a piece of defensive armour used by the ancients. It was worn on the left arm, and composed of wickers woven together, or wood of the lightest sort, covered with hides and fortified with plates of brass or other metal. The figure was sometimes round, sometimes oval, and sometimes almost square. Most of the bucklers were curiously adorned with all sorts of figures of birds and beasts, as eagles, lions; nor of these only, but of the gods, of the celestial bodies, and all the works of nature; which custom was derived from the heroic times, and from them communicated to the Grecians, Romans, and Barbarians.

The scutum or Roman buckler, was of wood, the parts being joined together with little plates of iron, BUCKLER and the whole covered with a bull's hide. An iron plate went about it without, to keep off blows; and another within, to hinder it from taking any damage by lying on the ground. In the middle was an iron boss or umbo jutting out, very serviceable to glance off stones and darts; and sometimes to press violently upon the enemy, and drive all before them. They are to be distinguished from the clypei, which were lefs, and quite round, belonging more properly to other nations, though for some little time used by the Romans. The scuta themselves were of two kinds; the ovata, and the inbricata: the former is a plain oval figure; the other oblong, and bending inward like half a cylinder. Polybius makes the scuta four feet long, and Plutarch calls them ποδόβυγας, reaching down to the feet. And it is very probable that they covered almost the whole body, since in Livy we meet with soldiers, who stood on the guard, sometimes sleeping with their head on their shield, having fixed the other part of it in the earth.

Votive BUCKLERS: Those consecrated to the gods and hung up in their temples, either in commemoration of some hero, or as a thanksgiving for a victory obtained over an enemy; whose bucklers, taken in war, were offered as a trophy.