01-13-2012, 08:48 AM
Quote:A Spolas to me is the the commonly depicted yoked armor, a Thorax; a cuirass.
And if you are wrong and the spolas is not the T-Y every time it is used, then you have semantically boxed us in again in just the manner the linothraxites did. Now I commonly have to tell laymen about "leather linothoraxes!" Clearly not every Stolas was armor. The word only has meaning to us in this context because we are not so familiar with dialects other than Attic.
I don't like it because it is clearly slang- which is why we are told by the later writer that Xenophon used it to refer to a thorax. I could call a gun a "heater" and all of my Mafia friends would know what I mean, but I, and the guys who make my thermostat, would be a bit taken aback if future historians argued over the merits of .45 and 10mm "heaters".
Paul M. Bardunias
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A Spartan, being asked a question, answered "No." And when the questioner said, "You lie," the Spartan said, "You see, then, that it is stupid of you to ask questions to which you already know the answer!"
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A Spartan, being asked a question, answered "No." And when the questioner said, "You lie," the Spartan said, "You see, then, that it is stupid of you to ask questions to which you already know the answer!"
