Linothorax design/construction

[Paullus Scipio]

The reason no one commented before is likely to be that although you have completely distorted what Xenophon actually said, out of politeness, no-one was willing to say so, not least because you are debating most admirably in what is, for you, a foreign language. However since you would have it so......

At least in one occasion Xenophon in the anabasis says that the common linen thorax has pteryges,while those he describes is the same but has ropes!

No he does not!

And it implies that the common linen thorakes that the greeks knew of had pteryges,because nowhere does he describe what a linen thorax would look like. This is not new info.I have mentioned it before in this thread but it is being ignored. In fact what he is saying is "...these thorakes were like the linen ones but instead of pteryges they had tuisted ropes (from a plant I cannot translate)" The translation is not the exact one(I do not have the text in front of me now) but it is clear the Greeks who read the text aught to know how were the pteryges of a linen thorax. I have never received a comment in this fact neither from the "linophiles" nor from the "leatherophiles" or the neutral.
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.....again, this is a mis-quotation. Nowhere is there any mention of "common linen thorakes" - this is pure invention.

What Xenophon(IV.7), referring to an Armenian people called Chalybes, actually says is this..... ( I give two different translations for the avoidance of doubt)
"They wore cuirasses of linen (thorakes lineoi) reaching to the groin, and instead of the ordinary "wings" or skirts,(pteryges) a thickly-plaited fringe of cords. They were also provided with greaves and helmets, and at the girdle a short sabre, about as long as the Laconian dagger,..."

" They had body-armour made of linen( thorakes lineoi), reaching down to the groin, and instead of skirts (pteryges) to their armour they wore thick twisted cords. They also wore greaves and helmets, and carried on their belts a knife about the size of the Spartan dagger"
There is NO connection with greek armour, other than to say that the Chalybes don't have'pteryges', but rather the thick fringe of plaited cords.He doesn't even say if it was of Tube-and-Yoke type. In fact, his use of the word 'thorakes' (lit: body/chest armour, usually associated with bronze cuirass) implies that it was not Tube-and-Yoke type, for which Xenophon might have said 'spolades made of linen'- though this might have been a clumsy expression in greek -'leather body armour made of linen'. It is a pity that Xenophon does not tell us whether the Chalybes armour was quilted or not.....I have a suspicion that all such Asiatic linen armour was quilted. That is probably because Xenophon felt no need to describe Asiatic armour in detail to his audience, most of whom could be expected to be familiar with it.....This passage tells us nothing about Greek armour, not even by inference.