The arrow-head was of iron, not bronze, as was usual, and of a primitive pattern, inserted into the wood of the shaft, and "whipped" with sinew (νεῦρον, Iliad, iv. 151). When the arrow is extracted (line 216) the corslet is not mentioned, as I suppose because the arrow passed through the place where the corslet clasped in front. When the corslet was unclasped, the arrow had only to be pulled out of the belt and kirtle.
Fig. 6.—Warriors arming
Red Figure Vase, Vienna Museum
Now the whole passage is explained by a red figure vase in the Vienna Museum (Atlas, figs. 71 a, b, c) (fig. 6). Here we see first, a warrior in helmet and flowing chiton, putting on his greaves. Next him is a warrior clasping his variegated hauberk of scales, or small plates, in front, above his mailed kirtle, or flaps; below which floats the lower part of his chiton; the shoulder-plates of his corslet are still unclasped, and stand up behind his shoulders. For this arrangement see also Walters, History of Ancient Pottery, vol. ii. p. 176, fig. 137. In Iliad, xx. 413-417, Achilles sends his spear through the clasping plate of belt, buckle, and hauberk at the back.
In the third picture (fig. 7), a warrior, fully armed, has his hand in the richly adorned belt (zoster) which he is fixing over the juncture of corslet and mailed kirtle. If an arrow lights on the central clasp of this belt (1) it will pass through the meeting-place in front of his corslet, (2) and then will encounter, especially if it be a dropping arrow, (3) his mailed flaps or kirtle, exactly as in the case of Menelaus.[32] Nothing of this kind could occur with the plain plate corslets of the seventh to sixth centuries, which laced at the sides, and had no mailed kirtle or flaps, and no belt or zoster. Thus Homer's armour, in this passage, is precisely that of, say, 520-470 B.C. Meanwhile the arrow-head, whipped with sinew into the wooden shaft, is of a primitive pattern; and the accompanying reference to the art of Maeonian and Carian women, in staining ivory red, "a treasure for a king," shows no notion of the Ionians in Maeonia and Caria, or of the republics of 510-470 B.C.[33]
If, then, in the late sixth or early fifth century, a poet introduced the latest type of armour, he also preserved the primitive arrow, and the political and geographical conditions prior to the Ionian settlements in Asia. This combined innovation and conservatism are incredible.[34]