The second of the two genuine wergeld passages in Homer is found in the description of the Shield of Achilles.[35] This passage raises many problems and causes serious difficulties to Homeric scholars. Ridgeway, who holds that the Achaean shield was of a round shape, and who assumes that the Shield of Achilles was therefore round, still finds nothing in Homer’s description to suggest that the Achaeans manufactured this particular shield. ‘It is probable,’ he says,[36] ‘that whilst the shape of the shield and the style or ornament are derived from central Europe, its technique discloses the native Mycenaean craftsman employing for his Achaean lords the method seen in Mycenaean daggers.’ Monro[37] also points out that ‘in choice of subjects and in the manner of treatment there is a remarkable agreement between the Mycenaean remains and the Shield of Achilles.’ All the pictures, he observes, are taken from incidents of every-day life, and the absence of any references to commerce or seafaring life suggests the antiquity of the picture.[38] Leaf, in his translation of the _Iliad_ (1883),[39] makes the following comment: ‘The whole passage is clearly archaic, but the difficulty lies in the fact that no parallel, so far as we know, is to be found in the procedure of any primitive races which throws any light upon this passage. Homer so constantly represents the kings as the keepers of the “traditions,” and therefore sole judges, that he must have been consciously moving in some different world when he depicted the Shield: a world, too, in which there is no mythology and no sacrifice and nothing distinctly Hellenic.’ In his _Companion to the Iliad_[40] (1892) and in his latest edition of the _Iliad_ (1902) he has proposed a solution[41] of the problems raised by this passage. He suggests that the passage does not refer to a murder-trial, nor yet to an inquiry into the question of payment of wergeld (as he held in his translation[42] of the _Iliad_), but that it is an account of the establishment of a new murder-code, which abolishes private vendetta and substitutes a compulsory ‘wergeld’ system. We will now quote the portion of this famous passage which relates to homicide—and we will offer a solution of the difficulty.