In 1883 Mr. Leaf wrote: "I take it that the _zoma_ means the waist of the cuirass which is covered by the _zoster_, and has the upper edge of the _mitre_ or plated apron beneath it fastened round the warrior's body. ... This view is strongly supported by all the archaic vase paintings I have been able to find." [Footnote: _Journal of Hellenic studies, vol. iv. pp. 74,75_.] We see a "corslet with a projecting rim"; that rim is called zoma and holds the _zoster_. "The hips and upper part of the thighs were protected either by a belt of leather, sometimes plated, called the _mitre_, or else only by the lower part of the _chiton_, and this corresponds exactly with Homeric description." [Footnote: _Journal of Hellenic_ Studies, _pp. 76, 77_.] At this time, in days before Reichel, Mr. Leaf believed in bronze corslets, whether of plates or plated jacks; he also believed, we have seen, that the huge shields, as of Aias, were survivals in poetry; that "Homer" saw small round bucklers in use, and supposed that the old warriors were muscular enough to wear circular shields as great as those in the vase of Aristonothos, already described. [Footnote: _Ibid., vol. iv p. 285_.] On the corslet, as we have seen, Mr. Leaf now writes as a disciple of Reichel. But as to the _mitre_, he rejects Helbig's and Mr. Ridgeway's opinion that it was a band of metal a foot wide in front and very narrow behind. Such things have been found in Euboea and in Italy. Mr. Ridgeway mentions examples from Bologna, Corneto, Este, Hallstatt, and Hungary. [Footnote: _Early Age of Greece, p. 31 I_.] The _zoster_ is now, in Mr. Leaf's opinion, a "girdle" "holding up the waist-cloth (_zoma_), so characteristic of Mycenaean dress!" Reichel's arguments against corslets "militate just as strongly against the presence of such a _mitre_, which is, in fact, just the lower half of a corslet.... The conclusion is that the metallic _mitre_ is just as much an intruder into the armament of the _Epos_ as the corslet." The process of evolution was, Mr. Leaf suggests, first, the abandonment of the huge shield, with the introduction of small round bucklers in its place. Then, second, a man naturally felt very unprotected, and put on "the metallic _mitre_" of Helbig (which covered a foot of him in front and three inches behind). "Only as technical skill improved could the final stage, that of the elaborate cuirass, be attained."