Leather Cuirass

[D B Campbell]

That brings us back to contemporary literature, from which we learn that 'spolas/spolades' is what Hoplites wear, that it is body armour, and that it is made of leather ( and no similar statements for Hoplites and linen).

Hoplites and others wear spolades, Paul. Remember the Aristophanes quotes as well as the Xenophon ones!

And we've still to ascertain exactly what kind of garment this is. Only the Pollux reference apparently mentions leather -- has anyone found it, yet?!

[Sean Manning]

That brings us back to contemporary literature, from which we learn that 'spolas/spolades' is what Hoplites wear, that it is body armour, and that it is made of leather ( and no similar statements for Hoplites and linen).

I really recommend you seek out Williams' book, Paul. I may look up his results and give you his full set of figures.

Some late hoplites wear spolades. Apparently, hoplites 500-430 BC wore thorakes, "armour", apparently without qualification. I want to know who Pollux was, and when his Sophocles wrote, before I put too much trust in that quote. Relying on one quote to prove anything is dangerous in any case.

Why do you think that natural linen is not whiteish? Why do you think that leather would so often be painted white

[Paullus Scipio]

Yassou, everyone !
I have just returned from the "Panyiri", Brisbane's greek community festival - a great day out , lots of greek food, retsina (wine) and culture in the company of thousands, friends old and new.
Alas ( or should that be Ellas ? ), there were no Hoplites present to ask about their armour !!
To Duncan: If you look at the Aristophanes quote, no-one knows for sure what he was referring to - and there have been many guesses from the context.Most lexicons seem to think some kind of leather jerkin, but as I speculated earlier, an old tube-and-thorax corselet would fit the bill - it is consistent with the context, or 'spolas' could be a more generic term. We just don't know, but much work is now being done on deciphering the thousands of documents recovered in Egypt. (If only those early christians had not been so thorough at destroying pagan literature, we might have more to go on today)
To Sean:I would love to get Williams' book ! As I think I said earlier, there is little done on the subject, and test results are often vastly different because each tester's conditions are different.( to be continued on Gianni's new thread) It would be great if you or Dan could post some figures there.
The tube-and-yoke corselet seems to have been introduced around 500 b.c or maybe a little earlier, is common by the Persian wars (490-449b.c.) continues in use throught the next century, continues to be worn by Macedonian and Successor armies, and does not seem to disappear until around 250 b.c. Xenophon's era (circa.400b.c) would appear to be at the earlier end, rather than late.
Are the references to 'thorakes' that you refer to in Herodotus and Thucydides, then ? Some other source? Could you give specifics?
I am looking at several samples of natural linen as I write. The colour I would describe as beige/biscuit/buff. The point is the bright white so often depicted must be dyed/painted whatever the material.
And, no, I don't know why white was such a popular colour ( reflects the sun, therefore cooler, maybe?)

[hoplite14gr]

Paul, I do no know Australian distances but Sydney Ancients and Athanasios Porporis in Melbourn are active in Ancient renactment there.
Kind regards

[Paullus Scipio]

Thank you Stefanos, I do know of these groups in Melbourne and Sydney. Unfortunately, Australia is a big place ! Sydney is a good 500 miles (750 km ) away and Melbourne twice that - 1000 miles (1500km).
From the West (Perth) to the East coast (sydney) is about the same distance as London to Moscow !!!

[Paullus Scipio]

Since some members have asked, some information about Pollux may be in order.
Ioulios Polydeukes (Julius Pollux in Latin) was an Alexandrian greek who lived in the middle of the second centuryA.D. He taught at Athens,and of his many books on rhetoric and other subjects, only the Onomastikon ('book of definitions') survives.
The Onomastikon was a dictionary/thesaurus, in ten books, defining technical terms of all sorts, arranged by subject and often illustrated by quotes. It is regarded as a "book of the greatest value," because it provides an absolute cornucopia of information on everything from mythology, to the masks used in greek tragedy, to the technical names of parts of ships and much,much more. The quotations also preserve fragments of many ancient authors, now lost ( a thousand curses on those fanatical early christians !! ).

[geala]

I'm just reading a book about the hoplites in the archaic and classic times (as I'm relatively new to the Greek times I have to read a lot yet ) which has some interesting ideas. It is a revised edition of a dissertation of J.P. Franz named "Krieger, Bauern, Bürger" from 1999.

Generally he does not exclude leather or linen as possible materials for composite armour although in classical times he mentions linen as normal.

He quotes some maybe interesting books to which I don't have access to, f.e. from Philip H. Blyth "The Effectiveness of Greek Armour...", a dissertation of 1977, which includes sometimes very debatable but nonetheless valuable tests of different materials. Does anybody possess it? In that book a 15 layered linen armour should have proved a bit less effective than 5 mm leather or 0,62 mm bronze and a lot less effective than 1 mm bronze. But the linen seemed to be not layered in the correct way (alternatively).

He gives a sidenote that leather pieces were found in Argos which were believed to belong to 8th c. armour and gives as an additional source for it E. Protonotairiou-Deilaki "Apo to Argos tou 8ou kai 7ou aiona" in ASAtene 44 (1982), 33-48. Perhaps this source should be discussed also if it comes to leather armour.


But what I wanted to mention actually are his thoughts about the shoulder pieces. He presumes that it was constructed with a thin flexible bronze layer embedded in linen oder leather sheets. That would explain the straight-in-the-air habit when open and add considerably to the protection of the very vulnerable shoulder area (assuming the frequent use of downward thrusts). I like that thoughts; it would help the not-glued-linen as well as the leather fraction.

[Dan Diffendale]

Julius Pollux, Onomasticon VII.70:

(It's from page 291 of this edition via Google Books
http://books.google.com/books?id=v8cNAAAAIAAJ )

[hoplite14gr]

And "skytinai" were "cloacks", "sitiva" tunik from leather. "difthrra" hooded tunik covering up to the eybrow. "veti" long tunik and Sofokles calls the same (veti) the tents of the barbarians. "sisirna" is tunic wide with its hair; Skythians use it and "sysira" as overgarment from processed hide (leather)

...in five "sisyras" wraped in.....

Aristofanes says "spollas" armor from leather attached from the shoulders as Xenophon says "spollas" instead of armor.

Sofokles this "Livyssa" names this thing;
Spollas "Livyssa" hide with spots (could be also decorated hide)

Laudes Danno

Kind regards

[MeinPanzer]

Julius Pollux, Onomasticon VII.70:

(It's from page 291 of this edition via Google Books
http://books.google.com/books?id=v8cNAAAAIAAJ )

This is great. "Spolas de thorax ek dermatos, kata tous omous ephaptomenos, hos Xenophon ephe "kai spolas anti thorakos" is about as clear as we could hope for.

Stefanos' translation is good, but you make it look like Aristophanes says this. My translation would be:

...wrapped in five sisyras
says Aristophanes. The spolas is a thorax of leather, from
the shoulders attached, so that Xenophon says "and the spolas
instead of the thorax."

The separate sentence "Sophokles names it Libyssan: [The] Libyssan spolas is a spotted hide" is pretty clear that this description is not the normal spolas, but the kind from Libyssa (modern Gebze, where Hannibal committed suicide).

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

So,Pollux is not refering to Sophocles,but to Xenophon that spolas is a thorax.Where does Xenophon mention the spolas instead of thorax and where does he mention that it is attached by the shoulders?In the way Pollux sais it"kata tous omous ephaptomenos" it is almost clear he is refering to the shoulder flaps.But does xenophon mention shoulder flaps in the spolas?
Khairete
Giannis

[MeinPanzer]

So,Pollux is not refering to Sophocles,but to Xenophon that spolas is a thorax.Where does Xenophon mention the spolas instead of thorax and where does he mention that it is attached by the shoulders?In the way Pollux sais it"kata tous omous ephaptomenos" it is almost clear he is refering to the shoulder flaps.But does xenophon mention shoulder flaps in the spolas?
Khairete
Giannis

No, he's not saying that his description is drawn from Xenophon, but that his mention of the spolas enforces the description. The "hos" implies that Xenophon's passage derives from whichever source(s) he drew from for it. He is just saying "it is like this, so that Xenophon says in some case that spolades were worn instead of thorakes."

Evidently, Pollux drew from some other source which he doesn't cite.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Right,Xenophon only said "spolades instead of thorkes"But the fact that the spolas is supposed to be "in contact" or "to touch" or to "be attached" to the shoulders,is a point for the shoulder flaps...He sais that it's a leather thorax,"thorax ek dermatos" but next he sais that Xenophon uses the word as alternative to thorax.A bit confusing...Probably because he did not know what he was describing and was based mostly in others' descriptions and mentions.In other words,he did the same as we're doing today,only he probably had more references,being closer to the classical times.
Khairete
Giannis

[Paullus Scipio]

Yes, I have Blyth's thesis (which is not a published book ). He did not test linen armour of any sort. His thesis is very good, however, on metallic armour.
Interesting thought about shoulder pieces, but I don't think a relatively thin sheet of bronze would be "springy" ? Would it not just bend?
Can re-enactors who possess a tube-and-yoke corselet ( of any material) enlighten us ?

[hoplite14gr]

What I understand is that Polux had sources we do not have any more.

Spollas defines and leather garment and armor.

Xenophon as we have found out (page 7 of this thread) speaks of spolades and thorakes. So either the troops were issued with 2 different kinds of protection or spolas also means subarmalis

Difthera is procesed hide so some hardening took place for hide /leather.
Please see the armor penetration thread 1st page to see a member's experiment with hardened leather armor.

sisyrna is a hide with its wool a kind of heavy weather garment that it is still used by the herders in Greece with or without sleeves.

So far this makes hide armor probable; the combinations are open to interpretation

Kind regards