Reconstructing the Shield of Achilles
by Kathleen Vail
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Pub Date 25 Sep 2018 | Archive Date 07 Mar 2019
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Description
Gloriously described in the Iliad, Achilles’ shield is ingeniously crafted by Hephaestus, ancient Greek god of the forge. Visiting him on Olympos, the sea nymph goddess, Thetis, petitions new armor for her son.
Hephaistos replies, “Have courage, my Lady, please trust me! Good gear I can make, but to hide him from death? Now, that is another matter. I only wish I could help him with that, as I can with the making of arms, for I am an expert. No eyes have beheld such gear as I shall provide him!”
True to Hephaistos’ word, Achilles’ divine armor offers the hero a path to revenge, the fulfillment of his destiny, and his key to immortal glory. But as he prepares for battle, Achilles is not blazing with heroic fervor. He’s burning with unrestrained grief, mourning for his beloved Patroklos, trusted chariot driver, brother in arms, his friend with whom he shares everything, especially his heart. Lost to the heat of battle, laid low at the hand of Hektor, slain of life and stripped of armor, his beloved is lost to the ravages of war.
Filled with passionate hatred of war, Achilles swears he will fight the whole Trojan Army single-handed until he takes revenge and brings the Trojan War to its epic end. Donning his new armor, Achilles shines from head to toe in blazing bronze, his body emitting a halo of flames.
Homer brings it all together, right here. Life and death, revenge and hate, righteousness and evil, glory and fate. The voices of the muses strain to the point of breaking as their song empowers Achilles with supernatural fire. Lifting his shield and charging into war, the epic weight of Achilles’ fate tips the scale of Justice in favor of Peace, ushering in the closing act of the Trojan War.
(From the Foreword by Dr. James A. Arieti, Grave H. Tompson Professor of Classics, Hampden-Syndey College, Virginia:)
The arms are presumably lost, but fortunately for us, Kathleen Vail has reconstructed it.
Using her Homer the way Schliemann used his, she has excavated from the text the shape and composition of the shield of Achilles. In so doing she has confounded some of the critics, who claimed it could never be done.
“Detailed reconstruction of the shield is impossible,” writes Webster.
“…nothing so comprehensive and detailed as this could ever have been seen by Homer or his audience,” says Hogan.
“It is not to be supposed that the poet had ever seen such a shield as he describes,” claims Gardner. (1)
Finding artworks of roughly contemporary handiwork, she documents the illustrations and shows that indeed they could have been found on a shield such as Homer describes. It took a god one night to construct the shield; it has taken Ms. Vail–a mere mortal–five years of work and study to complete hers.
Reading Homer’s description of the shield while looking at the illustrations will compel one to read slowly, savoring the details.
A humorless Platonist–the kind who took Plato literally and failed to see the smile behind the dialogues–might think that these images take us even further away from the reality of the ideas. Homer, the Platonist would say, imitated in words the shield Achilles used; Ms. Vail altered the medium and put the words into pictures, moving still more distant from the original idea of a shield.
What does the dour Platonist know? She has changed the words back into gold and silver; she has revivified the text. She supplies the modern reader with an image for his mind’s eye to grasp on to. She has provided for us a glimpse of the world of archaic Greece.
Advance Praise
I wish you great success with this work. I am most impressed with your consistent adherence to the profile head with frontal eye, triangular kneecaps, upturned, pointed feet, and careful costume details such as greaves and helmets, and embroidered borders. The appropriately sparse background features are also quite a nice touch. I will be waiting for this work to appear, for use in my classes on Greek art and the Bronze Age Aegean. The benefit of this work to a teacher such as myself is not only as a visual representation of the shield which is as remarkably detailed as Homer's description, but also as an example of the ongoing power of Homer's narrative to inspire thought and art.
- Dr. Elizabeth Fisher, Professor of Classics and the Arts, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VAPersonally, I find the project interesting and the photograph with accompanying text, absorbing. I found myself following the different units round the shield as I read the Greek text and was pleased to see all the Homeric components present and correct, as they say in the Army. I think that what Webster meant by his remark was merely that Homer was describing an ideal, imaginary shield and that no such ornate and complicated piece of armor really existed. But even though it was an imaginary shield, you have shown that it could in fact have been made.- Dr. Bernard Knox, Founding Director, Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, D.C.
Kathleen Vail's work on artistic recreations of literary artifacts is unique as well as visually stunning. If Hephaistos wrote blurbs, he'd certainly blurb her new book. - Dr. Kenneth J. Atchity, prizewinning author of Homer's Iliad: The Shield of Memory
The arms are presumably lost, but fortunately for us, Kathleen Vail has reconstructed it.Using her Homer the way Schliemann used his, she has excavated from the text the shape and composition of the shield of Achilles. In so doing she has confounded some of the critics, who claimed it could never be done.
"Detailed reconstruction of the shield is impossible," writes Webster.
"...nothing so comprehensive and detailed as this could ever have been seen by Homer or his audience," says Hogan.
"It is not to be supposed that the poet had ever seen such a shield as he describes," claims Gardner. (1)
Finding artworks of roughly contemporary handiwork, she documents the illustrations and shows that indeed they could have been found on a shield such as Homer describes. It took a god one night to construct the shield; it has taken Ms. Vail-a mere mortal-five years of work and study to complete hers.
Reading Homer's description of the shield while looking at the illustrations will compel one to read slowly, savoring the details.
A humorless Platonist-the kind who took Plato literally and failed to see the smile behind the dialogues-might think that these images take us even further away from the reality of the ideas. Homer, the Platonist would say, imitated in words the shield Achilles used; Ms. Vail altered the medium and put the words into pictures, moving still more distant from the original idea of a shield.
What does the dour Platonist know? She has changed the words back into gold and silver; she has revivified the text. She supplies the modern reader with an image for his mind's eye to grasp on to. She has provided for us a glimpse of the world of archaic Greece.- James A. Arieti, Graves H. Thompson Professor of Classics, Hampden-Syndey College, VA
Available Editions
| ISBN | 9780999162187 |
| PRICE | $0.00 (USD) |
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Featured Reviews
Rebecca H, Reviewer
If you love the story of the Illiad, then you are going to enjoy this book! What a great story, and pieces together quiet nicely!
Jocelyn S, Reviewer
What a fascinating and intricate read this was about a character so famous throughout history. As an archaeologist I loved it, as a fan of Greek mythology I loved it even more. I'm quite well versed in the archaeology of the site of Troy in Turkey, having studied there and taken people on tours. I really enjoyed this read, all the more so because I recently attended a travelling exhibit that had a section with the mythology of the Shield of Achilles quite prominently featured.
I'll have to buy this as a physical book because the ebook didn't do it justice and I want to be able to see everything in print. Thanks for giving me the chance to read this!
Kathleen R, Reviewer
If this woman is not an archeologist whose forte is Greek artwork reconstruction
Her dedication to this object alone should make her go into or be admired by those in the field & she missed her true calling. The Iliad translations I never could get through. I don't have the patience with that type of detail but this woman swims in them like in a warm ocean reveling with every nuance. She reconstructs the shield of Achilles entirely minutely from the poems & works of the Mediterranean ancients in a manner to show how it very easily could have looked. Filled with lyrical thought, ideas & beliefs she sallies forth. She weaves
a story of the story of the Trojan war & Gods & men. Myself never cared overmuch for the Greek histories of the men in the area because folly, warfare & spite replaced good ethics. I like the older female Titans better Gaia, Hecate and such & naturally of the newer Dieties Artemis as she is the hunter & the moon of the newer Deities as they too were capricious. The sagas of men only showed their callousness & pettiness with the added brutality of why they deserved their downfalls in the battles they raged in many cases or just not heeding what told. [Not the more modern peoples but the ones from their "golden age"]They were best & most important in their roles at creating written words as traders & bringing back knowledge from the Assyrians that included much older grains from the Mesopotamians . In turn, Romans took their Gods & ideas with surface changes from them. This woman has created meticulously the shield from stories in a manner that looks artistically different but by ideal viable & legitimate, telling the story how & why long the way. He tale of Achilles demise & the where about theories of the shield continue into the Odyssey that iis narrated in short part form as the original Iliad. He sees a more shining picture than I of the times then & their structure & teachings: "These scenes clearly depict a society willing to respect what is right and wrong, willing to abide by social and self-control. If I am not accountable for my behavior, nothing will stop me from robbing my neighbor if he has something I want. However, if I will be thrown in jail for robbery, I may be more willing to be a peaceful neighbor, instead of a thief. The seed of government grows or dies according to the communal support for peace ." while that might have been an ideal I feel that history proves it was neither cemented or brought over solidly enough to even modern times. have to say, this woman has made me have a kinder outlook towards ancient Greek thought & mythos than I ever thought possible by the time I finished it. Some beautiful artwork.is peppered throughout including her representation of the shield above & beyond in time & detail
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