My investigation into the cognitive aspects of landscape description takes as its focus the landscapes that the poet evokes on the Shield of Achilles. Drawing on studies in cognitive psychology I note the extent to which an audience might derive a ‘spatial mental model’ from the topographical or ‘locative’ indicators that the Homeric poet offers. Then I consider the ‘non-locative’ information that the poet conveys about the landscapes of the Shield. In this connection I develop Barbara Tversky's notion of landscape (...) representation as a ‘cognitive collage’. What makes the scenes on the Shield vivid, however, is human presence. Finally, therefore, I draw on enactivist theories of cognition, recently introduced into Classics, which offer a valuable supplementary approach to ‘reading’ and enjoying landscape descriptions in Homer. (shrink)