THE NEW THEORY OF ACHILLES'S SHIELD. 827 



of ocean, and a variety of other objects, better suited to 

 adorn the temple of a great deity than the shield of a 

 warrior, however noble and heroic. The objects de- 

 picted even on the ^Egis of Zeus are much less impor- 

 tant. There is certainly no trace in the " Iliad " of a 

 wish on Homer's part to raise the dignity of mortal 

 heroes at the expense of Zeus, yet the .zEgis is thus 

 succinctly described : 



"Fringed round with ever-fighting snakes, though it was drawn 



to life 



The miseries- and deaths of fight; in it frowned hloody Strife, 

 In it shone sacred Fortitude, in it fell Pursuit flew, 

 In it the monster Gorgon's head, in which held out to view 

 Were all the dire ostents of Jove." Chapman's Translation. 



Five lines here, as in the original, suffice for the 

 description of Jove's ^Egis, while one hundred and 

 thirty lines are employed in the description of the 

 celestial and terrestrial objects depicted on the shield 

 of Achilles. 



Another circumstance attracts notice in the descrip- 

 tion of Achilles's armor the disproportionate impor- 

 tance attached to the shield. Undoubtedly, the shield 

 w r as that portion of a hero's armor which admitted of 

 the freest application of artistic skill. Yet this con- 

 sideration is not sufficient to account for the fact that, 

 while so many lines are given to the shield, the helmet, 

 corselet, and greaves, are disposed of in four. 



But the argument on which I am inclined to lay 

 most stress is the occurrence elseichcre of a description 



