continued, lent its own colour. The poets, by their theory, now
preserved the genuine tradition of things old; cremation, cairn
and urn burial; the use of the chariot in war; the use of bronze
for weapons; a peculiar stage of customary law; a peculiar form of
semi-feudal society; a peculiar kind of house. But again, by a
change in the theory, the poets introduced later novelties; later
forms of defensive armour; later modes of burial; later religious
and speculative beliefs; a later style of house; an advanced stage
of law; modernisms in grammar and language.

The usual position of critics in this matter is stated by Helbig;
and we are to contend that the theory is contradicted by all
experience of ancient literatures, and is in itself the reverse of
consistent. "The _artists_ of antiquity," says Helbig, with
perfect truth, "had no idea of archaeological studies.... They
represented legendary scenes in conformity with the spirit of
their own age, and reproduced the arms and implements and costume
that they saw around them." [Footnote: _L'Epopee Homerique_,
p. 5; _Homerische Epos_, p. 4.]

Now a poet is an _artist_, like another, and he, too--no
less than the vase painter or engraver of gems--in dealing with
legends of times past, represents (in an uncritical age) the arms,
utensils, costume, and the religious, geographical, legal, social,
and political ideas of his own period. We shall later prove that
this is true by examples from the early mediaeval epic poetry of
Europe.

It follows that if the _Iliad_ is absolutely consistent and
harmonious in its picture of life, and of all the accessories of