By the age of the Dipylon vases with human figures, the shield had been developed into forms unknown to Homer. In Fig. 3 (p. 131) we see one warrior with a fantastic shield, slim at the waist, with horns, as it were, above and below; the greater part of the shield is expended uselessly, covering nothing in particular. In form this targe seems to be a burlesque parody of the figure of a Mycenaean shield. The next man has a short oblong shield, rather broad for its length--perhaps a reduction of the Mycenaean door-shaped shield. The third warrior has a round buckler. All these shields are manifestly post-Homeric; the first type is the most common in the Dipylon art; the third survived in the eighth-century buckler. [Illustration: FIG. 9.-GOLD CORSLET] CHAPTER VIII THE BREASTPLATE No "practicable" breastplates, hauberks, corslets, or any things of the kind have so far been discovered in graves of the Mycenaean prime. A corpse in Grave V. at Mycenae had, however, a golden breastplate, with oval bosses representing the nipples and with prettily interlaced spirals all over the remainder of the gold (Fig. 9). Another corpse had a plain gold breastplate with the nipples indicated. [Footnote: Schuchardt, _Schliemann's_ Excavations, pp. 254-257, fig. 256.] These decorative corslets of gold were probably funereal symbols of practicable breastplates of bronze, but no such pieces of armour are worn by the fighting-men on the gems and other works of art of Mycenae, and none are found in Mycenaean graves. But does this prove anything? Leg-guards, broad metal bands clasping the leg below the knee, are found in the Mycenaean shaft graves, but are never represented in Mycenaean art. [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 575.] Meanwhile, bronze corslets are very frequently mentioned in the "rarely alluded to," says Mr. Leaf, [Footnote: _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 576.] but this must be a slip of the pen. Connected with the breastplate or _thorex_ ([Greek: thoraex]) is the verb [Greek: thoraesso, thoraessethai], which means "to arm," or "equip" in general. The Achaeans are constantly styled in the _ILIAD_ and in the _ODYSSEY_ "_chalkochitones_," "with bronze chitons." epics have therefore boldly argued that by "bronze chitons" the poet pleasantly alludes to shields. But as the Mycenaeans seem scarcely to have worn any _CHITONS_ in battle, as far as we are aware from their art, and are not known to have had any bronze shields, the argument evaporates, as Mr. Ridgeway has pointed out. Nothing can be less like a _chiton_ or smock, loose or tight, than either the double-bellied huge shield, the tower-shaped cylindrical shield, or the flat, doorlike shield, covering body and legs in Mycenaean art. "The bronze _chiton_," says Helbig, "is only a poetic phrase for the corslet."