The manufacture of shields[950] underwent great fluctuations at different periods of Grecian history, and even in the same age there existed numerous and extraordinary differences in their materials, form, and structure. In early times they consisted simply of a piece of circular basket-work, plaited for the sake of lightness with vine-branches[951] or willows; or were made of a solid piece of wood scooped into the proper form, and covered with one or more coats of leather. The wood usually preferred for this use was that of the elder, the beach, the poplar, and the fig; and the leather was generally tough bull-hide,[952] with or without the hair, though we read of nations, as the Ethiopians, who made use for this purpose of the skins of cranes.[953] The same people at the present day have discovered that the hide of the crocodile, dressed with the scales on, forms a better integument for their bucklers. Among the Homeric heroes the wooden framework was protected by many folds of leather, amounting sometimes to seven, to which were added plates of brass, silver, gold, or tin. Even when the face of the shield was composed of some inferior metal, the rim seems frequently to have been of gold. ----- Footnote 950: Poll. i. 148, seq. Footnote 951: Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 3. 4. v. 7. 7. Thucyd. iv. 9. Footnote 952: Herod. vii. 79. Footnote 953: Id. vii. 70. ----- In later times shields were usually manufactured of brass or steel, wrought and fashioned with the greatest care, and polished like a mirror. Occasionally, likewise, they were inlaid with purple, ivory, and gold,[954] or painted white, or crusted with gold and silver, as among the Samnites.[955] From the remotest antiquity, moreover, it was customary to paint upon shields a number of devices, each warrior selecting one for himself,[956] which, like the armorial bearings of the knights of chivalry, distinguished him from his comrades in battle. Thus Perseus chose the head of the Gorgon Medusa;[957] Tydeus the aspect of the face of the mighty heavens, including the full moon, surrounded by flaming stars;[958] Eteocles bore before him the figure of a warrior scaling a lofty tower, while Hippomedon selected, as the emblem of his character, the figure of Typhœos breathing forth fire and smoke. Every reader will remember the varied imagery that crowded the shield of the Homeric Achilles, together with the scenes which Hesiod, in imitation, depicts on the buckler of Heracles. In the historical period[959] the people of Sicyon had a sigma, the initial letter in the name of their capital, painted on their shields.[960] These ornaments, as well as the handles, it is said, owed their origin to the invention of the Carians. The form of the shield exhibited much variety. One kind, for example, was small and circular,[961] another oblong or parallelogrammatic, and of dimensions so large as to cover the whole body, and allow the fallen