Linothorax design/construction

[PMBardunias]

And he uses "bursinos", not "bursa" itself; "bursinos" is pure greek.

So much for that Idea, Thanks.

[Paullus Scipio]

Paul B. wrote:-

I think you underestimate how much of the weight was borne by the body. Since the armor is tied around the body there is no need for a belt- it is tied to the proper width. To me the fact that the shoulders were attached last when arming, and the relatively weak attaching thongs, point to a division of weight.

....I think I would concur with this. If we look at the pot depictions of arming, it is clear that once wrapped and tied, the 'Tube' stays put of its own accord....try it with cardboard, and you'll soon see what I mean, and I am sure re-enactors would agree. But by comparison with a bronze Thorakes, which most certainly sits on the Hips, the Yoke gives the impression of 'hanging from the shoulders', as Duncan correctly observed.Hence the lexicon definition.
Paul B. wrote

since to me the tube and yoke is not ideal for flexible leather construction.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the tube was in any way flexible, and the yoke only to the degree needed to fasten, and I think you may have misunderstood the reference to Jarva too. I think ( and Duncan can doubtless clarify this) that it is the fact that the shape can be cut from a single Hide that is being referred to, rather than an armour that is pre-fastened and slips over the head.....
BTW a laudes to you Paul B. for your new contribution of Alum tawed hide as a possible material!

[Dan Howard]

The weight of my bronze cuirass is carried almost entirely on the shoulders. Same with my Dendra panoply which fits me very closely. The bronze thorakes cannot be carried on the hips because it ends at the navel. The only thing that might reach hip level is a mitra hanging off the bottom edge.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Dan, what kind of bronze thorax do you have? A bell one?(you mentioned the mitra).
The fact that s spolas is "ephaptomeni eis toyw omous", I must admit favours the tube and yoke,as it indicates something special about the shoulders-either separate shoulder pteryges or an unusual way of covering them(what Paul B indicated). Xenophon sais a thorax must have the exact size as to not be carried entirely by the shoulders nor to be uncomfortable if too narrow. And my linothorax can indeed stay in place for quite some time with the shoulder flaps up.
Khairete
Giannis

[Vishtaspa]

Khairete!

Just more linguistical information about "spolas"

For Pierre Chantraine (our best source about ancient greek etymology), "spolas" is not related to "stole", (as Liddell-Scott thought) but to greek "spolia", coming from a root that means "to pull out, to skin" (an animal).
Hesychios sais: "spolia: the plucked wool from the cattles's legs"

In fact, "spolia" is the plucked skin or wool from animals, and hence the armour taken from defeated enemies. latin took this word in "spolium"

So, it's a clear evidence of the animal (skin or even wool) origin of Spolas (an etymological, ancient meaning, so the late lexica seems to be right)

"spolas" is no doubt something made of hide. But the quid, the big deal, as sometimes said, is to identify spolas with the famous tube and yoke thorax (despite the "it hangs from the shoulders" of Pollux. An animal skin like Heracles' garment hangs from the shoulders too, and Pollux quotes Sophocles saying "lybian spolas: leopard's skin")

regads

[Paullus Scipio]

Vishtaspa/Inyigo said:-

An animal skin like Heracles' garment hangs from the shoulders too, and Pollux quotes Sophocles saying "lybian spolas: leopard's skin")

...but you are leaving out the rest of the lexica definition...a leopard's skin isn't armour and Xenophon's Hoplites are not wearing animal skins!
To suggest that would be 'special pleading' taken to an extreme

Just because'spolas' has an animal skin root, and can sometimes be used to refer to such does not nulluify the fact that 4th century Hoplites wear Tube-and-Yoke corselets ( or rarely bronze thorakes) and Xenophon calls these spolas......many have tried, but no-one has come up with a plausible alternative to 'Spolas' = Tube-and-Yoke.....

is to identify spolas with the famous tube and yoke thorax

...short of one turning up labelled 'this is a spolas', that cannot happen, can it? Hoplites are shown in Tube-and-Yokes.Xenophon tells us their body armour is called spolades...what more do you want? Surely the overpowering logical conclusion is that the two must be one and the same?

[Vishtaspa]

...short of one turning up labelled 'this is a spolas', that cannot happen, can it?

hehe, of course no, such things make researching so exciting!

Hoplites are shown in Tube-and-Yokes.Xenophon tells us their body armour is called spolades...what more do you want? Surely the overpowering logical conclusion is that the two must be one and the same?

but my trouble is that Xenophon don`t call spolades to their (tubeyoke) armour at all, he sais in 3.3.20 "spolades kai thorakes"; IMO thorax is the generic word both for bronze and for tube and yoke, and with spolades perhaps he is referrig another kind of leather protection, (very little srong, as shown in Basias passage). thorax is a word very often attested in texts, spolas a very few times in whole greek corpus, and this is strange for a item so common. I think frecuency can be an argument. As you said, isolated facts are dangerous, for me the evidence sais clearly that something called spolas was made of leather.

Regards!

[Paullus Scipio]

Inyigo wrote:-

IMO thorax is the generic word both for bronze and for tube and yoke,

...excuse me if I'm beginning to sound a little irritable, but I have been through this so many times.....

In 550B.C, 'body armour'(thorakes) and 'bronze corselet' are synonymous, but after the introduction of the Tube-and-Yoke, this is no longer true.....when Xenophon uses 'thorakes' when talking of Hoplites, he means bronze cuirasses, and he uses this to distinguish this piece of equipment from Tube-and-Yoke body protection.
Note that in the famous passage at Anabasis 3.iii where Xenophon raises cavalry, since they don't have shields then they should have the best body armour.(see Xenophon, Art of Horsemanship,XII.1 - cavalry should have well-fitting thorakes.Xenophon Anabasis III.4 - he is encumbered by his'cavalry thorakes' and it is ''heavy going" for him keeping up with Hoplites who presumably are wearing lighter 'spolades', or no armour.) But there are not enough 'thorakes' (bronze muscled cuirasses) in the army to equip 50 men (!) so some must make do with spolades and Xenophon clearly means bronze cuirasses when he says 'thorakes'.
Since the majority of Hoplites who wear armour wear Tube-and-Yokes, that only leaves one candidate for 'spolades', especially as a powerful arrow goes through one!!( Incidently, it is not Basias the Arcadian who is killed this way-he is shot in the head- but Leonymus the Spartan........BTW, this and Agesilaus taking wounds'through his body armour' proves Spartans still wore armour( or many of them at least) contra those who would have them running round in those spiffy off-the-shoulder numbers and little else. :wink: :wink:

[Vishtaspa]

, but I have been through this so many times.....

I know, and your position is very well argumented :wink:

In my rather philological-mind the very few times that the terms appears in the whole corpus is still a problem. (as armour only in a classical author, twice) for a such common object.
Ok, can be that Xenophon, a profesional soldier, is using a rather technical term for a thing he knows very well and he must distinguish between different styles of armour. (it reminds me that there are very few clear references in latin corpus to mail, only Varro, Lucanus or the very late St.Jerome)

And yes, it was not Basias, this was a lapsus mentis!

Regards

[Paullus Scipio]

Inyigo wrote:-

(it reminds me that there are very few clear references in latin corpus to mail, only Varro, Lucanus or the very late St.Jerome)

...an excellent point,and I would heartily agree with you, and apart from Polybius it is hard to find writers in Greek or Latin who give much technical information about arms, armour, and tactical information.

...But if it were otherwise, then we would collectively not be spending countless hours and writing hundreds of thousands of words to fill the RAT site ( and many other forums too!! ) :wink:

[Sean Manning]

Inyigo wrote:-

IMO thorax is the generic word both for bronze and for tube and yoke,

...excuse me if I'm beginning to sound a little irritable, but I have been through this so many times.....

In 550B.C, 'body armour'(thorakes) and 'bronze corselet' are synonymous, but after the introduction of the Tube-and-Yoke, this is no longer true.....when Xenophon uses 'thorakes' when talking of Hoplites, he means bronze cuirasses, and he uses this to distinguish this piece of equipment from Tube-and-Yoke body protection.
Note that in the famous passage at Anabasis 3.iii where Xenophon raises cavalry, since they don't have shields then they should have the best body armour.(see Xenophon, Art of Horsemanship,XII.1 - cavalry should have well-fitting thorakes.Xenophon Anabasis III.4 - he is encumbered by his'cavalry thorakes' and it is ''heavy going" for him keeping up with Hoplites who presumably are wearing lighter 'spolades', or no armour.) But there are not enough 'thorakes' (bronze muscled cuirasses) in the army to equip 50 men (!) so some must make do with spolades and Xenophon clearly means bronze cuirasses when he says 'thorakes'.
Since the majority of Hoplites who wear armour wear Tube-and-Yokes, that only leaves one candidate for 'spolades', especially as a powerful arrow goes through one!!( Incidently, it is not Basias the Arcadian who is killed this way-he is shot in the head- but Leonymus the Spartan........BTW, this and Agesilaus taking wounds'through his body armour' proves Spartans still wore armour( or many of them at least) contra those who would have them running round in those spiffy off-the-shoulder numbers and little else. :wink: :wink:

Unless, as I believe, thorax has both a broad and a specific meaning. Consider how Greeks like Herodotus use the word "Persian" to mean 1) related to the ethnos native to Persis/Parsa, and 2) related to the Great Kingdom east of Ionia. In one sense, a Scythian in Xerxes' army cannot be called a Persian; in the other he can be. Things like this are common: in the 16th century, for example, a rapier could be almost any sword or more specifically a longish thrusting one with a fancy hilt (I think I got this from Sydney de Anglo's [i]Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe[i]). Even people writing dictionaries and martial arts manuals couldn't agree on a precise definition.

All in all, I think a Greek could have called one of these armours either a thorax or a spolas and have been perfectly correct.

[Paullus Scipio]

Sean wrote:-

All in all, I think a Greek could have called one of these armours either a thorax or a spolas and have been perfectly correct.

...maybe so, Sean, and even modern words can sometimes have a 'fuzzy' meaning, which can only be discerned from context....take 'tank' for instance, as in 'water tank' or 'well armoured tank'.

However, we are not concerned here with how a greek might have used 'thorakes', but how Xenophon used it, and distinguished it from 'spolades'. He is consistent in all his writings - 'thorakes' for him is clearly the bronze cuirass, and 'spolades' is the only other term he uses for hoplite body armour ergo....... D wink:

[geala]

Paul, you often had to give your arguments about the appearance of the tube-and-yoke armour, the term "thorax" and that it is exclusively used for bronze armour. I understand that it must be a bit annoying to you. :wink:

Nevertheless, I have to say something again, because your dates are debatable. It is far from sure that the composite armour appeared around 520, as you argued earlier, and there are hints that it appeared also not around 550 but earlier still, at the beginning of the second quarter of the 6th c. BC. Different opinions exist, some scholars date the vases to the second half of the century, some earlier. I believe in the earlier dates and so for me the text from Alkaios and the appearance of the new composite armour fit perfectly.

The basis of your argument is therefore less definite as it should be. So I have still difficulties to identify only the spolas with the tube-and-yoke armour and exclude linen as a material. It could be that spolas is the name for leather variants of armour, including the tube-and-yoke-form or the name exclusively for the leather composite armour. But that does not mean that composite armour was made exclusively from leather.


I have also some problems with the connection of thorax and bronze. Xenophon is not clear, as usually. At least your strict connection is not in accordance with Pollux in Onomastikon who wrote: the spolas is a leather thorax (sic!) and Xenophon can say spolas instead of thorax. This means of course that thorax is not the term only for bronze armour, but a generic term, otherwise one could not say spolas instead of thorax. So there is room for other forms of thorakes too.

What do the lexica say about the term thorax?

[Paullus Scipio]

Wolfgang wrote:-

Nevertheless, I have to say something again, because your dates are debatable.

...this is too vague to even answer!Which dates? And what do you mean by "debatable" ? :?
Any dates I quote are generally 'common ground' and backed by sources/archaeology/history

It is far from sure that the composite armour appeared around 520, as you argued earlier, and there are hints that it appeared also not around 550 but earlier still, at the beginning of the second quarter of the 6th c. BC.

...the earliest unequivocal depiction I know of, is on a black-figure wine cup, by Paroclus and accurately dated AFIK, to 550-540 B.C.You make an assertion that such corselets appear as early as 575 B.C. You do not give your source for this, which I'm sure we'd all be interested in, if it is credible.

Different opinions exist, some scholars date the vases to the second half of the century, some earlier.

Again this is too vague to respond to ! Which 'opinions'? which 'scholars'? which'vases'?
I have used examples which are accurately dated to known potters/painters who worked at known dates, as established by the greatest expert on the subject, John Boardman...I haven't seen any more recent work which challenges his dates/views, but evidently you have. Could you cite these, please?

I believe in the earlier dates and so for me the text from Alkaios and the appearance of the new composite armour fit perfectly.

...even if you could somehow bring Alcaeus forward and push the introduction of the Tube-and-Yoke back, so what? Alcaeus is still almost certainly referring to legendary times, like Sophocles and his 'chariot poles' so it adds nothing to a linen argument. And you haven't produced any evidence anyway.....
Given that the overall evidence is slim, even were I to agree with you, and accept that Alcaeus was talking contemporary it does not advance the cause of linen one whit, for the evidence for leather, slim as it is, still outweighs linen!
In all the time we have debated this, I have constantly asked the 'linophiles' to come up with one credible piece of evidence for the use of linen in classical era Tube-and-Yoke corselets. No-one ever has. And I would therefore be very curious to see yours.

So I have still difficulties to identify only the spolas with the tube-and-yoke armour and exclude linen as a material.

...are you implying that I exclude linen? I most certainly do not.....see even a recent post above. I simply say that there is no credible evidence for the base of composite corselets in general being linen, but there is for leather being the general base material, at least in Greece.How many times do I have to say this? :?

I have also some problems with the connection of thorax and bronze. Xenophon is not clear, as usually.

..on the contrary, Xenophon, the General, is very consistent AND clear in his use of the term, as I hope I have demonstrated. Others such as Pollux use 'thorakes' in its general sense of 'body armour'(and if you look at my earlier post you will see that I don't dispute that 'thorakes' has a general meaning of 'body armour'), but Xenophon uses it to mean 'bronze body armour'. I had hoped I had made this plain earlier.
The problem that you and others have is that you begin with the conviction that the Tube-and-Yoke was linen, and then look at the evidence in a subjective way. What you should be doing is looking at the evidence in an objective way, and then drawing conclusions from that...and it may be there is too little evidence to draw any conclusions from at present! ....but the evidence for Leather/hide, meagre as it is, is better than the so far non-existent evidence for Linen ( But perhaps you are about post some? :wink: )
But do you notice something? The new pieces in this puzzle - another separate Lexicon reference, Alum-tawed leather/hide being a good candidate for material AND being white, and the fragments of leather in Macedonian Hoplite tombs ( and Thracian ones too! ) all add to the evidence for, and are consistent with, leather/hide......and there is STILL nothing at all for Linen...... (

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

A question: Are there cases in classical literature including the phraze "thorakas khalkous" or something similar meaning "bronze thorakes"? This would also mean that the word thorax is not equal to bronze cuirass. One of Paul's arguements was that when linen,the material had always to be mentioned. I don't agree with this. A thorax was always a cover of the "thorax"(chest) and the material has nothing to do with it. The word is at least mycenean if not earlier(to-ra-ka) and we all know that the myceneans did not have only bronze thorakes. It is also clear that spolas was a word for something else instead of armour,too. In fact the actual meaning of the word must have been any animal skin worn by men. If at some point those skins were used in war-even in different forms, then the word spolas would refer to a leather thorax,as it would protect the chest. I don't exclude what Wolfgang suggested that any form of thorax(the tube and yoke included) made of leather could be called spolas. But I cannot accept that every single time the word thotax is used in classical literature it refers to the bronze cuirass,whos finds in Greece are so few from the classical period.
Khairete
Giannis