But the argument on which I am inclined to lay most stress is the occurrence _elsewhere_ of a description which is undoubtedly only another version of the ‘Shield of Achilles.’ The ‘Shield of Hercules’ occurs in a poem ascribed to Hesiod. But whatever opinion may be formed respecting the authorship of the description, there can be no doubt that it is not Hesiod’s work. It exhibits no trace of his dry, didactic, somewhat heavy style. Elton ascribes the ‘Shield of Hercules’ to an imitator of Homer, and in support of this view points out those respects in which the poem resembles, and those in which it is inferior to, the ‘Shield of Achilles.’ The two descriptions are, however, absolutely identical in many places; and this would certainly not have happened if one had been an honest imitation of the other. And those parts of the ‘Shield of Hercules,’ which have no counterparts in the ‘Shield of Achilles,’ are too well conceived and expressed to be ascribed to a very inferior poet—a poet so inferior as to be reduced to the necessity of simply reproducing Homer’s words in other parts of the poem. Those parts which admit of comparison—where, for instance, the same objects are described, but in different terms—are certainly inferior in the ‘Shield of Hercules.’ The description is injured by the addition of unnecessary or inharmonious details. Elton speaks, accordingly, of these portions as if they were expansions of the corresponding parts of the ‘Shield of Achilles.’ This appears to me a mistake. It seems far more likely that both descriptions are by the same poet. It is not necessary for the support of my theory that this poet should be Homer, but I think both descriptions show undoubted traces of his handiwork. Indeed, all known imitations of Homer are so easily recognisable as the work of inferior poets, that I should have thought no doubt could exist on this point, but for the attention which the German theory respecting the ‘Iliad’ has received. Assigning both poems to Homer, the ‘Shield of Hercules’ may be regarded, not as an expansion (in parts) of the ‘Shield of Achilles,’ but as an earlier work of Homer’s, improved and pruned by his maturer judgment, when he desired to fit it into the plan of the ‘Iliad.’ Or rather, each poem may be looked on as an abridgment (the ‘Shield of Hercules’ the earlier) of an independent work on a subject presently to be mentioned. It is next to be shown that in the events preceding the ‘Oplopœia,’ there is a preparation for the introduction of a separate poem.