Small question: What armour is this?

[Sarcasm]

I guess it is possible. But I've only heard of armour made like that during the middle ages in Iberia where they'd essentially have a leather bag in the form of a long shirt with padded linen inside. Good for low intensity warfare and arrows.

Then again I'm no expert in Hellenic matters, though curious on all forms of warfare.

[geala]

I would be very interested to get a source for that form of armour!

It is a hot discussion wether the Greeks used leather armour. For me the result of the discussion ist clearly "yes" but some may disagree. At least some examples of the spolas were made from leather. Another question would be wether the leather spolas were the normal tube-and-yoke armours so often depicted in the pictural sources or wether this form of armour was exclusively/mostly made from layered linen.

And now we come to the armour of the EB Cretan archers. I never saw something like this in the sources but I think it would be a good and simple form for a padded leather or layered linen armour (btw: how would it be donned and closed? just get into it like a pullover?). To be honest when I first heard about the spolas I imagined something like that stuff. So a pictural evidence would be very valuable.

The colour of the armour is a bit to dark for natural linen which is mostly light grey, seldom light brown-grey. But the same for leather; normally leather would be brighter, but that depends on the animal and the process of leather-making.

[Shifty_GMH]

Your question made me a little curious too. Don't know how accurate this is, but it was interesting. It talks about Cretan Archers in Roman Service.


Cretan Archers in Roman Service courtesy of www.romanarmy.com

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Our Hellenistic boys have said several times that Linthorax (linen armour) was often covered with a layer of leather. This would also increase weather resistance.

[MeinPanzer]

Our Hellenistic boys have said several times that Linthorax (linen armour) was often covered with a layer of leather. This would also increase weather resistance.

There's absolutely no primary evidence for this.

That, and other quilted armours like it, are not based on any primary Hellenistic evidence, and is purely conjectural.

[Watchman]

I wonder about the decisive primary evidence against though.

[Sarcasm]

Didn't this guy leave already?

Problem here is he uses deductive logic only when it suits his views.

[MeinPanzer]

I wonder about the decisive primary evidence against though.

None. But then again, there's no decisive primary evidence against any other kind of armour being worn, so if you use that as criteria, you can reconstruct just about anything you like.

[Thaatu]

Considering this is your opening for this discussion, you might see why people have a problem with your attitude:

There's absolutely no primary evidence for this.

The problem is that you don't articulate your words to fit a scientific debate taking place in this arena, meaning in a place where people can't see your expressions. In most of your posts it seems as if you don't even consider about being wrong or changing your own perspective, you only focus on proving others wrong.

You do seem to know a lot about the subjects you comment on and I believe you do. But remember that in an internet forum no-one knows if you're some kid who knows how to google, or a university professor. English is a language in which every word can be insulting, it's just a matter of the delivery. The EB team is very easily insulted, because the pressure and past experiences has put them on the defensive. Still, I'd like to see everyone keep their cool.

[MeinPanzer]

Considering this is your opening for this discussion, you might see why people have a problem with your attitude:

The problem is that you don't articulate your words to fit a scientific debate taking place in this arena, meaning in a place where people can't see your expressions. In most of your posts it seems as if you don't even consider about being wrong or changing your own perspective, you only focus on proving others wrong.

You do seem to know a lot about the subjects you comment on and I believe you do. But remember that in an internet forum no-one knows if you're some kid who knows how to google, or a university professor. English is a language in which every word can be insulting, it's just a matter of the delivery. The EB team is very easily insulted, because the pressure and past experiences has put them on the defensive. Still, I'd like to see everyone keep their cool.

I understand what you mean. The reason I automatically took a negative stance in this debate is because it was being held up as being historically accurate without actually citing any evidence (not by the EB team, but by other posters). As I have told paullus, I do consider my own position, and I have changed my opinion on many subjects in the past based on careful consideration (case in point: The extensive RAT forum discussion on linen vs. leather armour in the Greek world). However, this is one issue, along with a handful of others, which without any further evidence to consider (and it seems there may be, but it needs to be found first) is fairly clear. It's also ironic that I am told that I am not budging on an issue or considering the evidence when that's exactly the case with the EB team, who seem to defend their decisions no matter what.

[abou]

It is not just that, Thaatu. I've found many of MP's arguments to be poor to say the least. Seriously, just look at this thread about Seleukid Hetairoi lacking shields. Not only is it like arguing with a wall, but his evidence is completely worthless.

He shows us coins from a region in Anatolia from the 2nd C. BC - a century without any Seleukid control after 190 BC. Then he shows us a cup from Syria with a Hellenistic cavalryman lacking a helmet, which is not very hetairos in character at all. Then, after all that he tries arguing in favor of using Livy as a source when all Livy is good at is telling you that something happened, but worthless for details - something which seems to be a universal judgment in academic circles. And then finally, to top it all off, he ignores the problem of carrying the two-handed xyston and a shield at the same time.

Of course, he never managed to put forth any worthwhile argument insisting that the cavalrymen in the depictions he posted were Hetairoi, let alone Hetairoi of the Seleukids. We agreed that cavalry with shields and a lance most certainly existed and we will have them in the next public release - the Loncophoroi. But then, that couldn't possibly be true. In fact, it must be baseless conjecture!

[Dwin]

text

It's not a spolas though. The spolas was weaved, not qulted...looked like this:

https://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y1..._in_spolas.jpg

https://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y1...__Peltasts.jpg

[geala]

It's not a spolas though. The spolas was weaved, not qulted...looked like this:

https://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y1..._in_spolas.jpg

https://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y1...__Peltasts.jpg

1. Do you have a source that the depicted garment is a spolas and that it is quilted? Or is it an interpretation based on other pictures which show something similar worn just around the waist (so a defensive function is presumable)? It could also be just a heavy woolen chiton.

Unlike this it is said that (at least a kind of) spolas was made of leather (Pollux, Onomasticon: I learned this recently on RAT myself ).


2. My question is: could that spolas be the tube-and-yoke armour depicted on the vases? I don't feel comfortable with this. So, was it just a (leather or linen) jerkin without the shoulder flaps, like the armour of the Cretan archers? I would like to interprete a spolas as a loose jerkin, worn by some warriors on vases (i'm not at home and cannot post it - one example of a Greek archer with it is depicted in Conolly's Greece and Rome at War).

The material is not so important, may it be leather, linen or both. It is the form of the armour which is important, as meinPanzer said (some posts following his post are rather strange... ).

So again, is there a pictural source (the picture posted by meinPanzer I can not interpret) or not? If not, that is not a problem, but if a source exists, I would make a garment like that of the archers for myself.


3. Never heard of the Rhodes find of quilted linen ~ 350 BC. That would be very important! Another evidence for linen armour in the classical period is not known to me and ~350 BC is quite near classical times. Is it published? And is it "sure" that it belongs to an armour? How many layers of linen were used? How was the stitching made?

[Dwin]

1. Do you have a source that the depicted garment is a spolas and that it is quilted? Or is it an interpretation based on other pictures which show something similar worn just around the waist (so a defensive function is presumable)? It could also be just a heavy woolen chiton.

Um, I don't know, the few sources I've read say that it's just basically a thick, weaved tunic, used as body armour.

[MeinPanzer]

It's not a spolas though. The spolas was weaved, not qulted...looked like this:

https://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y1..._in_spolas.jpg

https://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y1...__Peltasts.jpg

I missed this before, but no, I think Sekunda is wrong in identifying those clearly woven garments as being spolades. Pollux, in his Onomasticon, says this (VII.70):

The spolas is a thorax of leather, from
the shoulders attached, so that Xenophon says "and the spolas
instead of the thorax." Sophocles calls it Libyssan: "Libyssan spolas, a spotted hide."

Those could be dyed leather garments, I guess, but that seems unlikely. There is a good chance that the tube-and-yoke cuirass traditionally identified as the linothorax was actually the spolas.

Both leather and linen are acceptable coverings for the linothorax.

Fragments of quilted armor have been found on Rhodes ~350 B.C. (many layers of cloth stitched together in a warrior grave)

I've never heard of this before, but I'd be very curious how much cloth it was, how it was stitched together, and in what context it was uncovered in the grave. I think here we have to make a clear distinction between stitched textile armour and quilted stitched textile armour, which generally had some sort of padding inside the separate "compartments" (maybe some sewers could provide some better terminology) to allow for absorption of blows. It seems extremely likely that linothorakes/spolades were stitched together, but they weren't quilted, so unless this example clearly shows a quilting pattern, it's not evidence for quilted amour.

A much more substantial find is mycanaean in origin, from Crete.

The agora in Athens provides us another scrap, this one more closely Hellenistic, of layered linen, though very small.

I know of the couple of Mycenaean examples (the bit of a "greave" for instance, from Mycenae), including the fairly recently uncovered Theban example which apparently had edge binding. These were, however, simply layered linen, and not quilted. The same goes for the Athenian scrap- if it doesn't show any quilting pattern, it was probably just a scrap from a standard linothorax.

There are also Ptolemaic stelae and terra cotta figures showing quilted linen.

I'd be very curious what Ptolemaic stelae are being referred to here. And there is one terracotta figure which wears armour that could be some sort of quilted armour but could also be mail.

This same sort of armor appears in the Greek east, on Parthians, and especially in Graeco-Bactria and India, in several representations on several pieces.

From a later date, c. 1st C. AD and later.

MP, I think you know that during 4th century red figure vases started to disappear, with some of very bad style, and others super good, but with mithological/banquete scenes and extremaly rare.
Armour of any kind is extremely difficult to be found on vases from mid 4th century - this the reason why this type disappear also.

That's true, but we also have other iconographic sources from the 4th C. BC showing quilted armour being worn- Etruscan stuff, mainly.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I don't know much about them, but I know I can easily see examples of exactly this type of armor multiple times in the Persian armies Osprey. 5th and 4th centuries, and the same except for the pattern of stitches and color used by Egyptians in that same one. Acting like this is totally made up by EB or only from a millenia later or so sure seems like there are other motives at work here.

[MeinPanzer]

I don't know much about them, but I know I can easily see examples of exactly this type of armor multiple times in the Persian armies Osprey. 5th and 4th centuries, and the same except for the pattern of stitches and color used by Egyptians in that same one. Acting like this is totally made up by EB or only from a millenia later or so sure seems like there are other motives at work here.

Yes, and notice that those are from the 5th and 4th centuries BC, not the 3rd or later- this is what we are discussing here, not whether such armour was worn at all in ancient times. And even those earlier examples are different from the kind of armour EB has shown here, which has no pteruges or shoulder yokes.

[Watchman]

I think here we have to make a clear distinction between stitched textile armour and quilted stitched textile armour, which generally had some sort of padding inside the separate "compartments" (maybe some sewers could provide some better terminology) to allow for absorption of blows.

I'm not entirely certain, but I think your description of the "quilted" structure is a little odd here. AFAIK that could generally consist of virtually any sort of stuffing, be it proper sheets of cloth, rags, hay, paper, whatever, between an inner and outer layer of (usually) textile, which was then stitched to into the "compartement" pattern to keep the contents from moving around, and also the limit the loss of stuffing whenever a part of the item was cut (as only the contents of the individual "pockets" damaged could spill out).

Not that different from some of the methods still used to make winter clothes really, AFAIK.

Your description sounds like you're saying the individual "pockets" were filled separately, which doesn't really sound very sensible - if nothing else it'd leave the space between them protected by nothing more than the inner and outer layer plus the stitching, which hardly sounds like it would really stop arrows and suchlike all that well now does it ?

Side note: don't both the Pantodapoi/Machimoi Phalangitai and some types of light cavalry (Hippakontistai, maybe the Thracians) also wear quilted "vests" quite similar to that of the Cretans ? Some older Osprey books had pre-Alexandrian Persian cavalry wearing very similar protective articles IIRC, and I've seen it mentioned in passing somewhere that Alexander himself at some point took to using some type of "soft" cuirass of a Persian pattern...