Helbig and others[17] think the line a very late intrusion; it may be removed without altering the sense of the passage. Mr. Monro, on _Odyssey_, xix. 1-50, discusses the question fully. "Ancient and modern critics," he says, "are generally agreed that the first mention of 'iron' as synonymous with 'weapon'" (_Od_. xvi. 294), and the rest of the passage, "is an interpolation founded on xix. 1-50, and intended to lead up to it." But Kirchoff (_Odyssey_, p. 560) reverses the process, the second appearance of the passage is the earlier. Mr. Monro argues that _both_ passages "are additions to the original context." It is essential to the whole story that the Wooers, who, of course, wear swords, as was universally done in time of peace, should, when attacked by arrows, need shields and spears to throw. The interpolator, if interpolator there were, thought that, in ordinary circumstances, shields and spears would be hanging on the walls of the hall, as in the Ionian house of Alcaeus (Fragm. 15, Bergk.). We do not know from other descriptions of Homeric halls that this was the custom in Homer's age; it is nowhere mentioned. The war-gear in the palace of Cnossus was certainly stored apart in special chambers. Suppose, then, that a late poet, accustomed to see war-gear arranged on walls, had the opportunity to introduce the practice into the _Odyssey_, he would inevitably cause confusion; and the passage does cause great confusion, as Mr. Monro proves in his long note. (1) The moment foreseen and prepared for by Odysseus never arrives, and that is quite contrary to "the Epic manner." (2) It is a weaker argument, that the speech about arms tempting men to use them disregards the fact that the Wooers wear swords; what they need under the rain of arrows is shields and throwing spears. For these they send the Goatherd to the store-chamber, where, in fact, they were probably kept in a Homeric house, not, as in the case of Alcaeus, on the walls. (3) The use of "iron" for "weapon" is, as Mr. Monro says, an anachronism. (4) The vocabulary "has a post-Homeric stamp." Of this I am no judge; but I point out later what Mr. Monro omits to notice, that in the first passage, xvi. 296, the δοιὰ βοάγρια χερσιν ἑλέσθαι is archaeologically utterly un-Homeric (cf. p. 103); while the command to bring two βοάγρια and spears, as Mr. Monro says, is not repeated nor carried out in the second passage; again contrary to the manner of the Epic. (5) In _Odyssey_, xxii. 23-25, when Odysseus has shot Antinous, the Wooers look at the wall to find spears vainly; but why? They do not expect a fight, they think (xxii. 31, 32) that Odysseus, aiming at some other mark, has shot Antinous by _accident_. In xxii. 5-7 he has said, enigmatically, that he will try, with Apollo's aid, to hit a mark that no man has struck before. The words about their looking to the walls for weapons "are an interpolation, and prove nothing about the removal of the arms."