We have reason then for supposing that if Homer had, in his earlier days, composed a poem which was applicable, with slight alterations, to the story of the ‘Iliad,’ he would endeavour, by a suitable arrangement of the plan of his narrative, to introduce the lines whose recital had long since become familiar to him.
Evidence of design in the introduction of the ‘Shield of Achilles’ certainly does not seem wanting.
It is by no means necessary to the plot of the ‘Iliad’ that Achilles should lose the celestial armour given to Peleus as a dowry with Thetis. On the contrary, Homer has gone out of his way to render the labours of Vulcan necessary. Patroclus has to be so ingeniously disposed of, that while the armour he had worn is seized by Hector, his body is rescued, as are also the horses and chariot of Achilles.
We have the additional improbability that the armour of the great Achilles should fit the inferior warriors Patroclus and Hector. Indeed, that the armour should fit Hector, or rather that Hector should fit the armour, the aid of Zeus and Ares has to be called in—
To this Jove’s sable brows did bow; and he made fit his limbs
To those great arms, to fill which up the war-god enter’d him
Austere and terrible, his joints and every part extends
With strength and fortitude.—Chapman’s Translation.
It is clear that the narrative would not have been impaired in any way, while its probability and consistency would have been increased, if Patroclus had fought in his own armour. The death of Patroclus would in any case have been a cause sufficient to arouse the wrath of Achilles against Hector—though certainly the hero’s grief for his armour is nearly as poignant as his sorrow for his friend.
It appears probable, then, that the description of Achilles’ Shield is an interpolation—the poet’s own work, however, and brought in by him in the only way he found available. The description clearly refers to the same object which is described (here, also, only in part) in the ‘Shield of Hercules.’ The original description, doubtless, included all that is found in both ‘shields,’ and probably much more.