Linothorax vs Spolas

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

I agree with all that has been said.
I only need to make a couple of points
Paul, it is perhaps significant that in Pollux's lexicon the spolas is NOT linked with the stola, and when he reffers to Xenophon, it is not to give one more meaning to the word, but to show how the word has been used.
Second, almost all cuirasses hung somehow from the shoulders. We could say that e muscled cuirass does (although much of its weight is indeed held by the ribs and hips, but the same could be argued for the tube and yoke), but Pollux makes the effort to mention the shoulder attachment.
And perhaps a third comment should be made about one of Xenophon's mentions of the word, where of the 50 newly formed hippeis, some of them were equiped with whatever "thorax" could be gathered from the whole army, and the rest with spolades. Now, it doesn't seem very logical that some of them had bronze cuirasses and the rest had animal skins hunging from their shoulders, something that stone throwels are often shown with...
And the Spartan that got killed from a Karduchian arrow, it is odd how the arrow killed him penetrating his shield and an animal skin that would lormally hung from his shoulders like a cape...

So we DO have some CLUES about what the spolas looked like, and we do have some CLUES about that the linen cuirasses were looking like. And for all we could possibly know, they looked the same!
Philip's cuirass was not covered in thin white leather but in linen! And we do know that the Persians used quilted linen cuirasses and we do know exactly what they looked like!
We also know how the greeks represented the persian quilted linen cuirasses on their vases, and we see the same effect in SOME of their representations of greek tube and yoke cuirasses but not all.

So yes, we don't have hard evidence for either case, but we do can make some educated guesses. They will be guesses none the less, but i think that they allow re-enactors to use whatever method they find fit for the construction of their cuirasses, and in fact this would give them a nice tool to use in explaining to the public this exact debate that we are having right now. And the mystery of the greek armour.
Khairete
Giannis