in his chariot with the same not unnatural dislike and contempt, not unmingled with fear, as it was by the chivalry of France in the days of Agincourt.[15]