We cannot, then, suppose that many generations of irresponsible reciters at fairs and public festivals conservatively adhered to the huge size of the shield, while altering its material; and also that the same men, for the sake of being "actual" and up to date, dragged bronze corslets and greaves not only into new lays, but into passages of lays by old poets who had never heard of such things. Consequently, the poetic descriptions of arms and armour must be explained on some other theory. If the poet, again, as others suppose--Mr. Ridgeway for one--knew such bronze-covered circular shields as are common in central and western Europe of the Bronze Age, why did he sometimes represent them as extending from neck to ankles, whereas the known bronze circular shields are not of more than 2 feet 2 inches to 2 feet 6 inches in diameter? [Footnote: Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece, vol. i pp. 453, 471._] Such a shield, without the wood or leather, weighed 5 lbs. 2 ozs., [Footnote: _Ibid., vol._ i. p. 462.] and a strong man might walk or run under it. Homer's shields would be twice as heavy, at least, though, even then, not too heavy for a Hector, or an Aias, or Achilles. I do not see that the round bronze shields of Limerick, Yetholm, Beith, Lincolnshire, and Tarquinii, cited by Mr. Ridgeway, answer to Homer's descriptions of huge shields. They are too small. But it is perfectly possible, or rather highly probable, that in the poet's day shields of various sizes and patterns coexisted. ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SHIELDS Turning to archaeological evidence, we find no remains in the graves of the Mycenaean prime of the bronze which covered the ox-hides of Homeric shields, though we do find gold ornaments supposed to have been attached to shields. There is no evidence that the Mycenaean shield was plated with bronze. But if we judge from their shape, as represented in works of Mycenaean art, some of the Mycenaean shields were not of wood, but of hide. In works of art, such as engraved rings and a bronze dagger (Fig. 2) with pictures inlaid in other metals, the shield, covering the whole body, is of the form of a bellying sail, or a huge umbrella "up," and pinched at both sides near the centre: or is like a door, or a section of a cylinder; only one sort of shield resembles a big-bellied figure of 8. Ivory models of shields indicate the same figure. [Footnote: Schuchardt, _Schliemann's Excavations_, p. 192.] A gold necklet found at Enkomi, in Cyprus, consists of a line of models of this Mycenaean shield. [Footnote: _Excavations in Cyprus_, pl. vii. fig. 604. A. S. Murray, 1900.] [Illustration: FIG. 2. DAGGER WITH LION-HUNTERS] [Illustration: FIG. 3.]