DAGGER WITH LION-HUNTERS

RINGS: SWORDS AND SHIELDS

FRAGMENTS OF WARRIOR VASE

FRAGMENT OF SIEGE VASE

ALGONQUIN CORSLET

GOLD CORSLET




CHAPTER I


THE HOMERIC AGE

The aim of this book is to prove that the Homeric Epics, as
wholes, and apart from passages gravely suspected in antiquity,
present a perfectly harmonious picture of the entire life and
civilisation of one single age. The faint variations in the design
are not greater than such as mark every moment of culture, for in
all there is some movement; in all, cases are modified by
circumstances. If our contention be true, it will follow that the
poems themselves, as wholes, are the product of a single age, not
a mosaic of the work of several changeful centuries.