The bow, however, was little esteemed by Greek warriors who desired to come to handstrokes, just as it was despised, to their frequent ruin, by the Scots in the old wars with England. Dupplin, Falkirk, Halidon Hill and many another field proved the error. There was much need in Homeric warfare for protection against heavy showers of arrows. Mr. Monro is hardly correct when he says that, in Homer, "we do not hear of _BODIES_ of archers, of arrows darkening the air, as in descriptions of oriental warfare." [Footnote: _Ibid._, vol. ii. 305.] These precise phrases are not used by Homer; but, nevertheless, arrows are flying thick in his battle pieces. The effects are not often noticed, because, in Homer, helmet, shield, corslet, _zoster_, and greaves, as a rule prevent the shafts from harming the well-born, well-armed chiefs; the nameless host, however, fall frequently. When Hector came forward for a parley (_Iliad_, III. 79), the Achaens "kept shooting at him with arrows," which he took unconcernedly. Teucer shoots nine men in _Iliad_, VIII. 297-304. In XI. _85_ the shafts ([Greek: belea]) showered and the common soldiers fell--[misprint] being arrows as well as thrown spears. [Footnote: _Iliad_, IV. 465; XVI. 668, 678.] Agamemnon and Achilles are as likely, they say, to be hit by arrow as by spear (XI. 191; XXI. 13). Machaon is wounded by an arrow. Patroclus meets Eurypylus limping, with an arrow in his thigh--archer unknown. [Footnote: _Iliad_, XI. 809, 810.] Meriones, though an Achaean paladin, sends a bronze-headed arrow through the body of Harpalion (XIII. _650_). The light-armed Locrians are all bowmen and slingers (XIII. 716). Acamas taunts the Argives as "bowmen" (XIV. 479). "The war-cry rose on both sides, and the arrows leaped from the bowstrings" (XV. 313). Manifestly the arrows are always on the wing, hence the need for the huge Homeric and Mycenaean shields. Therefore, as the Achaeans in Homer wore but flimsy corslets (this we are going to prove), the great body-covering shield of the Mycenaean prime did not go out of vogue in Homer's time, when bronze had superseded stone arrow-heads, but was strengthened by bronze plating over the leather. In a later age the bow was more and more neglected in Greek warfare, and consequently large shields went out, after the close of the Mycenaean age, and round parrying bucklers came into use. The Greeks appear never to have been great archers, for some vases show even the old heroes employing the "primary release," the arrow nock is held between the thumb and forefinger--an ineffectual release. [Footnote: C. J. Longman, _Archery_. Badminton Series.] The archers in early Greek art often stoop or kneel, unlike the erect archers of old England; the bow is usually small--a child's weapon; the string is often drawn only to the breast, as by Pandarus in the _Iliad_ (IV. i 23). By 730 B.C. the release with three fingers, our western release, had become known. [Footnote: Leaf _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 585.]