Mr. R. W. Raper, of Trinity College, Oxford, has read the proof sheets of this work with his habitual kindness, but is in no way responsible for the arguments. Mr. Walter Leaf has also obliged me by mentioning some points as to which I had not completely understood his position, and I have tried as far as possible to represent his ideas correctly. I have also received assistance from the wide and minute Homeric lore of Mr. A. Shewan, of St. Andrews, and have been allowed to consult other scholars on various points. The first portion of the chapter on "Bronze and Iron" appeared in the Revue _Archeologique_ for April 1905, and the editor, Monsieur Salomon Reinach, obliged me with a note on the bad iron swords of the Celts as described by Polybius. The design of men in three shields of different shapes, from a Dipylon vase, is reproduced, with permission, from the British Museum _Guide to the Antiquities of the Iron Age_; and the shielded chessmen from Catalogue of Scottish Society of Antiquaries. Thanks for the two ships with men under shield are offered to the Rev. Mr. Browne, S.J., author of _Handbook of Homeric Studies_ (Longmans). For the Mycenaean gold corslet I thank Mr. John Murray (Schliemann's Mycenae and Tiryns), and for all the other Mycenaean illustrations Messrs. Macmillan and Mr. Leaf, publishers and author of Mr. Leaf's edition of the _Iliad_. CONTENTS: CHAPTER I: THE HOMERIC AGE CHAPTER II: HYPOTHESES AS TO THE GROWTH OF THE EPICS CHAPTER III: HYPOTHESES OF EPIC COMPOSITION CHAPTER IV: LOOSE FEUDALISM: THE OVER-LORD IN "ILIAD," BOOKS I. AND II. CHAPTER V: AGAMEMNON IN THE LATER "ILIAD" CHAPTER VI: ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE "ILIAD"--BURIAL AND CREMATION CHAPTER VII: HOMERIC ARMOUR CHAPTER VIII: THE BREASTPLATE CHAPTER IX: BRONZE AND IRON CHAPTER X: THE HOMERIC HOUSE CHAPTER XI: NOTES OF CHANGE IN THE "ODYSSEY" CHAPTER XII: LINGUISTIC PROOFS OF VARIOUS DATES CHAPTER XIII: THE "DOLONEIA"--"ILIAD," BOOK X. CHAPTER XIV: THE INTERPOLATIONS OF NESTOR CHAPTER XV: THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EARLY EPICS CHAPTER XVI: HOMER AND THE FRENCH MEDIAEVAL EPICS CHAPTER XVII: CONCLUSION LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS: ALGONQUINS UNDER SHIELD THE VASE OF ARISTONOTHOS DAGGER WITH LION-HUNTERS RINGS: SWORDS AND SHIELDS FRAGMENTS OF WARRIOR VASE FRAGMENT OF SIEGE VASE ALGONQUIN CORSLET GOLD CORSLET CHAPTER I THE HOMERIC AGE The aim of this book is to prove that the Homeric Epics, as wholes, and apart from passages gravely suspected in antiquity, present a perfectly harmonious picture of the entire life and civilisation of one single age. The faint variations in the design are not greater than such as mark every moment of culture, for in all there is some movement; in all, cases are modified by circumstances. If our contention be true, it will follow that the poems themselves, as wholes, are the product of a single age, not a mosaic of the work of several changeful centuries.