In a "maze of buildings" outside the precincts of the graves of Mycenae, Dr. Schliemann found fragments of vases much less ancient than the contents of the sepulchres. There was a large amphora, the "Warrior Vase" (Fig. 6). The men wear apparently a close-fitting coat of mail over a chiton, which reaches with its fringes half down the thigh. The shield is circular, with a half-moon cut out at the bottom. The art is infantile. Other warriors carry long oval shields reaching, at least, from neck to shin. [Footnote: Schuchardt, _Schliemann's_ Excavations, pp. 279-285.] They wear round leather caps, their enemies have helmets. On a Mycenaean painted _stele_, apparently of the same relatively late period, the costume is similar, and the shield--oval--reaches from neck to knee. [Footnote: Ridgeway, vol. i. p. 314.] The Homeric shields do not answer to the smaller of these late and ugly representations, while, in their bronze plating, Homeric shields seem to differ from the leather shields of the Mycenaean prime. Finally, at Enkomi, near Salamis, in Cyprus, an ivory carving (in the British Museum) shows a fighting man whose perfectly circular shield reaches from neck to knee; this is one of several figures in which Mr. Arthur Evans finds "a most valuable illustration of the typical Homeric armour." [Footnote: _Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xxx. pp. 209-214, figs. 5, 6, 9._] The shield, however, is not so huge as those of Aias, Hector, and Periphetes. I can only conclude that Homer describes intermediate types of shield, as large as the Mycenaean but plated with bronze, for a reason to be given later. This kind of shield, the kind known to Homer, was not the invention of late poets living in an age of circular bucklers, worn on the left arm, and these supposed late poets never introduce into the epics such bucklers. What manner of military needs prompted the invention of the great Mycenaean shields which, by Homer's time, were differentiated by the addition of metal plating? [Illustration: FIG. 6. FRAGMENTS OF WARRIOR VASE]