[Illustration: Fig. 7.--Lady Pouring out Wine for Warrior--R. F. Vase-Painting by Duris, in Vienna] It is manifestly open to critics to argue that Homeric armour never existed, in Greece, before the sixth to fifth centuries, and that it was then interpolated into the Epics. But if they say this, must they not apply the same argument to Homeric costume, loose and free flowing? Was that attire also interpolated into the poems at the date when it first appears in art? Or are we to say that the artists who represent it were "archaising," were making a guess at what the costume of the heroic age might have been? This cannot be, for the dress is the historic Greek costume which they then wore. As Panathenaic vases maintained archaic costume long out of date, I have not appealed to their evidence as to costume and armour, but have relied on other vases,--on a vase from Sparta with warriors rendered in relief,[35] on a gem cited, on a remarkable bronze in the British Museum of a mounted man, and so forth.[36] I cannot say that Homer always has hauberks, not corslets of back-plate and breast-plate in his mind. The two passages in which the front _gualon_ is pierced over the belly, look as if Homer knew both corslet and hauberk. On the other hand, the epithets of the corslet commonly used, _ποικίλος, παναίολος, πολυδαίδαλος_, suit the hauberk, not the plain back-plate and breast-plate, as may be seen by looking at both kinds of armour as illustrated on countless vases, while the _zoster_ and _mitrê_ are common in Homer, and were never worn, as far as art shows, with the Ionian back-plate and breast-plate, though they both appear with the plate cuirass on the seal impressions of Haghia Triada. NOTE _Body-covering shield with corslet_.--Reichel's argument is that a man with a body-covering needs no corslet. I have shown (_Homer and His Age_, pp. 132-136) that warriors of the eleventh century A.D. and later employed the great shield reaching from neck to ankles, and also wore breast-plates. Again, Champlain (_Les Voyages de M. de Champlain_, Paris, 1620; Dix's _Champlain_, p. 113, New York, 1903; Laverdière's _Champlain_, vol. iv., 1870, opposite p. 85) shows Algonquins with shields cylindrical and covering the body from neck to feet, while both Champlain and modern authors, especially Mr. Hill-Tout, describe North American corslets of various materials, hide, wood, wicker-work, and copper, "the last armour was everywhere used," in addition to the great shields. For the eleventh to twelfth century of our era, see _La Chancun de Willame_, 716-726. Reichel's argument against the combination of huge shield with corslet is thus historically valueless, though "the ancient Celts used no defensive armour but the long shield, and fought from chariots."[37]