Mr. Leaf starts with a passage in the Iliad(III. 357-360)—it recurs in another case: "Through the bright shield went the ponderous spear, and through the inwrought" (very artfully wrought), {Greek: poludaidalou} "breastplate it pressed on, and straight beside his flank it rent the tunic, but he swerved and escaped black death." Mr. Leaf says, "It is obvious that, after a spear has passed through a breastplate, there is no longer any possibility for the wearer to bend aside and so to avoid the point...." But I suppose that the wearer, by a motion very natural, doubled up sideways, so to speak, and so the spear merely grazed his flesh. That is what I suppose the poet to intend. The more he knew of corslets, the less would he mention an impossible circumstance in connection with a corslet.
Again, in many cases the late poets, by the theory—though it is they who bring the corslets in—leave the corslets out! A man without shield, helmet, and spear calls himself "naked." Why did not these late poets, it is asked, make him take off his corslet, if he had one, as well as his shield? The case occurs in XXII. 111-113,124-125. Hector thinks of laying aside helmet, spear, and shield, and of parleying with Achilles. "But then he will slay me naked," that is, unarmed. "He still had his corslet," the critics say, "so how could he be naked? or, if he had no corslet, this is a passage uncontaminated by the late poets of the corslet age." Now certainly Hector waswearing a corslet, which he had taken from Patroclus: that is the essence of the story. He would, however, be "naked" or unprotected if he laid aside helmet, spear, and shield, because Achilles could hit him in the head or neck (as he did), or lightly drive the spear through the corslet, which, we have proved, was no sound defence against a spear at close quarters, though useful against chance arrows, and occasionally against spears spent by traversing the shield.
We next learn that no corslet occurs in the Odyssey, or in Iliad, Book X., called "very late": Mr. Leaf suggests that it is of the seventh century B.C. But if the Odyssey and Iliad, Book X., are really very late, their authors and interpolators were perfectly familiar with Ionian corslets. Why did they leave corslets out, while their predecessors and contemporaries were introducing them all up and down the Iliad? In fact, in Book X, no prince is regularly equipped; they have been called up to deliberate in the dead of night, and when two go as spies they wear casual borrowed gear. It is more important that no corslet is mentioned in Nestor's arms in his tent. But are we to explain this, and the absence of mention of corslets in the Odyssey (where there is little about regular fighting), on the ground that the author of Iliad, Book X., and all the many authors and editors of the Odysseyhappened to be profound archaeologists, and, unlike their contemporaries, the later poets and interpolators of the Iliad, had formed the theory that corslets were not known at the time of the siege of Troy and therefore must not be mentioned? This is quite incredible. No hypothesis can be more improbable. We cannot imagine late Ionian rhapsodists listening to the Iliad, and saying, "These poets of the Iliadare all wrong: at the date of the Mycenaean prime, as every educated man knows, corslets were not yet in fashion. So we must have no corslets in the Odyssey?"
A modern critic, who thinks this possible, is bringing the practice of archaising poets of the late nineteenth century into the minds of rhapsodists of the eighth century before Christ. Artists of the middle of the sixteenth century always depict Jeanne d'Arc in the armour and costume of their own time, wholly unlike those of 1430. This is the regular rule. Late rhapsodists would not delve in the archaeology of the Mycenaean prime. Indeed, one does not see how they could discover, in Asia, that corslets were not worn, five centuries earlier, on the other side of the sea.
We are told that Aias and some other heroes are never spoken of as wearing corslets. But Aias certainly did put on a set of pieces of armour, and did not trust to his shield alone, tower-like as it was. The description runs thus: The Achaeans have disarmed, before the duel of Aias and Hector. Aias draws the lucky lot; he is to 'meet Hector, and bids the others pray to Zeus "while I clothe me in my armour of battle." While they prayed, Aias "arrayed himself in flashing bronze. And when he had now clothed upon his flesh allhis pieces of armour" ({Greek: panta teuchae}) "he went forth to fight." If Aias wore only a shield, as on Mr. Leaf's hypothesis, he could sling it on before the Achaeans could breathe a pater noster. His sword he would not have taken off; swords were always worn. What, then, are "all his pieces of armour"? (VII. 193, 206).
Carl Robert cites passages in which the {Greek: teuchea}, taken from the shoulders, include corslets, and are late and Ionian, with other passages which are Mycenaean, with no corslet involved. He adds about twenty more passages in which {Greek: teuchea} include corslets. Among these references two are from the Doloneia(X. 254, 272), where Reichel finds no mention of corslets. How Robert can tell {Greek: teuchea}, which mean corslets, from {Greek: teuchea}, which exclude corslets, is not obvious. But, at all events, he does see corslets, as in VII. 122, where Reichel sees none, {Footnote: Robert, Studien zur Ilias, pp. 20-21.} and he is obviously right.
It is a strong point with Mr. Leaf that "we never hear of the corslet in the case of Aias...." {Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, vol. i. p. 576.} Robert, however, like ourselves, detects the corslet among " althe {Greek: teuchea}" which Aias puts on for his duel with Hector (Iliad, VII. 193, 206-207).
In the same Book (VII. 101-103, 122) the same difficulty occurs. Menelaus offers to fight Hector, and says, "I will put on my harness" {Greek: thooraxomai}, and does "put on his fair pieces of armour" {Greek: teuchea kala}, Agamemnon forbids him to fight, and his friends "joyfully take his pieces of armour" {Greek: teuchea} "from his shoulders" ( Iliad, VII. 206-207). They take off pieces of armour, in the plural, and a shield cannot be spoken of in the plural; while the sword would not be taken off—it was worn even in peaceful costume.
Idomeneus is never named as wearing a corslet, but he remarks that he has plenty of corslets (XIII. 264); and in this and many cases opponents of corslets prove their case by cutting out the lines which disprove it. Anything may be demonstrated if we may excise whatever passage does not suit our hypothesis. It is impossible to argue against this logical device, especially when the critic, not satisfied with a clean cut, supposes that some late enthusiast for corslets altered the prayer of Thetis to Hephaestus for the very purpose of dragging in a corslet. {Footnote: Leaf, Note to Iliad, xviii. 460, 461.} If there is no objection to a line except that a corslet occurs in it, where is the logic in excising the line because one happens to think that corslets are later than the oldest parts of the Iliad?
Another plan is to maintain that if the poet does not in any case mention a corslet, there was no corslet. Thus in V. 99, an arrow strikes Diomede "hard by the right shoulder, the plate of the corslet." Thirteen lines later (V. 112, 113) "Sthenelus drew the swift shaft right through out of Diomede's shoulder, and the blood darted up through the pliant chiton." We do not know what the word here translated "pliant" {Greek: streptos} means, and Aristarchus seems to have thought it was "a coat of mail, chain, or scale armour." If so, here is the corslet, but in this case, if a corslet or jack with intertwisted small plates or scales or rings of bronze be meant, gualoncannot mean a large "plate," as it does. Mr. Ridgeway says, "It seems certain that {Greek: streptos chitoon} means, as Aristarchus held, a shirt of mail." {Footnote: Early Age of Greece, vol. i. p, 306.} Mr. Leaf says just the reverse. As usual, we come to a deadlock; a clash of learned opinion. But any one can see that, in the space of thirteen lines, no poet or interpolator who wrote V. i 12, i 13 could forget that Diomede was said to be wearing a corslet in V. 99; and even if the poet could forget, which is out of the question, the editor of 540 B.C. was simply defrauding his employer, Piaistratus, if he did not bring a remedy for the stupid fault of the poet. When this or that hero is not specifically said to be wearing a corslet, it is usually because the poet has no occasion to mention it, though, as we have seen, a man is occasionally smitten, in the midriff, say, without any remark on the flimsy piece of mail.