THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

'
eu
THE HOMERIC AGE. 319
not worn by any of the men seen on Mycenean monuments
(save only on the warrior vase and its fellow objects from
the later strata). A Mycenean poet could hardly even in bold
metaphor compare a shield to a kind of garment, the existence
of which among the people of the Mycenean age has yet to be
proved. But on the warrior vase both the chiton and thorex
appear together as they are described in Homer and in company
with the round shield and greaves, both of which Reichel and
his followers would fain deny to the Homeric Achean. As
therefore monuments, dating from the Iron Age, show us a
style of equipment identical with that portrayed in Homer,
we need not seek to tear the Homeric poems in pieces.
The Shield. The Homeric shield is described by the
epithets 'circular' (Ku/cXoTep?;?), 'very circular' (vkvk\onn.
Homer docs not tell us the shajx' of the shield of the
'J'elanionian Ajax ; ho only says that it was like a tower, which
may I'cfcr sinq)Iy ti its iiiassi\-c sii-cngth', l>iit, as wt- have
seen, it is
(|uite possible that shields nf the (ilch'f
pattern
//. xi\. H71.
-
//. win. ):.."). //. M. ts.-,.
320 THE HOMERIC AGE.
continued in use in Achean times. It is not unlikely that
this famous buckler was made by a craftsman of the ancient
race, and therefore possibly it was of the ancient shape. It
was the work of Tychius of Hyle on Lake Copais in Boeotia.
Chalcus the son of Athamas, of the Minyan Orchomenus, was
traditionally the inventor of some kind of shield, and possibly
Tychius may have kept up the tradition of such a manufacture.
Now the traditional shield of Ajax
placed on the coins of Salamis at a
late period is a Boeotian shield, so
familiar on Boeotian coins (Fig. 02),
and which according- to a suggestion
of Mr A. J. Evans may be derived from
.. .
j^ ^ the
, Mycenean type. If this be so, it
>
-^ -^
Fig. 62. Com of IJoeotia r
with a shield. is remarkable to tind such a connecticm
existing between the shield invented by
the Minyans of Orchomenus and the Mycenean. Of course, to
make the argument i-eally cogent, we ought to be able to show
what was the shape of the shield invented by Chalcus. Pliny
calls it a clipeus, by which he meant a round shields
There is also a late tradition that Proetus and Acrisius
were the first who introduced the clipeus into Argolis. Whatever
may be the value of either of these statements, we can at
least infer from them that there was a general feeling that
the round shield was not indigenous, but that it had been
introduced or invented in the close of the Mycenean period.
The people of Salamis may very well have made the shield
of Ajax like that seen on the coins of Boeotia, because of the
statement of Homer that it was made by a Boeotian.
On the (jther hand the Locrians ]'e])resent Ajax, son of
Oileus, on their coins with the usual round (Jreek shield
(Fig. 96). If we could rely upon this as a true tradition, it
would show that the Achean shield was round.
It is perha])S signiticant that in the chief passage in the
Iluid where the o trreat shield which extended from the neck
to the ankles is mentioned, it is Periphetes the Mycenean who
1
.V. //. VII. 200.