Metal plate beneath Linothorakes or Spolades

[Paullus Scipio]

It does not matter who the armor was intended for. I stated that three types of armor were available to hoplites. ...with the implication that they were equally so - which is not true - the majority were Tube-and-Yoke, probably leather spolades, with a few bronze muscled 'thorakes', and perhaps a few linen examples on troops who had served in Asia Minor and aquired them by trade or capture - and this point needs to be clarified.
Those smuggled Thorakes, as well as the linen armor hanging in a home in Lindos or a treasury in Delos are obviously available. If linen armors were "around" for other troop types, or taken as booty from foreigners, then they were obviously "available". But not generally available to all. Alcaeus is not valid evidence because his fragments are consciously "Homeric" in style, and furthermore, despite attempts to stretch the introduction of T-and-Y corselets back in time, there is no evidence that such a thing existed when Alcaeus wrote, thus making the reference conclusively "Homeric"!
The onus is now on you to tell us why they would not be worn- especially because we know Alexander did so.
Another straw man! You know we agree that linen armour might be worn in Anatolia, but the 'availability' of it was not widespread or general, so the evidence suggests. In fact I see from your remarks post that you agree that the 'availability' of linen armour to the average citizen of a Greek poleis was rare.....

....The fact is, when Alexander wore linen armour, it was sufficiently rare as to be remarked on, together with the explicit point that it was a captured Persian piece. The clear implication is that Greeks don't normally wear such 'foreign' armour

Good, now we have gone from "never" to "normally".
Naughty!...you twist my words and take them out of context. I said that Greek hoplites are 'never' described in the literature as wearing linen armour, which is perfectly true ( only 'barbarians/foreigners' are)
I never said that linen dominated. I said that linen was available and likely worn by some hoplites. Maybe more in the East, less in the West. Maybe an Acarnanian never saw one, while a rich Athenian with business interests in Melos had one.
We agree then, that linen armour would have been uncommon - a rarity even - which is the clarification I was seeking to make. Linen simply was not, in all probability, available to the vast majority of Greek hoplites, especially as they tended not to venture far from home.....

Again, this is an assumption - to use your words "not many styles..." If there was leather body-armour, but not of T-and-Y form, it would be called something other than 'spolades', hence 'thorakia skutinous'. Only if the T-and-Y were the sole form of leather armour would the terms be synonymous

Are you suggesting that there is a leather armor in the Delian treasury that is not a T-Y? I should take care because that way leads to Spolades not being T-Ys! Do not arm your opponents.
No, not necessarily. In the Delian treasury/temple lists three different words are used for helmets - "kune", "perikephalai" and "kranos", in all likelihood to distinguish different types, though we have no way of knowing which was which. Similarly, "spolades" and "thoraka skutinous" (treated leather body armour) may refer to different types as well - perhaps different types of T-and-Y.

We do not in fact read of the term 'linothorax' in the sources. As has been pointed out repeatedly in various threads, the term 'linothorax' is not EVER used of hoplite armour....it is a modern borrowing and variation on a Homeric term. The sooner this inaccurate mis-nomer is dropped, the less confusion there will be on the subject.

Does ????????? not refer to linen armor??? Had linen somehow qualitatively changed in a few centuries? Homer speaks of Linen armor, we later read of linen armor. It does not matter if they change the word order, the meaning is linen armor.
But there is a difference - the Greek of Classical times ( in all its dialects) was not the Greek of Homer - and 'linothorax' is not even the correct archaic Homeric Greek. Why use an artificial 'bastardised' Greek-lish word for something we already have a correct name for?
If it is made of linen and it is armor for the chest the man has a linothorex,...only in archaic Mycaenaean, or whenever Homer is referring to, times...and not "a linothorex" - the Homeric term is a compound adjective, and may not refer to armour at all, 'lino-thorex' means, literally, "linen-chested/breasted" or "linen clad" and is used to describe the lesser Ajax at 2.529 "He was a short man, linen breasted/clad (or "linen armoured"/'lino-thorex') or 2.830 where the Dardanian Amphios is similarly described
A chest protected by linen, colloquialized to linothorax for the armor itself:
...and there's the rub. the 'colloquialisation' is not so - it is an invented modern noun, not even proper Greek, used, quite incorrectly, as a name for T-and-Y corselets

??^??-????? , ?_???, Ep. and Ion. ??^??-????? , ????, o(, h(,
A. wearing a linen cuirass, Il.2.529, 830; “???????” AP14.73; [?????????] Str.3.3.6.

Unless you think that every reference to "Thorakes lineou" definitely meant a T-Y, then I could understand why you would want to seperate it out from the armor that Homer speaks of, for which we cannot know the form.
Given the iconography, I think it possible that Persian 'thorakes lineous' MAY well have been of T-and-Y form.....

but Homer's terminology has nothing whatever to do with Classical Hoplite body armour! Would you use other Homeric epithets to derive a name for much later equipment? There is no logic to this!

Yes, I would, as would Strabo if Liddell can be believed. Because the term has no specific homeric meaning, it is simply a way of saying linen corselet in Greek!!!
I disagree....Strabo is certainly not using contemporary language, but is likely deliberately invoking archaic "Homeric" language, like so many Greek and Roman authors - as when a modern writer uses a Shakespearean phrase

Which is precisely the point. The word was 'invented' specifically by someone unknown as a name for the T-and-Y corselet

No, it was used by a very good Greek who wrote the Illiad to mean an armor made of linen. That someone used this excellent term, but tried to give it a specific modern meaning it did not bear in the past to any greek is the problem.
Strictly speaking, it is believed that 'Homer' did not write down anything! "Linothorax" is not an 'excellent term', it is a made-up modern 'Greek-lish' noun derived, incorrectly, from an archaic Homeric adjective and applied, quite wrongly, as the name for a Greek T-and-Y corselet. The word was not used by those who wore such corselets in Classical Greece, nor is it used by modern scholars who know their stuff, such as Anderson, Snodgrass, or Connolly. It is just plain WRONG!!!

If not all 'linothoraxes' are T-and-Y's, then why call them this modern made-up word, which is an incorrect description, and not even real Greek, to boot? You are here seeking to defend the indefensible.

No, I am not suggesting that we call all T-Ys linothoraxes, that is enough of that! I am saying that we can use a generic greek term for "linen chest armor" coined in the Iliad to refer to any ancinet greek linen armor for the chest no matter what form.
Like I said, since we know the correct classical generic Greek term for linen armour, why not use it, instead of some artificial made-up word???
Since I am not certain that all Lineo thorakes were T-Y I think this is safer. You could just as correctly called them all Thorakes Lineou, but linothorax is alreay widespread. It is only the definition as a T-Y that is a problem.
..And so long as it is used, people will automatically, and wrongly, associate the word with Greek T-and-Y's. That alone is reason to discourage use of the word. Further, since when did being 'widespread' make use of wrong terminology correct ??? There is no such thing as a 'linothorax' !! Period !! :wink:

I don't believe so. Iron was much harder to work, technically, than other materials, requiring much higher temperatures for example. It was therefore a rarity in armour ( though not simple spear-heads and sword-blades) until those technological masters of iron-work, the Celts, came up with practical iron armour in the form of mail.

You are going to tell me a Greek could make a mild steel sword, but not puch a bunch of scales in the manner his Anatolian neighbors had been doing for centuries?
Why would a Greek armourer make iron scales, when it was much easier to make bronze ones that were harder, and did not tarnish to boot - better in almost every way ?? In any event, you were not talking about iron scales, but iron plates inserted into Tube-and-Yoke corselets, and plate-making is something that the evidence suggests was not mastered until Philip of Macedon's time.....