Next came the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs, the names of both races corresponding in the main with those in the first book of the Iliad. Both bands are wrought in silver, their arms and missiles in gold. The Centaurs, it is noteworthy, have not yet assumed the double form of man and beast, of which the first mention occurs in Pindar (Pyth. ii. 80), but are here the rude monsters we find under the same name in the Iliad and Odyssey—a fact which is of some importance in fixing the comparatively early date of the shield. On the same compartment is wrought, the poet tells us, Ares in his war-chariot, attended by Fear and Consternation; whilst Pallas, taking the spoil, spear in hand, with helmed brow and her ægis athwart her shoulders, is depicted as she sets the battle in array, and rushes forth to mingle in the war din.
After a description following next of the material wealth of Olympus, which has been suspected of spuriousness, as savouring of post-Homeric style and ideas, occurs a curious presentment of a harbour and surging sea, wrought of tin, in which silver dolphins are chasing the lesser fish, and amusing themselves with gorging these, and spouting up water, whale fashion. The little fish are wrought in brass. A later addition to the picture is obviously interpolated from Theocritus (i. 39), namely, the fisherman on a crag—
Like one that poising rises to the throw."
What is needed to complete the picture in the Alexandrian poet is, however, de trop here.
