The Origin of Iron and Its Discontents in Hellenistic Poetry

Chad M. Schroeder (University of Michigan)

This paper examines the origin of iron and its negative effects on human civilization in Hellenistic literature. Cultural historians of the fourth and third centuries b.c.e. posited pre- and post-iron phases of human history based on a literal reading of Hesiod’s statement that the people of the Bronze Age were ignorant of iron (Op. 151): μέλας δ᾿ οὐκ ἔσκε σίδηρος. When writing about the earliest days of humankind, Hellenistic poets considered the development of iron as marking the division between two separate eras; further, their characterization of iron as the most cruel and lethal metal conforms to its earlier treatment by Homer and Hesiod. My paper first shows how Hellenistic scholars discussed the origin of iron. The paper then examines how in Hellenistic poetry the absence of iron marked an earlier epoch of history, and how its origin and use ushered in a new and dangerous time for humanity.

Among Hellenistic scholars who wrote on the history of metallurgy, Apollonius Sophistes (s.v. xãlkea [Bekker p. 166]) and the scholiast to Apollonius of Rhodes (sch. ad A.R.. 1.430 a [Wendel p. 39]) both quote Hesiod as a witness to a period of human prehistory which lacked iron. This era is described in the pseudo-Theocritean Idyll 25. Here Heracles, who lived in the earliest generation of heroes, cannot skin the Nemean lion because he lacks an iron knife (Id. 25.274–75): ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἔσκε σιδήρῳ | τμητή (a close rephrasing of Hesiod). Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica also presents a period when iron is unknown. Apollonius consistently depicts the Greek heroes as not having iron, but does not remove it entirely from his poem. Iron is, for example, forged by the Cyclopes (Argo. 1.733–34, 4.775–76). Eventually the Argonauts visit two iron-bearing lands, that of the Bebrykians (Argo. 2.141) and of the Chalybes (Argo. 2.375–76, 2.1002–8). Apollonius’ bleak description of the land of the Chalybes stresses the metal’s negative effect. But never do Greeks themselves use iron. Apollonius’ presentation seems to recall a dim cultural memory, stretching back to Homer, that iron was an eastern import. Callimachus also explored different aitiologies for the origin of iron. He credits the Chalybes with the discovery of iron when he addresses the apotheosized lock of Berenice in Aitia IV (Pfeiffer fr. 110.47–50). Berenice’s lock laments mankind’s knowledge of iron, which can shear hair as well as cut through mountains. Callimachus discusses the early history and significance of iron elsewhere as well. In a heavily damaged fragment, he offers an alternative aitiology of the discovery of iron (Pfeiffer fr. 115.11–17 = Massimilla fr. 65.11–17). Here two people, one of whom was named Onnes, discovered the art of ironworking by hiding near the forge of Hephaestus. In another fragmentary work, Callimachus alluded to the dissemination of ironworking (Pfeiffer fr. 701) and possibly attributes the origin of iron to another eastern mythological race of early metallurgists, the Idaean Dactyls.