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.