The description of the shield of Hercules, attributed to Hesiod, is
probably an imitation of Homer, and, notwithstanding some fine
mythological impersonations which it contains, an imitation less
admirable than the original. Of painting there are in Homer no
certain indications, and it is consistent with the later date of the
imitator that we may perhaps discern in his composition a sign that
what he had actually seen was a painted shield, in the pre-dominance
in it, as compared with the Homeric description, of effects of colour
over effects of form; Homer delighting in ingenious devices for
fastening the metal, and the supposed Hesiod rather in what seem like
triumphs of heraldic colouring; though the latter also delights in
effects of mingled metals, of mingled gold and silver especially--
silver figures with dresses of gold, silver centaurs with pine-trees
of gold for staves in their hands. Still, like the shield of
Achilles, this too we must conceive as formed of concentric plates of
metal; and here again that spacing is still more elaborately carried
out, narrower intermediate rings being apparently [204] introduced
between the broader ones, with figures in rapid, horizontal, unbroken
motion, carrying the eye right round the shield, in contrast with the
repose of the downward or inward movement of the subjects which
divide the larger spaces; here too with certain analogies in the rows
of animals to the designs on the earliest vases.
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