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Linothorax vs Quilted linen vs spolas
I have no wish to see this debate continue, particularly since there is no 'new' information, but some confusion seems to be creeping in........
Ruben wrote:
Quote:He never calls it a "leather chiton."
....There was a second onamastikon reference to 'spolas'( which is a Doric form of the Attic 'Stolas' : root stello/stole = dress, generic garment) - viz:
Hesychios lexicon and it's very interesting:

(sigma 1542) spolas: 'khitoniskos bathus skutinos, ho bursinos thorax '

"little thick leathern(skutinos) chiton, the leathern (bursinos) thorax" ...and there was then a discussion of the difference between the greek words, which are essentially skin/hide and leather, and probably refer back to the libyan skin garments as well as the 'leather thorakes'

Giannis wrote:
Quote:Actually Paul M has elaborated that thorax could originally mean only the bronze cuirass and whenever it didn't,then the matterial had to be specifed,which has no base at all. Only the word thorax can refer to any matterial.
...this is not correct either. Thorakes in a generic sense simply means 'body covering', and in an armour context,' body armour'. I did not postulate that it meant 'bronze body armour'. What I pointed out was that in the 5thC BC, we see only two types of Hoplite body armour - the Tube-and-Yoke, and the much rarer bronze muscled cuirass. Xenophon too only refers to two types of Greek body armour - 'spolades' and 'thorakes' and it is therefore likely that 'thorakes' alone is used by him as shorthand for 'thorakes chalkeos' (bronze body armour). Whenever any other material is meant, such as linen, Xenophon specifies it e.g. 'thorakes lineoi' (body armour of linen)
Xenophon: "...On the next day about fifty horses and cavalrymen were passed fit for service. They were provided with (spolades) and (thorakes), and Lycius…was given command of the cavalry. "
It is interesting if my postulation about Xenophon's usage is correct, that there were probably fewer than fifty 'muscled cuirasses'(muskelpanzers) among the Ten Thousand....
Quote:Didn't Iphicrates use linen cuirasses? Of course we are not told what the linen cuirasses of iphicrates took the place of,but it could even be no cuirass at all!
As Ruben has pointed out, Cornelius Nepos, a Roman writer of the 2nd C AD, must be completely wrong, because he has Iphicrates anachronistically replace 'mail'/armour of iron links with 'linen' !!
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
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Re: Linothorax vs Quilted linen vs spolas - by Paullus Scipio - 05-20-2009, 04:54 AM

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