MINOAN AND MYCENAEAN ELEMENT — EVANS. 637 



Miiioan costume, wearing a helmet with zones of plates and bearing 

 a figure-of-eight shield on his back. Owing to the defective preser- 

 vation of the surface it is difficult to make out the exact character of 

 the stroke intended or to distinguish the weapon used from the war- 

 rior's raised arms. That he is aiming a mortal blow at the figure 

 before him is clear. The latter wears the same narrow Minoan girdle, 

 but his helmet, which is broader, is not so well executed. He is 

 shown in a helpless position, falling backward over the lower mar- 

 gin of a similar shield and holding a sword in his left hand, which, 

 however, is rendered unavailable by his fall. 



Here we have a scene closely analogous to that on a sardonyx len- 

 toid from the third shaft grave at Mycenae,^ except that in the pres- 

 ent case the body shield of the falling warrior reaches to his heels. 

 If, as seems probable, this latter detail belongs to the original of the 

 type, and the warrior has tripped backward over the lower rim of 

 his cumbrous body shield, the scene itself would absolutely corre- 

 spond with the Homeric episode of Periphetes, to w^hich I have 

 already referred. 



azp£(f)ddg yap (itximcadfj iv doTtcdor aviuyc TzdXro, 

 rijv awroc,- (f)opkaK£ nod-qveKt , ipKoc andvTwv. 

 Tjj S Y^ ivc ^Xafjidscf nkoEV unzioc, djichl dk tz^Xtj^ 

 auspdakiov Kova^rjoe ntpc KpoTa<po:a; neaowoc.' 



We have here, in fact, the curious phenomenon of a pre-Homeric 

 illustration of Homer revived by a classical engraver. 



1 Furtwiingler, Antike Gemmcn, PI. II, 2, and cf. Reichel, Homerische Waffen, p. 7, fig. 6. 

 A strange and indescribably misleading representation of this gem is given in Schliemann, 

 Mycenae, p. 202, fig. 313. 



- II., XV, 64.5 seqq. 



