Linothorax vs Quilted linen vs spolas

[MeinPanzer]

Also in sculpture there are indeed depictions of usually late classical pteryges that are clearly not leather. I'm speaking about the long,thin,soft pteryges.

How do we know that these are thin and soft if we are looking at vase paintings?

Lets remind that there are only rumors about leather pieces that could belong to armour to have been found in macedonian graves and no one has ever seen them or has information on their thickness or size. The information that was being mentioned here i think first by Paullus for a long time but only recently seems to have been noticed by everybody is that a lexicon of the second century AD(am i correct?) said that spolas is a thorax of leather touching (attached to) the shoulders,and quotes Xenophon to be using the word "spolas" instead of "thorax". This is GREAT find, but it simply is not conclusive as Paul states.
First of all, Pollux's phraze doesn't make it clear if Xenophon used the word "spolas" in some case instead of the word "thorax",which would mean that spolas is a kind of thorax. Instead,Xenophon could have said "and (he was wearing) a spolas instead of thorax" which means that a spolas is something different than a thorax(cuirass).

Pollux was obviously drawing on more sources than just Xenophon, as that small portion of Xenophon that he quotes mentions nothing about the spolas being leather or hanging from the shoulders. The quotation was clearly just demonstrative, and not proof of his definition.

And again,the statement that "thorax" is a word that meant only metal cuirass does not have any base. For i can assure that the word thorax means like today the human torso and in extension anything that covers it. I can also assure that it was being used since mycenean times if not earlier to mean body armour and we know that myceneans didn't use only metal for body armour.

I don't think anyone is arguing against this, especially since Pollux himself calls the spolas a "thorax of leather"

So the best answer is that we're still at a loss concerning the matterial of this kind of cuirass, but in any case both theories of linen and leather have a strong base and nothing is conclusive. The combination of the two matterials is not supported by any evidence. Their usage together by re-enactors was made for convenience in construction.
Khaire
Giannis

To state that "both theories have a strong base and nothing is conclusive" is to misrepresent the evidence. Since Paul hasn't responded yet, I'll just provide a cursory response to this and Rhry's post which I'm sure he can expand upon. When the evidence is all laid out, we do have evidence for both linen and leather armour. However, the evidence for Greek use of linen armour comes from some Mycenaean period finds, from Homer (IIRC), and also from Alcaeus. This is a smattering of individual sources, all of them predating the Classical period and (with a small overlap) the appearance of the T&Y cuirass in Greek art.

From after this period in time, we have absolutely no evidence for the use of linen in any form of Greek defensive armour, while we have some scattered fragments of leather used as backing for armour which really tells us nothing about the material of the T&Y cuirass. In other words, as far as physical evidence goes, the playing field is level in this period. We do, however, have a statement from an erudite scholar quoting a Classical source that tells us that there was a thorax which hangs from the shoulders which was made of leather, a description which immediately brings to mind the T&Y cuirass; furthermore, it was in widespread enough use that a word was made up to describe it. Whether leather has been found in Macedonian burials as has been suggested, this is a very strong piece of evidence, and our only major one which refers to the heyday of the T&Y in the Classical period.

[PMBardunias]

furthermore, it was in widespread enough use that a word was made up to describe it.

Doesn't "spolas" refer to a leather apron of the kind that a blacksmith might wear originally?

[PMBardunias]

This intrigues me as it seems quite counterintuitive- that a soft 'version' of the same material would be superior to a solid one

This confused me when I first read Dan post on it, but the key is that Dan's quilted linen is not soft- its probably stiffer than glued linen. It has to do with how close the rows of stiches are- look up quality Kendo armor to understand.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

How do we know that these are thin and soft if we are looking at vase paintings?

As i said,we see these pteryges in sculptures and not vases after the 4rth century bc. In sculpture we can have a better idea of how sowft,thick and thin the matterial is. Also there are mosaics like the famous Alexander mosaic that show that the matterial of the pteryges at least was soft
Look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mirjam75/1417436348/

Pollux was obviously drawing on more sources than just Xenophon, as that small portion of Xenophon that he quotes mentions nothing about the spolas being leather or hanging from the shoulders. The quotation was clearly just demonstrative, and not proof of his definition.

Pollux mentions two names, Xenophon and Aristophanes. And he also gives two definitions of spolas,the first of which is "the leather chiton".

I don't think anyone is arguing against this, especially since Pollux himself calls the spolas a "thorax of leather"

Actually Paul M has elaborated that thorax could originally mean only the bronze cuirass and whenever it didn't,then the matterial had to be specifed,which has no base at all. Only the word thorax can refer to any matterial.

From after this period in time, we have absolutely no evidence for the use of linen in any form of Greek defensive armour

Actually we do have. Didn't Iphicrates use linen cuirasses? Of course we are not told what the linen cuirasses of iphicrates took the place of,but it could even be no cuirass at all!
Khaire
Giannis

[MeinPanzer]

furthermore, it was in widespread enough use that a word was made up to describe it.

Doesn't "spolas" refer to a leather apron of the kind that a blacksmith might wear originally?

Sorry, that statement was a bit unclear. I meant that this word came to refer to one kind of armour (though it seems to have also had a more generic meaning in some cases), as opposed to the earlier linen cuirasses, which are just called some variant of thorax lineos (and not linothorax).

As i said,we see these pteryges in sculptures and not vases after the 4rth century bc. In sculpture we can have a better idea of how sowft,thick and thin the matterial is. Also there are mosaics like the famous Alexander mosaic that show that the matterial of the pteryges at least was soft
Look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mirjam75/1417436348/

Firstly, the thickness of the pteruges on bronze sculptures from the ancient period cannot be used to determine the thickness of actual pteruges for the quite obvious reason that bronze and whatever organic material they were made of are very different materials. Secondly, we have absolutely no idea how soft the pteruges shown on the Alexander mosaic are because it is a two-dimensional representation. That being said, even if you held the notion that the softness of something like pteruges could be determined from such representational art, the pteruges of Alexander's cuirass certainly seem to be quite stiff, and so I have no idea how you could argue that they are soft.

Pollux mentions two names, Xenophon and Aristophanes. And he also gives two definitions of spolas,the first of which is "the leather chiton".

The reference to Aristophanes comes from the preceding entry on the sisura ("He de sisura periblema an eie ek diphtheras: en pente sisurais egkekordulemenos Aristophanes legei") and has nothing to do with the spolas. The second individual that he mentions is Sophocles, whom he quotes as "calling it Libyan:" "A Libyan spolas, a leopardskin." This second quotation does not provide another definition, but is merely another demonstrative quotation, and one that is hardly of help considering that it is poetic and likely mythological in nature. He never calls it a "leather chiton."

Actually we do have. Didn't Iphicrates use linen cuirasses? Of course we are not told what the linen cuirasses of iphicrates took the place of,but it could even be no cuirass at all!

The statement that Iphicrates' troops used linen cuirasses comes from Cornelius Nepos. He was a later source, which does not necessarily invalidate his statement, but his claim that Iphicrates replaced "linked armour" ('loricarum ... sertis' - Life of Iphicrates, 1) with linen clearly does. His is the more confused of the two sources referring to Iphicrates' reforms, and his account is not to be trusted.

[Paullus Scipio]

I have no wish to see this debate continue, particularly since there is no 'new' information, but some confusion seems to be creeping in........
Ruben wrote:

He never calls it a "leather chiton."

....There was a second onamastikon reference to 'spolas'( which is a Doric form of the Attic 'Stolas' : root stello/stole = dress, generic garment) - viz:
Hesychios lexicon and it's very interesting:

(sigma 1542) spolas: 'khitoniskos bathus skutinos, ho bursinos thorax '

"little thick leathern(skutinos) chiton, the leathern (bursinos) thorax" ...and there was then a discussion of the difference between the greek words, which are essentially skin/hide and leather, and probably refer back to the libyan skin garments as well as the 'leather thorakes'

Giannis wrote:

Actually Paul M has elaborated that thorax could originally mean only the bronze cuirass and whenever it didn't,then the matterial had to be specifed,which has no base at all. Only the word thorax can refer to any matterial.

...this is not correct either. Thorakes in a generic sense simply means 'body covering', and in an armour context,' body armour'. I did not postulate that it meant 'bronze body armour'. What I pointed out was that in the 5thC BC, we see only two types of Hoplite body armour - the Tube-and-Yoke, and the much rarer bronze muscled cuirass. Xenophon too only refers to two types of Greek body armour - 'spolades' and 'thorakes' and it is therefore likely that 'thorakes' alone is used by him as shorthand for 'thorakes chalkeos' (bronze body armour). Whenever any other material is meant, such as linen, Xenophon specifies it e.g. 'thorakes lineoi' (body armour of linen)
Xenophon: "...On the next day about fifty horses and cavalrymen were passed fit for service. They were provided with (spolades) and (thorakes), and Lycius…was given command of the cavalry”. "
It is interesting if my postulation about Xenophon's usage is correct, that there were probably fewer than fifty 'muscled cuirasses'(muskelpanzers) among the Ten Thousand....

Didn't Iphicrates use linen cuirasses? Of course we are not told what the linen cuirasses of iphicrates took the place of,but it could even be no cuirass at all!

As Ruben has pointed out, Cornelius Nepos, a Roman writer of the 2nd C AD, must be completely wrong, because he has Iphicrates anachronistically replace 'mail'/armour of iron links with 'linen' !!

[Dan Howard]

Secondly, my tests against various samples indicate that quilted layers actually provide better protection than the same number of glued layers.

This intrigues me as it seems quite counterintuitive- that a soft 'version' of the same material would be superior to a solid one- I would love to see an elaboration in a separate thread on performance of the different options for this kind of armour, for example. Last night I decided to try out the glued version since I have a lot of hide glue and scraps of nice linen left over from a Roman scutum project, and I'll have to try out a quilted version too now.

It isn't soft. If layered textiles is quilted correctly the result can be extremely rigid. The stiffness of the product can be altered by the number of layers and the closeness of the rows of stitches. Take a look at modern kendo armour. The armour can be made even more resistant by rotating each layer so that the weft and warp of each layer run in different directions. Conversely, as soon as you add cross stitching to the vertical rows of quilting, the level of protection actually reduces. No idea why.

[Archelaos]

Actually we do have. Didn't Iphicrates use linen cuirasses? Of course we are not told what the linen cuirasses of iphicrates took the place of,but it could even be no cuirass at all!

The statement that Iphicrates' troops used linen cuirasses comes from Cornelius Nepos. He was a later source, which does not necessarily invalidate his statement, but his claim that Iphicrates replaced "linked armour" ('loricarum ... sertis' - Life of Iphicrates, 1) with linen clearly does. His is the more confused of the two sources referring to Iphicrates' reforms, and his account is not to be trusted.

This quote do not invalidate Nepos I think. It is obvious that he was using earlier source, possibly greek one, so he had to translate it to latin. Full text is:

idem genus loricarum novum instituit et pro sertis atque aeneis linteas dedit.

So he replaced "linked and bronze with linen". I do not see it imposible that he found simply "thorax" in his source, and tried to explain it to his readers, or maybe he found sth like "thorax chalkeos" and tried to translate. Obviously it leaves question what word was used for "linen". It is similar to how Livius translate "peltasts" from Polibius to latin "caetrati" - this do not mean that Livius believed that Antigonid peltastai used caetra.

[immortal]

The reference to Aristophanes comes from the preceding entry on the sisura ("He de sisura periblema an eie ek diphtheras: en pente sisurais egkekordulemenos Aristophanes legei") and has nothing to do with the spolas. The second individual that he mentions is Sophocles, whom he quotes as "calling it Libyan:" "A Libyan spolas, a leopardskin." This second quotation does not provide another definition, but is merely another demonstrative quotation, and one that is hardly of help considering that it is poetic and likely mythological in nature. He never calls it a "leather chiton."

Herodotus mentions the Libyans as wearing garments of leather in Xerxes army. Depictions of Libyans at Persepolis show them wearing a long tunic, reaching to the ankles and a fur, or leather cape. Earlier Libyans are show with a piece of leather covering one side of the body with a hole for the arm, so it doesn't restrict movement (these were often made from leopard skins).

Two interpretations spring to mind, one is that it could be a long chiton style leather tunic, as the Libyans wear. The second, which to me is more appealing is that the 'Libyan Spolas' could be more akin to the animal skins worn to protect one side of the body.
Just an idea!

[Paullus Scipio]

Archelaos wrote:

So he replaced "linked and bronze with linen". I do not see it impossible that he found simply "thorax" in his source, and tried to explain it to his readers, or maybe he found something like "thorakes chalkeos" and tried to translate. Obviously it leaves question what word was used for "linen". It is similar to how Livius translate "peltasts" from Polibius to latin "caetrati" - this do not mean that Livius believed that Antigonid peltastai used caetra.

....that is an interesting idea, and certainly plausible, if a little unlikely. All our information suggests that at the time of "Iphicrates reforms", bronze armour ( muscled cuirass/muskelpanzer) was rare. But it is certainly possible that bronze scale re-inforced Tube-and-Yoke corselets were replaced by, say, Asiatic quilted Tube-and-Yoke corselets of linen, for the sake of lightness, perhaps.......

Your comparison of 'peltasts' translated as 'caetrati' is a good one....both roughly meaning 'shield-bearing skirmishing troops' ( as opposed to shieldless ) even if the translation could not be pushed too far, because the 'pelta' shield of Greece was very different from the 'caetra' shield of the western Mediterranean......

[MeinPanzer]

This quote do not invalidate Nepos I think. It is obvious that he was using earlier source, possibly greek one, so he had to translate it to latin. Full text is:

idem genus loricarum novum instituit et pro sertis atque aeneis linteas dedit.

So he replaced "linked and bronze with linen". I do not see it imposible that he found simply "thorax" in his source, and tried to explain it to his readers, or maybe he found sth like "thorax chalkeos" and tried to translate.

The fact that he stated that mail was in use in Iphicrates' day, even if it was an attempt to make sense of the passage for his Roman readership, immediately casts doubt on his recounting of the armour reforms in general. How do we know that his statement that they changed their earlier armour for linen is not some interpolation either? This part of his account is made even more suspect by the fact that it is the only element of the reform which Diodorus does not relate in his version. This means that even if he was drawing from some Greek source, it was not known to Diodorus, and so was likely later.

[PMBardunias]

Actually we do have. Didn't Iphicrates use linen cuirasses?

I agree with all the above comments on the unreliability of Nepos, but I wanted to point out that if the armor in fact was Linen, then this would be evidence against the commonly seen T-Y being a "linothorax", since it is a reform from the previous norm that is being described.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Yes it would be,however,it supposedly replaced metal armour.

[Matt Lukes]

It isn't soft. If layered textiles is quilted correctly the result can be extremely rigid. The stiffness of the product can be altered by the number of layers and the closeness of the rows of stitches. Take a look at modern kendo armour. The armour can be made even more resistant by rotating each layer so that the weft and warp of each layer run in different directions. Conversely, as soon as you add cross stitching to the vertical rows of quilting, the level of protection actually reduces. No idea why.

It's not soft relative to the same fabric connected by hide glue? So then the difference is the extra fibres of the stitching- if extremely close together that would seem reasonable to be stronger than the microscopic fibres of the glue. And it further makes sense that rotating the layers could be stronger- many fabrics have single threads in one direction and double threads in the other.

But man, it sure must be labour-intensive to do that much sewing...

[Dame dEnfer]

hi, i'm new, but i've read a number of threads on linothorax (sweet tap-dancing gods, have i been reading) and i have to say that i'm rather firmly in the layered linen camp. now, there are a few questions i haven't seen asked and there are a few ideas for glue that i want to run by some of you guys.

1) why is it unreasonable to think that there was some sort of glue that turned somewhat insoluble? (i have a reference for a "recipe" i will put down shortly)

2) now, here's a big clincher for me, what was/is the average rainfall in greece during the campaigning season? would i be wrong in thinking that it's rather low? so there's no major NEED for the T-Y to be completely weatherproof like what would be needed in say....british columbia?

3) i don't know anything about sewing and such, but i would think that the edges would have been sewed in such a way as to maintain structural cohesion even when wet. from what i've seen/read layered linen IS effective at stopping arrows and blows, so who cares if the T-Y loses some of its stiffness. i personally would lay it flat under weights and have my slaves take care of it, because really, that's what slaves were for.


below is a quote from a book that can be found on amazon. it is pulled from page 238 here

"When thoroughly dried pure caseine will keep for a long time without suffering alteration. To obtain the caseine in a form suitable for for preparing cements it is only necessary to pour water over a corresponding quantity and allow it to stand for some time. Caseine combines with lime to a hard insoluble mass."

caseine (milk product) + (available) lime could possibly have been used, no? i'm sure there's a way of reducing the amount of lime so that the mass isn't quite as hard (the same way that the amount of marble dust added to hide glue is reduced to make a softer surface when preparing icon boards). i would also think that the addition of some sort of resin (mastic) would have rendered the solution more supple.

another "recipe" (on page 240) uses borax (it's a persian word) over the caseine that when used on paper, LINEN, or cotton goods will leave a "beautiful lustre". there is much to this book, and i think i might get it for further use.

i plan on trying various "recipes" for adhesives throughout the coming months, and will definitely keep track of what i do and will take pictures of my results.

thanks for the new obsession, guys! :lol: