so interprets represents these men of brass as "mighty by reason of their ashen spears." The question is set at rest by the context, in which the arms of this race are actually said to have been of brass. This age was hard and ferocious, and, unlike those preceding it, carnivorous. It perished by mutual slaughter, and found an end most unlike the posthumous honours of the silver race, in an ignominious descent to Hades:—
The deeds of battle and the dying groan:
Bloody their feasts, by wheaten bread unblest;
Of adamant was each unyielding breast.
Huge, nerved with strength, each hardy giant stands,
And mocks approach with unresisted hands;
Their mansions, implements, and armour shine
In brass dark iron slept within the mine.
They by each other's hands inglorious fell,
In horrid darkness plunged, the house of hell.
Fierce though they were, their mortal course was run,
Death gloomy seized, and snatched them from the sun."
—E. 193-204.
At this stage Hesiod suspends awhile the downward course of ages and races, and reflecting that, having commemorated the "genii" on earth and the blessed spirits in Hades, he must not overlook the "heroes," a veneration for whom formed an important part of the religion of Hellas, brings the "heroic age"—apparently unmetallic—into a place to which their prowess entitled them, next to the brazen age; and at the same time, contrasting their virtues with the character of their violent predecessors, assigns to them an after-
