allude to the mythical Telchines (Τελχῖνες), the earliest artistic workers in metal, whom legend represented as magicians (γόητες), wizards who cast an evil eye on all who dared to compete with them (βάσκανοι, φθονεροὶ δαίμονες): Strabo xiv. 653: Tzetzes, Chil. vii. 123 f. The same charge of sorcery was laid against the Dactyli (Δάκτυλοι) of Ida in the Troad (or, as some have it, in Crete), who figure as the earliest blacksmiths: γόητες, φαρμακεῖς, schol. Apol. Rhod. Arg. i. 1129[1]. It was the wonder of a dark age for "uncanny" skill, expressing itself as it did towards the "adepts" of the middle age—when Michael Scott, for instance, a respectable young diplomatist who had dabbled in chemistry, passed for a wizard in the Border country, when he retired to study Aristotle in the gaunt house which may still be seen by the Yarrow. Pindar means: "The Heliadae, who wrought metal into images of living things without the aid of sorcery, were greater artists than the Telchines or Dactyli. Success in art also (like success in other things) is a greater achievement when it is honest. So, at least, it must seem to a man of understanding (δαέντι)." These earliest efforts of metal-working were especially associated with the mineral resources of Phrygia, Cyprus, Crete, and Rhodes. Another passage of Pindar recalls the age of rude wood-carving. The ornamented harness dedicated in the temple of Delphi by the victorious charioteer of
- ↑ For other passages on the Telchines and the Dactyli, see Overbeck's Schriftquellen §27 f.
