To return to the _size_ of the shield. In a feigned tale of Odysseus (Odyssey, XIV. 474-477), men in a wintry ambush place their shields over their shoulders, as they lie on the ground, to be a protection against snow. But any sort of shield, large or small, would protect the shoulders of men in a recumbent position. Quite a large shield may seem to be indicated in _Iliad_, XIII. 400-405, where Idomeneus curls up his whole person behind his shield; he was "hidden" by it. Yet, as any one can see by experiment, a man who crouched low would be protected entirely by a Highland targe of less than thirty inches in diameter, so nothing about the size of the shield is ascertained in this passage. On a black-figured vase in the British Museum (B, 325) the entire body of a crouching warrior is defended by a large Boeotian buckler, oval, and with _echancrures_ in the sides. The same remark applies to _Z&ad_[sic], XXII. 273-275. Hector watches the spear of Achilles as it flies; he crouches, and the spear flies over him. Robert takes this as an "old Mycenaean" dodge--to duck down to the bottom of the shield. [Footnote: _Studien zur Ilias_, p. 21.] The avoidance by ducking can be managed with no shield, or with a common Highland targe, which would cover a man in a crouching posture, as when Glenbucket's targe was peppered by bullets at Clifton (746), and Cluny shouted "What the devil is this?" the assailants firing unexpectedly from a ditch. A few moments of experiment, we repeat, prove that a round targe can protect a man in Hector's attitude, and that the Homeric texts here throw no light on the _size_ of the shield. The shield of Hector was of black bull's-hide, and as large and long as any represented in Mycenaean art, so that, as he walked, the rim knocked against his neck and ankles. The shape is not mentioned. Despite its size, he _walked_ under it from the plain and field of battle into Troy (_Iliad_, VI. 116-118). This must be remembered, as Reichel [Footnote: Reichel, 38, 39. Father Browne (_Handbook_, p. 230) writes, "In _Odyssey_, XIV 475, Odysseus says he slept within the shield." He says "under arms" (_Odyssey_, XIV. 474, but _cf_. XIV. 479).] maintains that a man could not walk under shield, or only for a short way; wherefore the war chariot was invented, he says, to carry the fighting man from point to point (Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 573). Mr. Leaf elaborates these points: "Why did not the Homeric heroes ride? Because no man could carry such a shield on horseback." [Footnote: _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 573.] We reply that men could and did carry such shields on horseback, as we know on the evidence of works of art and poetry of the eleventh to twelfth centuries A.D. Mr. Ridgeway has explained the introduction of chariots as the result of horses too small to carry a heavy and heavily-armed man as a cavalier.