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[keravnos]

I'd be curious to hear which source groups thureophoroi with heavy infantry, because one of the only sources that I know in which a specific categorical mention of thureophoroi is made is Polybius' account of the crossing of the Elburz range, in which he classes both thureophoroi and thorakitai in with the light infantrymen.

Mp, I have profound respect for your views and thank you for your continuing presence. Thanks for putting this forth, as I know there are others there who share the same views, on what our sources are.

First and foremost, literary sources, good as they may be for getting a picture of the people at that time can't be considered 100% accurate, as writers of that time would call things with one name, whereas they would be called something different by another. This must not be the case with Polybios, as he was Hipparchos of the Achaike Sympoliteia (Achaian League) from 170-169 BCE.

Having said that, the tactical realities of the day were such that sometimes heavy infantry would be mingled with light infantry, being called light altogether or what have you or mixed with cavalry to achieve victory as Julius Caesar himself did in Greece against Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pharsalus
It would depend on the commander on the ground and how he would use his troops at hand to go against military axioms and win (as the opposing general might be trapped by the "do's" and "dont's") of military doctrine, leaving the hapless historian in a jumbled mess, trying to find who was who, doing what on the battlefield.

This is further complicated when one takes into account that when a "barbarian" faction would assault, it would sometimes incorporate in its host heavy infantry, lighter infantry, gaesetae (naked men with just a thureos), spearmen and swordsmen, all of them combined. How do you call them? I guess one would have to pick by either percentage of each composing element, or their role in the battlefield. This would have been a challenge to the historian back then, that is for sure.

Then, something unimaginably simple comes along... Archaeological finds.
When you have thureos (meaning literally door in ancient greek) carrying troops who are clad in muscle cuirass like the following...

and

it is difficult to classify them (found in present day Anatolia IIRC) as NOT heavy. The fact that they carry the thureos and are armored (thorax in greek) would deffinitely mean that they are thorakitai. There is no doubt in my mind that those are bronze muscle thorakes.

There is also an indirect quote for them. When Philopoemen reformed the Achaian League's army, he had his troops drop his thureos in favor of a small aspis and pike, "in the makedonian manner" in order to beat the Spartans (along with Antigonos Doson's troops at Sellassia). This means that prior to that they mostly used thureoi (plural of thureos) as shields. They would be the thorakitai and thureophoroi of EB.