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+--- Thread: Leather Cuirass (/showthread.php?tid=7315)
Re: Leather Cuirass - Dan Howard - 05-08-2007
I have no idea whether they existed. My contention is that there is not a scrap of evidence to support the theory. It is a logical impossibility to prove a negative. It is up to those who support the theory to provide the evidence. I have yet to see any. You can't use the existence of leather armour in other cultures or even in the same culture in a different time period to support the argument that it was used in classical Greece. The spolas argument can't be made until someone demonstrates that it was standalone armour and not intended to be worn under armour.
Re: leather cuirass - Tarbicus - 05-08-2007
gone
Re: Leather Cuirass - Jason Hoffman - 05-08-2007
Or Not draw breath and just dive head long into general name calling and finger pointing.
If this is the way this forum is going then i bid you all,
Ave.
Re: Leather Cuirass - Tarbicus - 05-08-2007
No need to quit, I've pulled the post.
Re: leather cuirass - D B Campbell - 05-08-2007
Quote:Xenophon and others refer to the Spolas and all agree that this refers to a leather garment/armour worn over the torso, in particular by Spartans/Lakedaemonians.Apologies for butting in at the eleventh hour ...
Can someone explain to me why we think the spolas is a leather garment?
As far as I can see, one of Aristophanes' characters wears one over his chiton and is ridiculed for suggesting that it might be worn next to the skin (suggesting that it required an undergarment -- but was this for reasons of comfort, or fashion?). (Arist., Birds 944)
Xenophon records that a band of horsemen were sent out "and spolades and thôrakes were provided to them". Should we assume that each man got both garments -- a spolas to wear with his thôrax? Or were some equipped with one, and some with the other? (Xen., Anabasis 3.3.20)
And finally, Xenophon mentions a Laconian who was shot in the ribs by a long Kardouchian arrow which went "through the shield and the spolas". Did the man think he was sufficiently protected (i.e., was the spolas considered to be "armour" of some kind) or was he travelling light (i.e., was the spolas normally an undergarment)? (Xen., Anabasis 4.1.18)
Any enlightenment would be gratefully received.
Re: leather cuirass - MeinPanzer - 05-08-2007
Quote:Apparently some members of RAT can't read properly, or else don't understand what they read! :roll:
I have referred to the evidence both here, and to the references in the other threads (e.g. by Duncan Head). To suggest otherwise is simply to refuse to be open-minded. I repeat, can any one come up with some direct evidence for linen hoplite tube-and-yoke cuirasses ( linothorax is clearly inappropriate, since the term was long obsolete when this type of cuirass appears? )
Paul, you've referred several times now to Duncan Head's comments in the "Linothorax Again" thread, but what he was debating hardly supports your claims in this thread.
Duncan was arguing that there is a paucity of literary mentions of linothorakes in the heyday of the "yoked cuirass" in Greek art during the 5th and 4th centuries BC. First of all, we don't know enough to be able to say, as has been debated in this thread, whether the spolas is related to this. Additionally, there is not much of any reference to the material that armour was made of in this period, which doesn't exactly point one way or the other on this issue.
We have several painted depictions of "yoked cuirasses" which are made of some sorts of textile material. They are off-white, beige, brown, and dyed various colours. We know that there were cuirasses called linothorakes. Considering the extremely limited evidence, if we apply good old Occam's Razor to this situation we arrive at the conclusion that these textile armours, with shoulder yokes and pteruges, are most likely linothorakes. No need to abandon any "archaic" terminology, and definitely no need to throw well-founded ideas out the window.
Re: Leather Cuirass - hoplite14gr - 05-08-2007
@D B Campbell
Well no one is sure what material spolas was made off.
In fact we are not sure what really spolas was.
I am of the opinion as I said before that it was ypothorakion-subarmalis as I posted before. Based on Xenophon thats what I feel from reading the text. Still I consider it plausible not fact.
As for the Spartan who got the Karduchian arrow as I have posted before:
The Karduchians used their feet to spring large bows that probably had enough power to propel javelin-sized arrows. One even pierced through a helmet. In medieval times the Crusaders at Doryleum faced a similar unit of Kurdish auxiliaries called "neihda".
Xenophon mentions use of feet to streach the bow.
Greek hoplites have frecentlu "steam-rolled" Persian archers and so the Spartan in question felled protected.
Hope I answered you querry.
Kind regards
Re: leather cuirass - Dan Howard - 05-08-2007
Quote:3.So it may be that some flax was grown in classical Greece then? Even so, like grain, not enough to meet the needs of the many Poleis. The bulk was likely imported , therefore expensive. Dilutes my hypothesis, maybe, but doesn't negate it. Why is everyone carefully avoiding the Thucydides/ Xenophon/ Spartan/ contemporary connection ?If Chadwick's book is correct then the Linear B tablets suggest that enough linen was produced for local needs and produced enough surplus for export.
Quote:4. Fair point, once raw linen was imported, the weaving 'en masse' part was within the means of almost all households. So was Leather makingUnlike weaving, leather cannot be made inside domestic buildings.
Quote:"Leather provides worse protection than layered textiles - to use your term "bollocks" but I would prefer not to use inflammatory language. Do you have information on the energy/force of contemporary spears/arrows - I do! Leather provides adequate protection for the purpose under discussion and in any event the Thorakes was not intended to be weapon proof and wasn't (I can expand on this if we wish to digress).I have a test performed by Dr Alan Williams in which he demonstrated that a pissy 5 layers of layered linen offered better resistance against a blade than 5mm of hardened leather. A separate test showed that it was penetrated by a point with only 30J of energy. The same point required 200J to penetrate 16 layers of linen. In order to produce a 5mm piece of cuir bouilli you have to start with a piece of leather that is over 1cm thick. It was not cheap. In fact leather curies stopped being used in medieval Europe because iron plate became cheaper to produce.
Re: leather cuirass - Magnus - 05-09-2007
Quote:Apparently some members of RAT can't read properly, or else don't understand what they read! :roll:
I have referred to the evidence both here, and to the references in the other threads (e.g. by Duncan Head). To suggest otherwise is simply to refuse to be open-minded. I repeat, can any one come up with some direct evidence for linen hoplite tube-and-yoke cuirasses ( linothorax is clearly inappropriate, since the term was long obsolete when this type of cuirass appears? )
How can you say that when you're being just as stubborn? People here have shot more holes in your theory than swiss cheese, and you yourself have produced not one piece of concrete evidence that supports your theory. Then, when people demonstrate to you the evidence for linen, when there is no doubt it was used, and not leather, you ignore them. You question constantly which tells me you're reading, but not absorbing and thinking about it.
Re: Leather Cuirass - Robert Vermaat - 05-09-2007
Quote:I deliberately used the term "textile armour" - whether it was linen,leather (or some other textile? we just don't know! )Is leather the same as textile?
A word of caution regarding this discussion.
A good discussion can always be an enthusiastic discussion, and those who know me also know that my temper flares at times.. :roll:
Paul, you wrote: "but I would prefer not to use inflammatory language."
However, when I read statements such as:
- Apparently some members of RAT can't read properly, or else don't understand what they read
- As someone remarked, he is as constant as the tide.....
I think you should stick more to your own words, lest this discussion gets out of hand and people refuse to discuss the issue at hand.
Re: Leather Cuirass - Peter Raftos - 05-09-2007
Team,
The generic noun for a piece of armour which covers the trunk in Classical Greek is thôrax in the Attic dialect, thorrax in the Aeolic dialect and thôrêx in the Epic and Ionic dialects of Greek. While Homer’s language is somewhat artificial and poetic he uses this term frequently and makes the distinction between different types of thorakes.
In the Illiad he makes these distinctions
thôrax chalkeos a bronze thorax Il.23.560
thôrax panaiolos a gleaming thorax Il.11.374
thôrax poludaidalos a richly wrought thorax Il. 4.136
linothôrax a linen thorax Il.2.529,
linothôrax a linen thorax Il.2. 830;
Using the Perseus Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Greek-English Lexicon and searching for the word thôrax we find that it appears 197 times in their holdings of Greek texts (46 times in poetry and in 151 times in prose.) There are 25 Greek texts where the word appears regularly in conjunction with the word lineos. Some of these no doubt are classical:
Herodotus Histories 2:182:
Moreover, Amasis dedicated offerings in Hellas. He gave to Cyrene a gilt image of Athena and a painted picture of himself; to Athena of Lindus, two stone images and a marvellous linen thoreka (thôrêka lineon);
Herodotus Histories 3:47:
The Lacedaemonians then equipped and sent an army to Samos, returning a favor, as the Samians say, because they first sent a fleet to help the Lacedaemonians against Messenia; but the Lacedaemonians say that they sent this army less to aid the Samians in their need than to avenge the robbery of the bowl which they had been carrying to Croesus and the thorekos which Amasis King of Egypt had sent them as a gift. [2] This thoreka had been stolen by the Samians in the year before they took the bowl; it was of linen, decked with gold and cotton embroidery, and embroidered with many figures; [3] but what makes it worthy of wonder is that each thread of the thorekos, fine as each is, is made up of three hundred and sixty strands, each plainly seen. It is the exact counterpart of that one which Amasis dedicated to Athena in Lindus.
Aristophanes in his play Peace at line 1224 uses thorax like this
dekamnoun thôrêkos kutos a thorax worth ten mina Ar.Pax1224
Enter an armorer, followed by other personages who represent the various specialized trades which have profited by the war, a crest-maker, a seller of thorakes (Thôrakopôlês), a trumpet-maker, a helmet-maker, a polisher of lances; each carries a sample of his products.
Thôrakopôlês
Good gods, what am I going to do with this fine ten-mina thôrêkos, which is so splendidly made?
Again we find in Aristophanes, Acharnians line 1133 ; the word thoraka.
In Pausanias, Description of Greece (Phôkika, Lokrôn Ozolôn) we find this description:
In the picture is an altar, to which a small boy clings in terror. On the altar lies a bronze corselet (thôrax …chalkous) . At the present day corselets ( thôrakôn ) of this form are rare, but they used to be worn in days of old. They were made of two bronze pieces, one fitting the chest and the parts about the belly, the other intended to protect the back.
Perhaps the most telling quote is Alcaeus the poet’s use of the word
thorrakes neô linô thorakes of new linen Alc. 8. (Fr. 140)
Lets add the new evidence of the fragment from Sophocles, Epigoni which
includes the lines:
Speaker B: "And the helmets are shaking their purple-dyed crests, and for the wearers of breast-plates the weavers are striking up the wise shuttle's songs, that wakes up those who are asleep."
Xenophon in the Anabasis mentions the spolas ( spolas = Aeolic for Attic stolê) and thorax together when equipping a unit of slingers and cavalry. The implication here is that the spolas is a type of protective garment for slingers.
... in the course of that night a company of two hundred slingers was organized, while on the following day horses and horsemen to the number of fifty were examined and accepted, and jerkins (spolades) and cuirasses (thôrakes) were provided for them;
From this dip sample of the literature we have learned that there are both bronze and linen thorakes described. Where are the mentions of leather ones? Of the 80 or more words that are used for leather or leathern none seem to be ever used in conjunction with thorakes.
Re: Leather Cuirass - MeinPanzer - 05-09-2007
Quote:Lets add the new evidence of the fragment from Sophocles, Epigoni which
includes the lines:
Speaker B: "And the helmets are shaking their purple-dyed crests, and for the wearers of breast-plates the weavers are striking up the wise shuttle's songs, that wakes up those who are asleep."
I've never seen the actual Greek for this passage, but I don't see how it provides any evidence of textile armour. All it says is that the weavers are weaving for the wearers of thorakes; it doesn't necessarily imply that they are actually weaving thorakes, just that they are weaving for those wearing thorakes.
Re: Leather Cuirass - hoplite14gr - 05-09-2007
It can be textile armor Gioi. There is a grave stele of a 4th century hoplite in the National Archeology Museum in Athens that shows pteryges under "muscled" armor. It was used as basis for the last plate of Osprey's "Greek hoplite".
That detail of Exekias painted vase probably(?) shows a spollas.
The hoplite is a Skiritan and he is probably more lightly armored than the dead hoplite. I do not have a better pic sorry.
His "gambeson-like" armor(?) was porobaly used in Conolly inrprtation of the Ificrditian.
Kind regards
Re: Leather Cuirass - MeinPanzer - 05-09-2007
Quote:It can be textile armor Gioi. There is a grave stele of a 4th century hoplite in the National Archeology Museum in Athens that shows pteryges under "muscled" armor. It was used as basis for the last plate of Osprey's "Greek hoplite".
How do you know the pteruges aren't attached to the muscle cuirass, like later Hellenistic examples?
Re: Leather Cuirass - D B Campbell - 05-09-2007
Quote:Xenophon in the Anabasis mentions the spolas ( spolas = Aeolic for Attic stolê) and thorax together when equipping a unit of slingers and cavalry. The implication here is that the spolas is a type of protective garment for slingers.This was one of the quotes that I listed earlier, Peter. I think Xenophon's Greek indicates that the horsemen received both spolades and thôrakes. My question was: did each horseman receive both? (i.e., was the spolas an undergarment?) Or did some get a spolas, and others a thôrax? (i.e., was the spolas a viable protective garment in its own right?)
"... in the course of that night a company of two hundred slingers was organized, while on the following day horses and horsemen to the number of fifty were examined and accepted, and jerkins (spolades) and cuirasses (thôrakes) were provided for them"