throughout these centuries did what such poets never do, kept true
to the details of a life remote from their own, and also did not.

For Helbig does not, after all, cleave to his opinion. On the
other hand, he says that the later poets of the _Iliad_ did
not cling to tradition. "They allowed themselves to be influenced
by their own environment: _this influence betrays ITSELF IN THE
descriptions of DETAILS_.... The rhapsodists," (reciters,
supposed to have altered the poems at will), "did not fail to
interpolate relatively recent elements into the oldest parts of
the Epic." [Footnote: _Homerische Epos,_ p. 2.]

At this point comes in a complex inconsistency. The Tenth Book of
the _Iliad_, thinks Helbig--in common with almost all
critics--"is one of the most recent lays of the _Iliad_." But
in this recent lay (say of the eighth or seventh century) the poet
describes the Thracians as on a level of civilisation with the
Achaeans, and, indeed, as even more luxurious, wealthy, and
refined in the matter of good horses, glorious armour, and
splendid chariots. But, by the time of the Persian wars, says
Helbig, the Thracians were regarded by the Greeks as rude
barbarians, and their military equipment was totally un-Greek.
They did not wear helmets, but caps of fox-skin. They had no body
armour; their shields were small round bucklers; their weapons
were bows and daggers. These customs could not, at the time of the
Persian wars, be recent innovations in Thrace. [Footnote:
Herodotus, vii. 75.]

Had the poet of _ILIAD_, Book X., known the Thracians in
_this_ condition, says Helbig, as he was fond of details of