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[297] Stitched the bull's-hide layers within with golden stitches reaching round the circle. The layers of leather are sewed together with golden wire. ῥάβδοισι is evidently, from its use with “ῥάψε”, to be taken as = “ῥαφαῖς”. Compare the description of the old shield of Laertes, Od. 22.186 “δὴ τότε γ᾽ ἤδη κεῖτο, ῥαφαὶ δ᾽ ἐλέλυντο ἱμάντων” the stitches of leather were decayed. To prevent such decay the armourer who made Sarpedon's shield used indestructible gold wire instead of the more obvious leather thongs. Such is Benndorf and Reichel's thoroughly satisfying explanation of a line which had previously puzzled commentators, ancient and modern alike, with the single exception of Brandreth, who had hit upon the truth: “Forsitan fila aurea erant, quibus coria ligno (?) assuebantur, et virgae vocabantur, quia his in scutis vimineis plectendis utebantur.” The only difficulty is the use of “ῥάβδος” in a sense different from that to which we are accustomed. But when we consider that the primitive meaning of the word was originally a young shoot of a tree and then wand; that there is no special Greek word for wire; that, whatever the origin of “ῥάβδος”, the author of the passage evidently connected it with “ῥάπτειν”: and that the appearance of the stitches outside the leather would be that of little rods, there need be no hesitation in accepting this interpretation. Cf. Schol. A “ἔρραψε τὰς βοείας ῥαφαῖς ῥαβδοειδέσιν ὥσπερ φλεψίν”. See App. B, fig. 9.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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