More glue - bah

[PMBardunias]

Also, what was the original Greek term for linothorax.

Linothorax :wink: It is the original term, the question is not "was there a linen cuirasse in the greek world?", but "are the type of cuirasses we describe as Tube and Yoke all/mostly/sometimes made of linen?".

The other candidate term for the T-Y is Spolades, which is likened to a leather apron, so probably leather. But then we don't know if all/most/some T-Ys were also Spolades.

Code:

If this is completely wrong I understand but I would like to make this myself as I believe this would be very resilient armor.

Since we know next to nothing, you cannot be completely wrong- or you could, but we'd never know! The T-Y was often a composite with metal scales and plates, so a composite of leather and linen and metal does not seem unlikely at all. Linen for the tube lining and rawhide/White tawed hide for the yoke and outer shell combines the best features of the components to me.

One thing that has been a challenge to quilting is that we don't see any quilting on vase images for most T-Ys, while we appear to for some, usually worn by asiatics. Thus I would not quilt the leather to the linen in a tight pattern, but secure it more broadly in the sectioning seen on vases. Maybe this aids airflow, maybe it makes it easier to change out the lining? You could even throw some iron between the leather and linen :wink:

Of course at the end of the day, you have to ask why if you have a leather shell you need the linen at all instead of just thicker leather. That is something worth testing.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

This sounds very much like my thoughts for a subarmalis design I have thought about....the leather for weather proofing purposes.

[rocktupac]

One need look no futher than Arrian [6.9]
"No Indian ventured to approach Alexander as he stood on the the fortress wall; but he was the target of every marksman in the neighbouring towers; men in the town shot at him too - and from no great distance either... That it was indeed Alexander who stood there was plain to all; his almost legendary courage no less than his shining armour proclaimed him."

I've never seen a single author describe leather or linen armour as "shining"

Not necessarily armor, but Livy (9.40.3) describes the Samnites appearing for battle arrayed in "shining white linen tunics" (tunicae...argentatis linteae candidae). Certainly if linen tunics could shine then linen armor could as well. From personal experiences with 'authentic' linen (i.e. harvested, spun, and woven by hand without machine use or bleaching), it does have a certain shimmer to it and catches light easily giving off the appearance of something polished. And we don't know specifically what Arrian meant by "armor". He could be talking about Alexander's entire panoply, or his breastplate, or his helmet etc. Alexander's helmet often gets mentioned by the sources and is even known to be shiny (Plu., Alex. 32.9). Diodorus also gives Alexander a shield while warding off attacks from the Mallians (17.99.3), this too could be the culprit; although one would have to forgive Arrian (and thus Ptolemy) for omitting this tidbit. Diodorus 17.103.8, which heavily favors Ptolemy, is also left out of Arrian. So the lack of shield mentioned by Arrian is a little easier to digest.

[Dan Howard]

Linothorax :wink: It is the original term, the question is not "was there a linen cuirasse in the greek world?", but "are the type of cuirasses we describe as Tube and Yoke all/mostly/sometimes made of linen?"..

Actually the Greeks never had a "term" for it. In every instance the phrase used simply translates as "linen armor". Even Homer does this. He uses the word "linothorex" not as a label but as a compound noun. It is a subtle but important difference. He probably merged the words togther to make it fit the meter of the poem.

[Dan Howard]

Of course at the end of the day, you have to ask why if you have a leather shell you need the linen at all instead of just thicker leather. That is something worth testing.

In Europe and the Middle East and Asia, layered textile armour is often covered with a layer of fine leather. The leather does little to improve its resistance to weapons since it is too light. I'm guessing that it is to protect the fabric from the elements.

[PMBardunias]

Even Homer does this. He uses the word "linothorex" not as a label but as a compound noun. It is a subtle but important difference.

So subtle that I am not sure I get it. Are you stressing that the "label" for a cuirasse was Thorax, as opposed to chalco-thorax, and lino-thorax applies to a species of the former?

The leather does little to improve its resistance to weapons since it is too light. I'm guessing that it is to protect the fabric from the elements.

Perhaps if the "leather" is raw or tawed hide, it is the linen that protects the hide from the man's sweat and the flesh from abraision. My curiousity is in how best to combine the protective qualities of stiffened leather with the padding of linen. Maybe there is no benefit in protectiveness to combining them.

[MeinPanzer]

So subtle that I am not sure I get it. Are you stressing that the "label" for a cuirasse was Thorax, as opposed to chalco-thorax, and lino-thorax applies to a species of the former?

Think of it like, for instance, the use of the term "machine gun" in English. Originally it referred to a gun that was automated. Today it has become a term to refer to a specific type of gun (though many different types of guns are now automated), but originally as a compound term it had something of a different, broader connotation, as the words used to make it were taken more literally. When the term linothorex is used by Homer, it is simply a compound word meaning "linen cuirass" - the word had no connotation of the form of the cuirass attached to it. However, in modern discussions the term linothorax has (erroneously) been used to refer to the form of the cuirass, which is usually referred to on these boards as the Tube and Yoke cuirass, and not just its material.

[Paullus Scipio]

We have been through the various words used in our sources before in some detail - we need only note that the Tube-and-Yoke corselet appears in Greek art after around 520 B.C., and that no writer from then on uses the Homeric term "linothorex" but rather, when describing foreign or Asiatic linen armour, "thorakes hoi lineoi"/lit: body-armour of linen and similar expressions. The clearest example is Xenophon who when speaking of Greek armour talks of just "spolades" and "thorakes", where from the context the latter refers most likely to bronze muscled corselets and the former to leather Tube-and-Yokes, some probably with metal scale re-inforcements.

Getting back on to the subject, as far as I am aware, earlier modern writers when describing Greek armour would suggest that the armour was of "leather or linen" ( e.g. Duncan Head, or J.K. Anderson),without specifying the structure any further, and I think it was Peter Connolly in his "Greek Armies"; MacDonald Educational 1977 who was the first to suggest glued linen layers ( a form of ancient fibreglass? :lol: ), or at the very least to popularise the idea. Unfortunately, as Dan has pointed out, there is really nothing at all to substantiate this by way of evidence - literary or archaeological, and there are some very serious objections to the idea, both practical ( weatherproofing such a corselet to last years of use?) and cultural reasons - no trace of such a technology, with the possible exception of some possible 'papier mache' layered theatrical masks - also suggested by Peter Connolly !!

[Paralus]

What about his visit to the Temple of Athena at Troy? We don't know what kind of armour he left as sacrifice but he took in its place weapons and armour that were allegedly left over from the Trojan War. I doubt that leather or linen would have survived anywhere near that long in a condition suitable for battle.

I would not doubt Alexander wore both metal and organic type armor, but as you say, if there were any remains of linen or leather armour in the temple at troy, I doubt they would be in any state for further use. Maybe for a momento, but I recall it saying he took them for use.

Depends upon what you mean by “use”. Alexander took these “arms” or “panoply” (Diod.17.18.1). Whilst Diodorus claims that Alexander used the arms which he took at the Granicus, Arrian is plain in stating (twice) that the arms were “carried before” him by the royal hypaspists. Diodorus has likely confused matters and exaggerated somewhat if we are to believe that a spear passed through a shield that Alexander was unlikely to be carrying and the breastplate (thorakos) he wore.

Arr. 1.11.7-8:
[…] that he set up his own panoply in the temple as a votive offering, and in exchange for it took away some of the consecrated arms which had been preserved from the time of the Trojan war. It is also said that the shield-bearing guards used to carry these arms in front of him into the battles.

Arr.6.9.3:
After him mounted Peucestas, the man who carried the sacred shield which Alexander took from the temple of the Trojan Athena and used to keep with him, and have it carried before him in all his battles.

On balance I’d say that Alexander was not wearing the armour from “Troy” at the Granicus or, for that matter, at the Malli town.

Scott has already addressed the notion of the “shiny” armour. The sources are replete with references to the “shininess” of ancient arms. Diodorus, in a well known passage (17.57.2), describes the “brilliance” of the infantry arms:

Behind these was stationed the infantry battalion of the Silver Shields, distinguished for the brilliance of their armour and the valour of the men…

Thus, if we accept shiny or brilliance as references to metallic “flashes”, the hypaspists – anachronistically termed the argyraspides by Diodorus – are comporting themselves in metallic armour. More likely this refers to the argyraspides’ shields, helmets and greaves.

All of which is not to say the Macedonian king could not have worn metallic armour; just that the sources do not describe – outside of Plutarch’s reference to linen – the nature of his cuirass.

[Astiryu1]

In reading the Illiad the practice of claiming a defeated enemy's armor was widespread. Hector after killing Patroclus wore the armor of Achilles ( Patroclus had worn the armor to rally the Greeks in guise of Achilles ). As I am led to believe in the book on Alexander by Robin Lane Fox, Alexander styled himself after Achilles and there were many similarities in life. Alexander wearing the armor from Troy at Gaugamela would psyche up any military man in any time frame. A general riding into battle wearing the armor believed to be Achilles' seems a bit epic but we are dealing with Alexander the GREAT. :mrgreen:

[Paralus]

As I am led to believe in the book on Alexander by Robin Lane Fox, Alexander styled himself after Achilles and there were many similarities in life. Alexander wearing the armor from Troy at Gaugamela would psyche up any military man in any time frame. A general riding into battle wearing the armor believed to be Achilles' seems a bit epic but we are dealing with Alexander the GREAT. :mrgreen:

If Plutarch's description is historical then Alexander was not wearing the "Trojan" armour. Likely enough it is that of Darius (or a relative), from his captured baggage, as one would suspect this to be the amongst Macedonian king's "spoils" from Issos.

Again, Arrian twice notes that Alexander did not use the armour from Illium; rather he had it carried before him. Although it is most unlikely to have been of Trojan War age, it was a votive offerring and was likely to be of a reasonable "vintage" to at least "pass muster". One might wonder at the serviceability of the cuirass?

[Dan Howard]

Depends upon what you mean by “use”. Alexander took these “arms” or “panoply” (Diod.17.18.1). Whilst Diodorus claims that Alexander used the arms which he took at the Granicus, Arrian is plain in stating (twice) that the arms were “carried before” him by the royal hypaspists.

Alexander left his own armour as a sacrifice at Troy. He then took some armour from there as a replacement. If he didn't wear the Trojan armour then he used another armour from his collection. Either way it is fairly certain that he wore at least three different armours during his campaign. The one he had when he visited Troy; the one he put on after he left Troy; and the linen war booty he wore at Gaugamela.

[Paralus]

Either way it is fairly certain that he wore at least three different armours during his campaign. The one he had when he visited Troy; the one he put on after he left Troy; and the linen war booty he wore at Gaugamela.

I'm sure the Macedonian king had a personal armoury that, whilst not anywhere near so decidophobic as Imelda Marcos' shoe collection, facilitated choice! I agree that he will have worn more than the one kit: he was of course the king.

I'm comfortable that Arrian has the sense correct in that the votive arms were carried before him rather than worn at his "first battle" as the Vulgate seems to have confused it. If he actually used it he seemed to have a set against the shield for some reason. Whilst the choice of the "most splendid" might, in a sans-Homeric reality, have been "the best fitting", I'm sure the king was more comfortable in armour which was made for him. Paul Mac has already provided strong reasons for adoption of the "barbarian" armour at Gaugamela -especially if, as I supect, it was taken from Darius' armoury.

[Dan Howard]

My curiousity is in how best to combine the protective qualities of stiffened leather with the padding of linen. Maybe there is no benefit in protectiveness to combining them.

Pound for pound, layered textiles provide better protection than hardened leather. There is no point adding a layer of hardened leather when a few more layers of textiles are more effective.

[rocktupac]

We have been through the various words used in our sources before in some detail - we need only note that the Tube-and-Yoke corselet appears in Greek art after around 520 B.C.

This isn't quite true. After looking over the entire CVA we (Aldrete and myself) have compiled a database of c. 700 examples of what Jarva refers to as Type IV armor (or your "Tube-and Yoke"). The breakdown for total number of images by medium is as follows: black-figure 87, red-figure 389, white-figure 7, sculpture 116, bronze objects 30, painted frescoes 11 (note that these numbers are not up to date with our current database as even more images representing Type IV have been found since tallying was done). Of these, a number of vases dating from as far back as 575 BC show warriors wearing Type IV armor, and many more from 560 BC to 550 BC show depictions of it as well (for example, see: #302587 and #350869 in Beazley online catalog; ABV 65,33; in CVA Basel 1 Schweiz 4; ABV 201,18). In fact, about 25% of the total number of images of Type IV armor come before 510 BC, and is the second highest concentration of Type IV based on a chronological breakdown (500-475 BC being the highest at around 38%).

and that no writer from then on uses the Homeric term "linothorex" but rather, when describing foreign or Asiatic linen armour, "thorakes hoi lineoi"/lit: body-armour of linen and similar expressions.

Then again, did the Greeks have a specific word for their 'bell'- or 'muscle'-cuirass? This is not my specific area of interest, but I don't think I have ever seen the ancient Greeks typologically assign a name to these types of armor. So the fact that the whole term "linothorax" wasn't used again could be of little significance if there was also a lack of a proper term for the bronze cuirasses (were they simply called "body-armor of bronze" or "bronze thorakes"?). I could be wrong, I have admittedly little knowledge in this area. Could someone with better knowledge of the subject help me out?

The clearest example is Xenophon who when speaking of Greek armour talks of just "spolades" and "thorakes", where from the context the latter refers most likely to bronze muscled corselets and the former to leather Tube-and-Yokes, some probably with metal scale re-inforcements.

I disagree with the identification of the spolas as Type IV armor. The definition of a spolas as being this type of armor is based mainly on a single source, the 2nd Century A.D. Onomasticon of Pollux. In a rather confused passage in this work, a spolas is defined as "a thorax of skin which hangs down from the shoulders, as Xenophon said 'and spolas instead of thorax.' Sophocles considers it a Libyan custom: a Libyan spolas, a leopardskin" (7.70). This description does potentially match well with the way that Type IV armor was worn and the prominence of the epomides. It also states that the spolas is one type of thorax. Because the word thorax is almost always used to mean body armor, this is good testimony that, at least at times, a spolas could be considered a type of armor.

Unfortunately, there are almost no further mentions of spolades as armor. In Xenophon’s Anabasis, during an emergency, an impromptu group of cavalry is hastily equipped with "spolades and thorakes" (3.3.20). Later, a soldier is killed by an arrow that pierces both his shield and his spolas (4.1.18). As quoted above, the same passage of the Onomasticon refers to a possible fourth use of the term spolas, a lost fragment of Sophocles that depicts Libyans wearing spolades, although here it clearly and specifically means skins from leopards (fr. 11). Other than these three instances, the only other use of the word spolas by an ancient author occurs in Aristphanes' play, "The Birds", and there it plainly refers to a simple leather garment rather than a piece of armor. In "The Birds" (an exact contemporary of the majority of Type IV vase paintings), there is a witty exchange centering around the attempt to con a priest into taking off his spolas and giving it to a poet. (Birds 930-944) Since it would be extraordinarily odd for a priest to be walking around in everyday circumstances wearing armor, spolas in this case clearly just means something akin to a leather shirt or jerkin. (This, in fact, is how the Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott defines the word spolas--as a "leathern garment, jerkin." They do not suggest that it can be any form of armor. The spolas in Aristophanes' play, however, is clearly an outer garment of some kind since the priest subsequently also gives away his tunic, which he was wearing beneath the spolas.)

The Sophoclean Libyan anecdote is probably not relevant since it seems to indicate animal skins worn over one shoulder and not the distinctive Type IV armor. (See also Herodotus' similar description of the Libyans employing animal skins as armor and fighting with crude, charred-wood spears (7.71).) The Xenophon citations are also problematic. The first states that the men are equipped with both spolas and thoraxes, implying that these are two different things (depending on reading). There are two alternative ways to read this passage: that each man gets both items, in which case the spolas would seem to be a leather shirt worn under metal armor; or, that these are both types of principal armor, and some men got spolades while others were given thorakes. If one accepts the latter reading, it is just possible that the spolas could be Type IV armor, but this is not the usual way that this passage is translated. The second Xenophon citation is similarly ambiguous in that it is unclear whether the spolas was merely a leather jerkin or a more solid form of armor. That an arrow could still penetrate deep enough to kill the man after punching through his shield implies that his spolas could not have offered much protection and thus was unlikely to have been a substantial piece of armor. Thus not only is the term spolas itself extremely rare, but it is not even clear whether was used to refer to armor during the classical era.

Finally, the Onomasticon passage itself is of questionable reliability. A confusingly jumbled string of citations from other authors, these lines contain nothing that unequivocally links the spolas specifically to Type IV armor. The fact that it is described as hanging from the shoulders is unremarkable, since this statement could be made of nearly every type of body armor. The quotations themselves seem to imply that it is something found only among primitive tribesmen. Finally, Pollux’s Onomasticon is a highly dubious source, even by the standards of ancient texts. Pollux was a pedantic antiquarian of the 2nd century A.D., and the original Onomasticon was lost and only survives in the form of summaries compiled and interpolated by Arethas, the archbishop of Caesarea around 900 A.D. All of this renders the application of this passage to Type IV armor (or your "Tube-and Yoke") and to the time when the vase paintings and other visual depictions were actually created questionable at best.