Homer and His Age Part 9

Further, if we follow Reichel and Mr. Leaf, the Mycenaeans wore _chitons_ and called them _chitons_. They also used bronze-plated s.h.i.+elds, though of this we have no evidence. Taking the bronze-plated (?) s.h.i.+eld to stand poetically for the _chiton_, the poet spoke of "_the bronze-chitoned Achaeans_" But, if we follow Mr. Myres, the Mycenaeans also applied the word _th.o.r.ex_ to body clothing at large, in place of the word _chiton_; and when a warrior was transfixed by a spear, they said that his "many-glittering, gold-studded _th.o.r.ex_," that is, his body clothing in general, was pierced. It does seem simpler to hold that _chiton_ meant _chiton_; that _th.o.r.ex_ meant, first, "breast," then "breastplate," whether of linen, or plaited leather, or bronze, and that to pierce a man through his [Greek: poludaidalos thoraex] meant to pierce him through his handsome corslet. No mortal ever dreamt that this was so till Reichel tried to make out that the original poet describes no armour except the large Mycenaean s.h.i.+eld and the _mitre_, and that all corslets in the poems were of much later introduction. Possibly they were, but they had plenty of time wherein to be evolved long before the eighth century, Reichel's date for corslets.

The argument is that a man with a large s.h.i.+eld needs no body armour, or uses the s.h.i.+eld because he has no body armour.

But the possession and use of a large s.h.i.+eld did not in the Middle Ages, or among the Iroquois and Algonquins, make men dispense with corslets, even when the s.h.i.+eld was worn, as in Homer, slung round the neck by a _telamon_ (_guige_ in Old French), belt, or baldric.

We turn to a French _Chanson de Geste--La Chancun de Willem_--of the twelfth century A.D., to judge by the handwriting. One of the heroes, Girard, having failed to rescue Vivien in battle, throws down his weapons and armour, blaming each piece for having failed him. Down goes the heavy lance; down goes the ponderous s.h.i.+eld, suspended by a _telamon: "Ohitarge grant c.u.me peises al col_!" down goes the plated byrnie, "_Ohi grant broine c.u.m me vas apesant_" [Footnote: _La Chancun de Willame_, lines 716-726.]

The mediaeval warrior has a heavy byrnie as well as a great s.h.i.+eld suspended from his neck. It will be remarked also that the Algonquins and Iroquois of the beginning of the seventeenth century, as described by Champlain, give us the whole line of Mycenaean evolution of armour up to a certain point. Not only had they arrow-proof, body-covering s.h.i.+elds of buffalo hide, but, when Champlain used his arquebus against the Iroquois in battle, "they were struck amazed that two of their number should have been killed so promptly, seeing that they wore a sort of armour, woven of cotton thread, and carried arrow-proof s.h.i.+elds."

We have already alluded to this pa.s.sage, but must add that Parkman, describing from French archives a battle of Illinois against Iroquois in 1680, speaks of "corslets of tough twigs interwoven with cordage."

[Footnote: _Discovery of the Great IV_, [misprint] 1869.] Golden, in his _Five Nations_, writes of the Red Indians as wearing "a kind of cuira.s.s made of pieces of wood joined together." [Footnote: Dix, _Champlion_ [misprint]]

To the kindness of Mr. Hill Tout I also owe a description of the armour of the Indian tribes of north-west America, from a work of his own.

He says: "For protective purposes in warfare they employed s.h.i.+elds and coat-armour. The s.h.i.+elds varied in form and material from tribe to tribe. Among the Interior Salish they were commonly made of wood, which was afterwards covered with hide. Sometimes they consisted of several thicknesses of hide only. The hides most commonly used were those of the elk, buffalo, or bear. After the advent of the Hudson's Bay Co. some of the Indians used to beat out the large copper kettles they obtained from the traders and make polished circular s.h.i.+elds of these. In some centres long rectangular s.h.i.+elds, made from a single or double hide, were employed. These were often from 4 to 5 feet in length and from 3 to 4 feet in width--large enough to cover the whole body. Among the Dene tribes (Sikanis) the s.h.i.+eld was generally made of closely-woven wicker-work, and was of an ovaloid form (exact size not given).

"The coat armour was _everywhere used_, and varied in form and style in almost every centre. There were two ways in which this was most commonly made. One of these was the slatted cuira.s.s or corslet, which was formed of a series of narrow slats of wood set side by side vertically and fastened in place by interfacings of raw hide. It went all round the body, being hung from the shoulders with straps. The other was a kind of s.h.i.+rt of double or treble elk hide, fastened at the side with thongs.

Another kind of armour, less common than that just described, was the long elk-hide tunic, which reached to and even _below the knees and was sleeved to the elbow."_

Mr. Hill Tout's minute description, with the other facts cited, leaves no doubt that even in an early stage, as in later stages of culture, the use of the great s.h.i.+eld does not exclude the use of such body armour as the means of the warriors enable them to construct. To take another instance, Pausanias describes the corslets of the neolithic Sarmatae, which he saw dedicated in the temple of Asclepius at Athens. Corslets these bowmen and users of the la.s.so possessed, though they did not use the metals. They fas.h.i.+oned very elegant corslets out of horses' hoofs, cutting them into scales like those of a pine cone, and sewing them on to cloth. [Footnote: Pausanias, i. 211. [misprint] 6.]

Certain small, thin, perforated discs of stone found in Scotland have been ingeniously explained as plates to be strung together on a garment of cloth, a neolithic _chiton_. However this may be, since Iroquois and Algonquins and Dene had some sort of woven, or plaited, or wooden, or buff corslet, in addition to their great s.h.i.+elds, we may suppose that the Achaeans would not be less inventive. They would pa.s.s from the [Greek: linothoraex] (answering to the cotton corslet of the Iroquois) to a sort of jack or _jaseran_ with rings, scales, or plates, and thence to bronze-plate corslets, represented only by the golden breastplates of the Mycenaean grave. Even if the Mycenaeans did not evolve the corslet, there is no reason why, in the Homeric times, it should not have been evolved.

For linen corslets, such as Homer mentions, in actual use and represented in works of art we consult Mr. Leaf on _The Armour_ of _Homeric_ Heroes.' He finds Memnon in a white corslet, on a black-figured vase in the British Museum. There is another white corsleted [Footnote: _Journal_ of _h.e.l.lenic_ Studies, vol. iv. pp.

82, 83, 85.] Memnon figured in the _Vases Peints_ of the Duc de Luynes (plate xii.). Mr. Leaf suggests that the white colour represents "a corslet not of metal but of linen," and cites _Iliad_, II. 529, 5 30. "Xenophon mentions linen corslets as being worn by the Chalybes"

(_Anabasis_, iv. 15). Two linen corslets, sent from Egypt to Sparta by King Amasis, are recorded by Herodotus (ii. 182; iii. 47). The corslets were of linen, embroidered in cotton and gold. Such a piece of armour or attire might easily develop into the [Greek: streptos chitoon] of _Iliad_, V. 113, in which Aristarchus appears to have recognised chain or scale armour; but we find no such object represented in Mycenaean art, which, of course, does not depict Homeric armour or costume, and it seems probable that the bronze corslets mentioned by Homer were plate armour. The linen corslet lasted into the early sixth century B.C. In the poem called _Stasiotica_, Alcaeus (_No_. 5) speaks of his helmets, bronze greaves and corslets of linen ([Choorakes te neoi linoo]) as a defence against arrows.

Meanwhile a "bronze _chiton_" or corslet would turn spent arrows and spent spears, and be very useful to a warrior whose s.h.i.+eld left him exposed to shafts shot or spears thrown from a distance. Again, such a bronze _chiton_ might stop a spear of which the impetus was spent in penetrating the s.h.i.+eld. But Homeric corslets did not, as a rule, avail to keep out a spear driven by the hand at close quarters, or powerfully thrown from a short distance. Even the later Greek corslets do not look as if they could resist a heavy spear wielded by a strong hand.

I proceed to show that the Homeric corslet did not avail against a spear at close quarters, but could turn an arrow point (once), and could sometimes turn a spear which had perforated a s.h.i.+eld. So far, and not further, the Homeric corslet was serviceable. But if a warrior's breast or back was not covered by the s.h.i.+eld, and received a thrust at close quarters, the corslet was pierced more easily than the pad of paper which was said to have been used as secret armour in a duel by the Master of Sinclair (1708). [Footnote: _Proceedings in Court Marshal held upon John, Master of Sinclair_. Sir Walter Scott. Roxburghe Club.

(Date of event, 1708.)] It is desirable to prove this feebleness of the corslet, because the poet often says that a man was smitten with the spear in breast or back when unprotected by the s.h.i.+eld, without mentioning the corslet, whence it is argued by the critics that corslets were not worn when the original lays were fas.h.i.+oned, and that they have only been sporadically introduced, in an after age when the corslet was universal, by "modernising" later rhapsodists aiming at the up-to-date.

A weak point is the argument that Homer says back or breast was pierced, without mentioning the corslet, whence it follows that he knew no corslets. Quintus Smyrnaeus does the same thing. Of course, Quintus knew all about corslets, yet (Book I. 248, 256, 257) he makes his heroes drive spear or sword through breast or belly without mentioning the resistance of the corslet, even when (I. 144, 594) he has a.s.sured us that the victim was wearing a corslet. These facts are not due to inconsistent interpolation of corslets into the work of this post-Christian poet Quintus. [Footnote: I find a similar omission in the _Chanson de Roland_.]

Corslets, in Homer, are flimsy; that of Lycaon, worn by Paris, is pierced by a spear which has also perforated his s.h.i.+eld, though the spear came only from the weak hand of Menelaus (_Iliad_, III. 357, 358).

The arrow of Pandarus whistles through the corslet of Menelaus (IV.

136). The same archer pierces with an arrow the corslet of Diomede (V.

99, 100). The corslet of Diomede, however, avails to stop a spear which has traversed his s.h.i.+eld (V. 281). The spear of Idomeneus pierces the corslet of Othryoneus, and the spear of Antilochus perforates the corslet of a charioteer (XIII. 371, 397). A few lines later Diomede's spear reaches the midriff of Hypsenor. No corslet is here mentioned, but neither is the s.h.i.+eld mentioned (this constantly occurs), and we cannot argue that Hypsenor wore no corslet, unless we are also to contend that he wore no s.h.i.+eld, or a small s.h.i.+eld. Idomeneus drives his spear through the "_bronze chiton_" of Alcathous (XIII. 439, 440). Mr. Leaf reckons these lines "probably an interpolation to turn the linen _chiton_, the rending of which is the sign of triumph, into a bronze corslet." But we ask why, if an editor or rhapsodist went through the _Iliad_ introducing corslets, he so often left them out, where the critics detect their absence because they are not mentioned?

The spear of Idomeneus pierces another feeble corslet over the victim's belly (XIII. 506-508). It is quite a surprise when a corslet does for once avail to turn an arrow (XIII. 586-587). But Aias drives his spear through the corslet of Phorcys, into his belly (XVII 311-312). Thus the corslet scarcely ever, by itself, protects a hero; it never protects him against an unspent spear; even when his s.h.i.+eld stands between his corslet and the spear both are sometimes perforated. Yet occasionally the corslet saves a man when the spear has gone through the s.h.i.+eld. The poet, therefore, sometimes gives us a man pierced in a part which the corslet covers, without mentioning the flimsy article that could not keep out a spear.

Reichel himself came to see, before his regretted death, that he could not explain away the _th.o.r.ex_ or corslet, on his original lines, as a mere general name for "a piece of armour"; and he inclined to think that jacks, with metal plates sewn on, did exist before the Ionian corslet.

[Footnote: _Homerische Waffen_, pp. 93-94. 1901.] The gold breastplates of the Mycenaean graves pointed in this direction. But his general argument is that corslets were interpolated into the old lays by poets of a corslet-wearing age; and Mr. Leaf holds that corslets may have filtered in, "during the course of successive modernisation, such as the oldest parts of the _Iliad_ seem in many cases to have pa.s.sed through,"

[Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, i. p. 578.] though the new poets were, for all that, "conservatively tenacious of the old material." We have already pointed out the difficulty.

The poets who did not introduce the new small bucklers with which they were familiar, did stuff the _Iliad_ full of corslets unknown, by the theory, to the original poet, but familiar to rhapsodists living centuries later. Why, if they were bent on modernising, did they not modernise the s.h.i.+elds? and how, if they modernised unconsciously, as all uncritical poets do, did the s.h.i.+eld fail to be unconsciously "brought up to date"? It seems probable that Homer lived at a period when both huge s.h.i.+eld and rather feeble corslet were in vogue.

We shall now examine some of the pa.s.sages in which Mr. Leaf, mainly following Reichel, raises difficulties about corslets. We do not know their mechanism; they were composed of [Greek: guala], presumed to be a backplate and a breastplate. The word _gualon_ appears to mean a hollow, or the converse, something convex. We cannot understand the mechanism (see a young man putting on a corslet, on an amphora by Euthymides.

Walter, vol. ii. p. 176); but, if late poets, familiar with such corslets, did not understand how they worked, they were very dull men.

When their descriptions puzzle us, that is more probably because we are not at the point of view than because poets interpolated mentions of pieces of armour which they did not understand, and therefore cannot have been familiar with, and, in that case, would not introduce.

Mr. Leaf starts with a pa.s.sage in the _Iliad_ (III. 357-360)--it recurs in another case: "Through the bright s.h.i.+eld went the ponderous spear, and through the inwrought" (very artfully wrought), [Greek: poludaidalou] "breastplate it pressed on, and straight beside his flank it rent the tunic, but he swerved and escaped black death." Mr.

Leaf says, "It is obvious that, after a spear has pa.s.sed through a breastplate, there is no longer any possibility for the wearer to bend aside and so to avoid the point...." But I suppose that the wearer, by a motion very natural, doubled up sideways, so to speak, and so the spear merely grazed his flesh. That is what I suppose the poet to intend.

The more he knew of corslets, the less would he mention an impossible circ.u.mstance in connection with a corslet.

Again, in many cases the late poets, by the theory--though it is they who bring the corslets in--leave the corslets out! A man without s.h.i.+eld, helmet, and spear calls himself "naked." Why did not these late poets, it is asked, make him take off his corslet, if he had one, as well as his s.h.i.+eld? The case occurs in XXII. 111-113,124-125. Hector thinks of laying aside helmet, spear, and s.h.i.+eld, and of parleying with Achilles.

"But then he will slay me naked," that is, unarmed. "He still had his corslet," the critics say, "so how could he be naked? or, if he had no corslet, this is a pa.s.sage uncontaminated by the late poets of the corslet age." Now certainly Hector _was_ wearing a corslet, which he had taken from Patroclus: that is the essence of the story. He would, however, be "naked" or unprotected if he laid aside helmet, spear, and s.h.i.+eld, because Achilles could hit him in the head or neck (as he did), or lightly drive the spear through the corslet, which, we have proved, was no sound defence against a spear at close quarters, though useful against chance arrows, and occasionally against spears spent by traversing the s.h.i.+eld.

We next learn that no corslet occurs in the _Odyssey_, or in _Iliad_, Book X., called "very late": Mr. Leaf suggests that it is of the seventh century B.C. But if the Odyssey and Iliad, Book X., are really very late, their authors and interpolators were perfectly familiar with Ionian corslets. Why did they leave corslets out, while their predecessors and contemporaries were introducing them all up and down the _Iliad_? In fact, in Book X, no prince is regularly equipped; they have been called up to deliberate in the dead of night, and when two go as spies they wear casual borrowed gear. It is more important that no corslet is mentioned in Nestor's arms in his tent. But are we to explain this, and the absence of mention of corslets in the Odyssey (where there is little about regular fighting), on the ground that the author of _Iliad_, Book X., and all the many authors and editors of the _Odyssey_ happened to be profound archaeologists, and, unlike their contemporaries, the later poets and interpolators of the _Iliad_, had formed the theory that corslets were not known at the time of the siege of Troy and therefore must not be mentioned? This is quite incredible.

No hypothesis can be more improbable. We cannot imagine late Ionian rhapsodists listening to the _Iliad_, and saying, "These poets of the _Iliad_ are all wrong: at the date of the Mycenaean prime, as every educated man knows, corslets were not yet in fas.h.i.+on. So we must have no corslets in the _Odyssey_?"

A modern critic, who thinks this possible, is bringing the practice of archaising poets of the late nineteenth century into the minds of rhapsodists of the eighth century before Christ. Artists of the middle of the sixteenth century always depict Jeanne d'Arc in the armour and costume of their own time, wholly unlike those of 1430. This is the regular rule. Late rhapsodists would not delve in the archaeology of the Mycenaean prime. Indeed, one does not see how they could discover, in Asia, that corslets were not worn, five centuries earlier, on the other side of the sea.

We are told that Aias and some other heroes are never spoken of as wearing corslets. But Aias certainly did put on a set of pieces of armour, and did not trust to his s.h.i.+eld alone, tower-like as it was. The description runs thus: The Achaeans have disarmed, before the duel of Aias and Hector. Aias draws the lucky lot; he is to 'meet Hector, and bids the others pray to Zeus "while I clothe me in my armour of battle."

While they prayed, Aias "arrayed himself in flas.h.i.+ng bronze. And when he had now clothed upon his flesh _all_ his pieces of armour" ([Greek: panta teuchae]) "he went forth to fight." If Aias wore only a s.h.i.+eld, as on Mr. Leaf's hypothesis, he could sling it on before the Achaeans could breathe a _pater noster_. His sword he would not have taken off; swords were always worn. What, then, are "all his pieces of armour"? (VII. 193, 206).

Carl Robert cites pa.s.sages in which the [Greek: teuchea], taken from the shoulders, include corslets, and are late and Ionian, with other pa.s.sages which are Mycenaean, with no corslet involved. He adds about twenty more pa.s.sages in which [Greek: teuchea] include corslets. Among these references two are from the _Doloneia_ (X. 254, 272), where Reichel finds no mention of corslets. How Robert can tell [Greek: teuchea], which mean corslets, from [Greek: teuchea], which exclude corslets, is not obvious. But, at all events, he does see corslets, as in VII. 122, where Reichel sees none, [Footnote: Robert, _Studien zur Ilias_, pp. 20-21.] and he is obviously right.

It is a strong point with Mr. Leaf that "we never hear of the corslet in the case of Aias...." [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 576.] Robert, however, like ourselves, detects the corslet among "_al_ the [Greek: teuchea]" which Aias puts on for his duel with Hector (Iliad, VII. 193, 206-207).

In the same Book (VII. 101-103, 122) the same difficulty occurs.

Menelaus offers to fight Hector, and says, "I will put on my harness"

[Greek: thooraxomai], and does "put on his fair pieces of armour"

[Greek: teuchea kala], Agamemnon forbids him to fight, and his friends "joyfully take his pieces of armour" [Greek: teuchea] "from his shoulders" (_Iliad_, VII. 206-207). They take off pieces of armour, in the plural, and a s.h.i.+eld cannot be spoken of in the plural; while the sword would not be taken off--it was worn even in peaceful costume.

Idomeneus is never named as wearing a corslet, but he remarks that he has plenty of corslets (XIII. 264); and in this and many cases opponents of corslets prove their case by cutting out the lines which disprove it.

Anything may be demonstrated if we may excise whatever pa.s.sage does not suit our hypothesis. It is impossible to argue against this logical device, especially when the critic, not satisfied with a clean cut, supposes that some late enthusiast for corslets altered the prayer of Thetis to Hephaestus for the very purpose of dragging in a corslet.

[Footnote: Leaf, Note to _Iliad_, xviii. 460, 461.] If there is no objection to a line except that a corslet occurs in it, where is the logic in excising the line because one happens to think that corslets are later than the oldest parts of the _Iliad_?

Another plan is to maintain that if the poet does not in any case mention a corslet, there was no corslet. Thus in V. 99, an arrow strikes Diomede "hard by the right shoulder, the plate of the corslet." Thirteen lines later (V. 112, 113) "Sthenelus drew the swift shaft right through out of Diomede's shoulder, and the blood darted up through the pliant _chiton_." We do not know what the word here translated "pliant" [Greek: streptos] means, and Aristarchus seems to have thought it was "a coat of mail, chain, or scale armour." If so, here is the corslet, but in this case, if a corslet or jack with intertwisted small plates or scales or rings of bronze be meant, _gualon_ cannot mean a large "plate," as it does. Mr. Ridgeway says, "It seems certain that [Greek: streptos chitoon] means, as Aristarchus held, a s.h.i.+rt of mail." [Footnote: _Early Age of Greece_, vol. i. p, 306.] Mr. Leaf says just the reverse. As usual, we come to a deadlock; a clash of learned opinion. But any one can see that, in the s.p.a.ce of thirteen lines, no poet or interpolator who wrote V. i 12, i 13 could forget that Diomede was said to be wearing a corslet in V. 99; and even if the poet could forget, which is out of the question, the editor of 540 B.C. was simply defrauding his employer, Piaistratus, if he did not bring a remedy for the stupid fault of the poet. When this or that hero is not specifically said to be wearing a corslet, it is usually because the poet has no occasion to mention it, though, as we have seen, a man is occasionally smitten, in the midriff, say, without any remark on the flimsy piece of mail.

That corslets are usually taken for granted as present by the poet, even when they are not explicitly named, seems certain. He constantly represents the heroes as "stripping the pieces of mail" [Greek: teuchea], when they have time and opportunity, from fallen foes. If only the s.h.i.+eld is taken, if there is nothing else in the way of bronze body armour to take, why have we the plural, [Greek: teuchea]? The corslet, as well as the s.h.i.+eld, must be intended. The stripping is usually "from the shoulders," and it is "from his shoulders" that Hector hopes to strip the corslet of Diomede (Iliad, VIII. 195) in a pa.s.sage, to be sure, which the critics think interpolated. However this may be, the stripping of the (same Greek characters), cannot be the mere seizure of the s.h.i.+eld, but must refer to other pieces of armour: "all the pieces of armour." So other pieces of defensive armour besides the s.h.i.+eld are throughout taken for granted. If they were not there they could not be stripped. It is the chitons that Agamemnon does something to, in the case of two fallen foes (_Iliad_, XI. 100), and Aristarchus thought that these _chitons_ were corslets. But the pa.s.sage is obscure. In _Iliad_, XI. 373, when Diomede strips helmet from head, s.h.i.+eld from shoulder, corslet from breast of Agastrophus, Reichel was for excising the corslet, because it was not mentioned when the hero was struck on the hip joint. I do not see that an inefficient corslet would protect the hip joint. To do that, in our eighteenth century cavalry armour, was the business of a _zoster_, as may be seen in a portrait of the Chevalier de St. George in youth. It is a thick ribbed _zoster_ that protects the hip joints of the king.

Finally, Mr. Evans observes that the western invaders of Egypt, under Rameses III, are armed, on the monuments, with cuira.s.ses formed of a succession of plates, "horizontal, or rising in a double curve," while the Enkomi ivories, already referred to, corroborate the existence of corslet, _zoster_, and _zoma_ as articles of defensive armour.

[Footnote: _Journal of Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, x.x.x. p. 213.] "Recent discoveries," says Mr. Evans, "thus supply a double corroboration of the Homeric tradition which carries back the use of the round s.h.i.+eld and the cuira.s.s or [Greek: thoraex] to the earlier epic period... With such a representation before us, a series of Homeric pa.s.sages on which Dr.

Reichel... has exhausted his powers of destructive criticism, becomes readily intelligible." [Footnote: Ibid., p. 214.]

Homer, then, describes armour _later_ than that of the Mycenaean prime, when, as far as works of art show, only a huge leathern s.h.i.+eld was carried, though the gold breastplates of the corpses in the grave suggest that corslets existed. Homer's men, on the other hand, have, at least in certain cases quoted above, large bronze-plated s.h.i.+elds and bronze cuira.s.ses of no great resisting power, perhaps in various stages of evolution, from the byrnie with scales or small plates of bronze to the breastplate and backplate, though the plates for breast and back certainly appear to be usually worn.

It seems that some critics cannot divest themselves of the idea that "the original poet" of the "kernel" was contemporary with them who slept in the shaft graves of Mycenae, covered with golden ornaments, and that for body armour he only knew their monstrous s.h.i.+elds. Mr. Leaf writes: "The armour of Homeric heroes corresponds closely to that of the Mykenaean age as we learn it from the monuments. The heroes wore no breastplate; their only defensive armour was the enormous Mykenaean s.h.i.+eld...."

This is only true if we excise all the pa.s.sages which contradict the statement, and go on with Mr. Leaf to say, "by the seventh century B.C., or thereabouts, the idea of a panoply without a breastplate had become absurd. By that time the epic poems had almost ceased to grow; but they still admitted a few minor episodes in which the round s.h.i.+eld" (where (?) "and corslet played a part, as well as the interpolation of a certain number of lines and couplets in which the new armament was mechanically introduced into narratives which originally knew nothing of it."

[Footnote: _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 568.]

On the other hand, Mr. Leaf says that "the small circular s.h.i.+eld of later times is unknown to Homer," with "a very few curious exceptions,"

in which the s.h.i.+elds are not said to be small or circular. [Footnote: _Iliad_, vol. i. p, 575.]

Surely this is rather arbitrary dealing! We start from our theory that the original poet described the armour of "the monuments" though _they_ are "of the prime," while he professedly lived long after the prime--lived in an age when there must have been changes in military equipment. We then cut out, as of the seventh century, whatever pa.s.sages do not suit our theory. Anybody can prove anything by this method. We might say that the siege scene on the Mycenaean silver vase represents the Mycenaean prime, and that, as there is but one jersey among eight men otherwise stark naked, we must cut out seven-eighths of the _chitons_ in the _Iliad_, these having been interpolated by late poets who did not run about with nothing on. We might call the whole poem late, because the authors know nothing of the Mycenaean bathing-drawers so common on the "monuments." The argument compels Mr. Leaf to a.s.sume that a s.h.i.+eld can be called [Greek: teuchea] in the plural, so, in _Iliad_, VII. 122, when the squires of Menelaus "take the [Greek: teuchea] from his shoulders," we are a.s.sured that "the s.h.i.+eld (aspis) was for the chiefs alone" (we have seen that all the host of Pandarus wore s.h.i.+elds), "for those who could keep a chariot to carry them, and squires to a.s.sist them in taking off this ponderous defence" (see VII 122). [Footnote: _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 583.]

We do "see VII. 122," and find that not a _single_ s.h.i.+eld, but pieces of gear in the plural number were taken off Menelaus. The feeblest warrior without any a.s.sistance could stoop his head and put it through the belt of his s.h.i.+eld, as an angler takes off his fis.h.i.+ng creel, and there he was, totally disarmed. No squire was needed to disarm him, any more than to disarm Girard in the _Chancun de Willame_. n.o.body explains why a s.h.i.+eld is spoken of as a number of things, in the plural, and that constantly, and in lines where, if the poet means a s.h.i.+eld, prosody permits him to _say_ a s.h.i.+eld, [Greek: therapontes ap oopoon aspid elonto].