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In translating the description of the shield, I have endeavoured to bear in mind, what I believe to be of great importance to the interpretation of the passage, that the various events of Roman history are represented, not in the precise way in which they are likely to have happened historically, but in the form supposed to be best adapted to tell the story to the eye. So the epithets do not characterise the persons or things as they are in themselves, but as they appear on the shield: e.g., the Gauls' hair is called golden because it is actually of gold.

I hope it will not be supposed that I mean 'fever of the steel' as a version of 'cupidine ferri.' There is another suspicion of the kind which I feel almost ashamed to rebut, in p. 359, where, though 'encumbered and unstrung' is I trust a tolerable equivalent for 'inutilis inque ligatus,' 'inligatus' is not intended to be represented by 'unstrung.'