09-11-2016, 04:16 AM
(09-11-2016, 03:13 AM)Dan Howard Wrote: There is no point asking these questions. Why not ask why they used the tube and yoke style in the first place? Often the answer is something like: "because that is how we always have done it" or "because that is how our cultural superiors do it". Fashion has a far greater influence over armour design than many want to admit. Fashion rarely has much to do with efficiency or common sense.
Actually, I think the answer to why the T-Y is fairly straight forward. Greeks dressed in tubes that were pinned at the shoulder, often with the rear flap extending forward over the front then pinned with fibulae. The damn women's peplos is even more exaggerated in this way, with long pins securing flaps over the front. Thus if rendering a civilian garment as military by making the fabric thicker or altering the material, the cut is quite natural. The yoke just needs to become more exaggerated over time. I think this is why they called them Spolades, Stolidia, etc. They were simply stolas, rendered in thick material, and not small, but brief. Short, thick stola= stolidion.
