costume and arms, he would have certainly described their fox-skin
caps, bows, bucklers, and so forth. He would not here have
followed the Epic tradition, which represented the Thracians as
makers of great swords and as splendidly armed charioteers. His
audience had met the Thracians in peace and war, and would
contradict the poet's description of them as heavily armed
charioteers. It follows, therefore, that the latest poets, such as
the author of Book X., did not introduce recent details, those of
their own time, but we have just previously been told that to do
so was their custom in the description of details.

Now Studniczka [Footnote: _Homerische Epos, pp. 7-11, cf._
Note I; _Zeitschrift fur die Oestern Gymnasien_, 1886, p.
195.] explains the picture of the Thracians in _Iliad_, Book
X., on Helbig's _other_ principle, namely, that the very late
author of the Tenth Book merely conforms to the conventional
tradition of the Epic, adheres to the model set in ancient
Achaean, or rather ancient Ionian times, and scrupulously
preserved by the latest poets--that is, when the latest poets do
not bring in the new details of their own age. But Helbig will not
accept his own theory in this case, whence does it follow that the
author of the Tenth Book must, in his opinion, have lived in
Achaean times, and described the Thracians as they then were,
charioteers, heavily armed, not light-clad archers? If this is so,
we ask how Helbig can aver that the Tenth Book is one of the
latest parts of the _Iliad?_

In studying the critics who hold that the _Iliad_ is the
growth of four centuries--say from the eleventh to the seventh
century B.C.--no consistency is to be discovered; the earth is