09-11-2007, 10:51 PM
Quote:If you are serious about not chewing over old bones, one of you has to be the first to stop. I point this out in my role as Moderator.Indeed, I have no wish to rehash previous ( and numerous!) posts on the subject of 'spolades'......
However, I hope that this thread is going in a different direction. Let us ignore 'spolades' and instead begin with a fresh approach to the material of the tube-and-yoke corselet. Just what evidence is there for thinking Greek Hoplites in the classical age wore tube-and-yoke corselets made of linen? Where did this idea come from ?
Let me give some background to this. We have artistic representation of a new type of flexible armour being worn by Hoplites from about 520 B.C. We have a number of sources for the period, the main contemporary ones being Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon (later sources include Plutarch, Diodorus,Pausanias and others). Of these, only Xenophon is a military man who can be expected to use military terminology with exactitude. In all the works of Xenophon,he never, not even once, refers to Greeks wearing linen corselets - only Asiatics. Does that not strike anyone else as odd ? :?
AFIK there are no specific references to linen body armour worn by Hoplites in Herodotus or Thucydides either ( though I confess I have not checked them as thoroughly as I have Xenophon) - one has only so much time, so I am hoping others can point to 'linen' references, if they exist. ?
If not, then.......Horror of horrors!! hock: hock: ......could it be that Greek Hoplites of the classical era wearing linen will turn out to be as much of a myth as the certainty ( commonly held until Russell-Robinson's work appeared) that Roman legionaries wore segmentata made of leather ?? hock: hock: :lol: :lol:
"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
(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