_The Iliad_ is an epic of the Trojan War which was fought between the Greeks and the Trojans. The famous hero Achilles, who had quarrelled with King Agamemnon, would not go to fight himself, but he lent his armour to his noble friend Patroklos, who drove the Trojans from the ships, but was himself slain by Hector, son of King Priam of Troy. Achilles was then without armour, and Thetis, a goddess, said by the Greeks to be the mother of Achilles, went on his behalf to a very clever god, named Hephaistos, who was lame, but had wonderful skill in making armour. Hephaistos, if he had lived now, would likely have been a great engineer. In the eighteenth book of _The Iliad_, we can read a description of Hephaistos, of some of the marvels he had made and of his meeting with Thetis. Hephaistos "from the anvil rose limping, a huge bulk, but under him his slender legs moved nimbly. The bellows he set away from the fire, and gathered all his gear wherewith he worked into a silver chest; and with a sponge he wiped his face and hands and sturdy neck and shaggy breast, and did on his doublet, and took a stout staff and went forth limping; but there were handmaidens of gold that moved to help their {87} lord, the semblances of living maids. In them is understanding at their hearts, in them are voice and strength, and they have skill of the immortal gods. These moved beneath their lord, and he gat him haltingly near to where Thetis was, and set him on a bright seat, and clasped her hand in his and spake and called her by her name." It is delightful to understand while we read that the Greeks three thousand years ago were already imagining the marvels which could be accomplished by mankind. Many of these marvels actually have been achieved since then, only not exactly in the shape that the Greeks imagined. Hephaistos made, for Thetis to give to Achilles, a shield and a corslet and a helmet and greaves. He made them strong and beautiful. On the shield he fashioned wondrous pictures of life among the Greeks, marriage feasts, dancing, law courts, a city besieged, armies fighting, herds of cattle, harvesting, feasting, a vineyard, and youths and maidens gathering grapes. If you turn to this eighteenth book of Homer's _Iliad_, you may spend a very happy hour reading of Hephaistos and the armour. These songs made by Homer are one of the glories of mankind. In everything he sang, there is the special genius of the ancient Greeks, a power to create beauty, so perfect in all its proportions that it gives people when they read his songs a feeling of strength and steadiness as well as joy. Yet, it is true at the same time, that parts of _The Iliad_ and _The Odyssey_ show us a world which was savage and barbarous.