+- RomanArmyTalk (https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat)
+-- Forum: Research Arena (https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Greek Military History & Archaeology (https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Thread: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test (/showthread.php?tid=15287)
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - Paullus Scipio - 08-06-2009
The picture of who supplied mercenaries equipment generally, Employers or the mercenaries themselves, is not really an either/or one. As with most things, the picture is complex, and one might almost say it is impossible to generalise and that each situation was unique.
A number of examples from Sicily may help illustrate matters:
In addition to the rather unique example of Dionysos I and Syracuse becoming a huge arsenal in 399 BC, gearing up for War by manufacturing arms, warships and artillery ,already alluded to, we have more common examples. His son, Dionysos II, having disarmed the citizenry handed over 5,000 panoplies to Syracusans who lacked them (Diodorus Siculus XVI.10). Polyaenus (stratagems I.26, V.1) refers to Tyrants in Sicily arming slaves and metics. Whilst not specifically mercenaries, this shows that 'Employers' could and did arm men if there was an emergency and the arms were available in storage etc
An earlier example of this occurs during the Athenian attack on Syracuse, when Hermocrates urges the Generals (strategoi) to prepare the Hoplitikon ( Hoplite class body of men), arming those who lacked arms (Thuc. VI.72 and D.S. XIII.96).
In Greece itself, mention has already been made of individuals in Athens making gifts of large numbers of weapons such as shields to the state, presumably again to those who lacked arms, who might be poor thetes or perhaps even mercenaries. Another example is Lysias (D.S. XVI.41), talking of the estate of Aristophanes, speaks of him having eqipped 10 Triremes for the Sicilian campaign in 414 BC, and in 391 BC donating 30,000 drachmas to pay mercenary peltasts and to purchase arms (hopla) for them. Again the implication is that many came equipped, but others did not.
Xenophon ( Hellenica II.1) has Pharnabazus in 406 BC( like the Athenians earlier) equipping sailors (nautes) with food (ephodia) and arms (hopla), most likely peltast style equipment, to guard the coastline....
He also refers ( Hell. III.1.13) to a female Persian satrap of Aeolis, Mania, keeping a mercenary Greek force (xenikon) to whom she gave various individuals gifts ( dora ), so they became "magnificently equipped" ( lamprotata kataskeuazo ) - the clear implication here being that the gifts improved their standard of equipment, and that they came with their own,rather than that she actually provided them all with arms.
In general then, we may say that as a rule, the hired men brought their own equipment, but that a rich employer might, on occasion, enhance that equipment, or in an emergency an employer ( or the State or private individual's donations) might provide arms to unarmed men, if stocks were available, and that the same probably applied to mercenaries.
As to Alexander possibly disarming large numbers of mercenaries before sending them home, that also was a unique situation, and should not be used as a general guideline, even if it did occur.....and the text seems to imply that many of the mercenaries who flocked there came armed, if only "pressing needs" were met. The fact that at first they "plundered all over Asia" also clearly implies they were armed, for they could hardly have done so otherwise.Perhaps Alexander cunningly arranged for their return passage home by ship, in return for payment. Many would have had to sell/trade-in their arms to purchase passage and thus become unarmed, while those who had done well from plunder would not have had to do so, and thus turned up in arms.......
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - Paralus - 08-06-2009
I wasn't actually generalising - just referring to these individuals. Diodorus is likely adding his own gloss with the "plundering" of Asia. I don't see Alexander putting up with such whilst he was still drinking..er..kicking. And I agree that there are no hard and fast rules. I still find it interesting that the Greek word describing the weapons is plethora (plethos) and how that is then translated as "sufficient". Bit like rendering "a vast number" as "some"!
In any case, the clear implication is that many of these mercenaries were weaponless - a plethora of them. Pausanias twice states that (1.25.5 and 8.52.5) Leosthenes transported these mercenaries from Asia - in spite of Alexander's wishes. I imagine they had to get there in some fashion and it is reasonably clear that it was Leosthenes who was organising them - especially after the "Exiles Decree" - on behalf of an Athens with its Greek nose well and truly out of joint.
On an entirely different subject (or two), I read your Cannae reconstruction. You'd be suprised to learn that I have an issue!! Did you run to ground that secondary source claim re aspides? The Reader's Digest abridged version of the epitomised Plutarch Epaminondas is Paus 9.13 - 9.15.6. It is essentially "chapter headings".
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - PMBardunias - 08-06-2009
Quote:The Reader's Digest abridged version of the epitomised Plutarch Epaminondas is Paus 9.13 - 9.15.6.
Is it generally accepted that Pausanias drew his information from Plutarch? The death of Epaminondas is a curious thing. He is variously killed by an Athenian horseman, perhaps Xenophon's son, in Pausanias, by (inexplicably) thrown spears in Diodorus, and by a Spartan sword thrust in Plutarch. Plutarch's account makes the most sense to me, especially since the man's family was honored even in his day.
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - Paralus - 08-06-2009
Quote:Quote:The Reader's Digest abridged version of the epitomised Plutarch Epaminondas is Paus 9.13 - 9.15.6.
Is it generally accepted that Pausanias drew his information from Plutarch?
It has been thought so. The information, of necessity, was drawn from some source(s) and the notion that it is largely a curt summary of Plutarch rises and falls like the tides. A little in the same fashion as the "high" or "low" chronologies for events immediately after Alexander's death (down to 308). Just on which, the debate has been settled by Boiy and Stylianou: both are correct - in parts - the crucial period 319-315 definitely "high".
Quote:He is variously killed by an Athenian horseman, perhaps Xenophon's son, in Pausanias, by (inexplicably) thrown spears in Diodorus, and by a Spartan sword thrust in Plutarch.
Nepos has the thrown spear; Diodorus simply has him mortally wounded by a spear - it is Epaminondas who "hurls his javelin" - this whilst "missiles" flew about him. It is likely several versions of his death were in circulation and that Diodorus has compressed the description of the battle in his source (missiles are unlikely to be flying about the heavily engaged phalanxes at this stage). Diodorus is almost certainly summarising Ephorus for this material (whose obituary notice he is generally agreed to have preserved at 15.88). Ephorus, one thinks, would see an heroic end to Thebes greatest statesman and so the great general dies the hoplite's death with a dory in his chest. It might just as easily have been down to swords by this stage.
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - Paullus Scipio - 08-07-2009
Further to my last post, a clearer example of mercenaries coming forward fully equipped is referred to in Xenophon Hell.IV.2.
Agesilaus is taking an expedition back to Greece from Asia minor. It includes 4-6,000 of the "Cyreans" ( The Ten Thousand), who certainly came fully equipped. In addition he "offered prizes ( athla )to whichever (allied) city produced the best force, and to whichever captains (lochagoi) of mercenaries(mistophoroi) joined him with the best equipped company of Hoplites, of archers, and of peltasts. The cavalry commanders were also told a special prize would be given to whoever produced the best mounted and best equipped squadron......the greater part of the prizes consisted of magnificently made armour, both for Hoplites and cavalry; there were also Gold Crowns [ for archers and peltasts who wore no armour] and altogether the prizes cost at least four Talents .[a very large sum]
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - MeinPanzer - 08-26-2009
I just found something which may be important. Apologies if it's been brought up before, but I can't remember seeing it in any linothorax discussions.
Aeneas Tacticus, writing c. 350 BC:
Quote:I shall now discuss the smuggling into the city of jars and packages, in which there may be something hidden by means of which a city with its acropolis has in past instances been seized.... A city was captured, with the complicity of some within it, upon a public holiday, in some such manner as this. First of all, to the aliens who had established themselves there in anticipation of what was to take place, and to the unarmed citizens who were to be accomplices there were brought in linen corslets [thorakes lineoi], cloaks [stolidia], helmets [perikephalaia], shields [hopla], greaves [knemides], short swords [machairai], bows [toxa], and arrows [toxeumata] stowed away in chests like those of merchants, with the statement that clothing and other merchandise were in them.
This is clearly a reference to a Greek city with Greek citizens and foreigners (likely also other Greeks, for it's hard to imagine significant numbers of non-Greeks attending a Greek public holiday around the time of Aeneas' writing, or their embroilment in such a scheme). I'm not sure if this episode has been linked with any particular one known from the histories, but many of the anecdotes Aeneas gives come from between 400 and 360 BC, with the majority coming from recent history for him (mostly the 360's). Also probably one of the earliest uses of "hopla" for shields here.
What are some thoughts? Is this new or am I just going crazy?
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - Giannis K. Hoplite - 08-26-2009
It IS new to me. And a great find! You should deserves laudes or karma or something,but there isn't anything like that now.
Khaire
Giannis
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - PMBardunias - 08-27-2009
Quote:linen corslets [thorakes lineoi], cloaks [stolidia],
Why Stolidia? There should be no need to sneak in cloaks and cloaks don't really seem to fin in with the rest of the obviously military panoply.
So based on absolutely no evidence, but the the fact that someplace on here someone once wrote that Spolas was simply a regional (lakedaimonian?) variant of Stola, can this be read as "linen corselets, leather corselets, ..."
Just a thought- I'm a uniter not a divider :lol:
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - PMBardunias - 08-27-2009
Quote:Quote:linen corslets [thorakes lineoi], cloaks [stolidia],
Why Stolidia? There should be no need to sneak in cloaks and cloaks don't really seem to fin in with the rest of the obviously military panoply.
So based on absolutely no evidence, but the the fact that someplace on here someone once wrote that Spolas was simply a regional (lakedaimonian?) variant of the same root as Stola, can this be read as "linen corselets, leather corselets, ..."
Just a thought- I'm a uniter not a divider :lol:
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - Paralus - 08-27-2009
Well, well Ruben. Clear and unequivocal: linen thorakes. How intriguing.
The 360s eh? Most "action" was in the unsettled Peloponnese and the north: Chalcidian League / Macedon. That, of course, ignores Thessaly (Alexander), the fomenting hostilities that lead to the Sacred War and Athens' ongoing obsession with Amphipolis (and erstwhile allies becoming estranged): Greece, situation normal.
Paul B: the cloaks, as with the rest of the equipment, are going to "unarmed citizens who were to be accomplices". It is quite possible that these cloaks were a particular colour so as the partisans were recognised. Think of the modern "revolutions" by colour.
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - Giannis K. Hoplite - 08-27-2009
Also "stolidio" should be interpreted as "small stole". And so...are we sure now that stole means cloak? Is Xenophons using the word in the same context? Because usually the word can mean "uniform",including everything.
Khairete
Giannis
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - PMBardunias - 08-27-2009
Quote:Also "stolidio" should be interpreted as "small stole".
It was Paul M-S who I posted what I referred to above about the origin of the word Spolas. Below is a copy of something he put up. A possible connection between the "small" stolidio and the "little thick leathern(skutinos) chiton"?
Quote:....There was a second onamastikon reference to 'spolas'( which is a Doric form of the Attic 'Stolas' : root stello/stole = dress, generic garment) - viz:
Hesychios lexicon and it's very interesting:
(sigma 1542) spolas: 'khitoniskos bathus skutinos, ho bursinos thorax '
"little thick leathern(skutinos) chiton, the leathern (bursinos) thorax" ...and there was then a discussion of the difference between the greek words, which are essentially skin/hide and leather, and probably refer back to the libyan skin garments as well as the 'leather thorakes'
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - MeinPanzer - 08-27-2009
Quote:Well, well Ruben. Clear and unequivocal: linen thorakes. How intriguing.
The 360s eh? Most "action" was in the unsettled Peloponnese and the north: Chalcidian League / Macedon. That, of course, ignores Thessaly (Alexander), the fomenting hostilities that lead to the Sacred War and Athens' ongoing obsession with Amphipolis (and erstwhile allies becoming estranged): Greece, situation normal.
This anecdote doesn't necessarily date to the 360's, but over half of all Aeneas' historical examples which can be dated securely come from the four decades between 400 and 360, with a large number of those coming from the 360's. I was just drawing on the commentary and introduction of the Loeb Classical translation. Perhaps some more up-to-date discussion of his writing could shed more light on this excerpt.
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - PMBardunias - 08-28-2009
Two questions: Is it established that Aeneas was the same man as Aeneas the Stymphalian who moved on Sycion with his band of men in Xenophon's Hellenica (book 7.3 I think)? Also, was that Aeneas the Stymphalian the same as the Aneas the Stymphalian mentioned as a leader in the anabasis( book 4.1.27, 7.13)? The last passage is coincidentally in the same section that linen armor with a fringe instead of pturges is mentioned among the barbarians, which surely has been posted here before:
Quote:From this place they marched through the Chalybes[1] seven stages, fifty parasangs. These were the bravest men whom they encountered on the whole march, coming cheerily to close quarters with them. They wore linen cuirasses reaching to the groin, and instead of the ordinary "wings" or basques, a thickly-plaited fringe of cords. They were also provided with greaves and helmets, and at the girdle a short sabre, about as long as the Laconian dagger, with which they cut the throats of those they mastered, and after severing the head from the trunk they would march along carrying it, singing and dancing, when they drew within their enemy's field of view. They carried also a spear fifteen cubits long, lanced at one end[2].
Re: Glued Linen Armour- a simple test - Sean Manning - 08-29-2009
Its good to have an unambiguous reference to Greek linen armour from that period. Its a shame there is no way to tell what sort of garment was meant by stoles. The idea of matching cloaks to identify conspirators makes sense.
I found another use of stolas/spolas in a military context. Its from Agatharchides's work on the Erythraean Sea (our Red Sea) which survives in excerpts by the Byzantine writer Photius. Fragment 20 says:
Quote:For the war against the Aithipoians Ptolemy recruited 500 cavalrymen from Greece. To those who were to fight in the front ranks and the vangard- they were a hundred in number- he assigned the following form of equipment. For he distributed to them and their horses garments of felt (stolas piletas) which those of that country call kasas that conceal the whole body except for the eyes.Agatharchides wrote in the second century BCE, and the war was probably in the first half of the 3rd century BCE. Duncan Head suggests that kases (accusative plural kasas) is an Egyptian Greek word for some sort of thick garment.
Liddell and Scott seem to think that spolas and stolas are versions of the same word (see here). My source for this is Duncan Head, “Ptolemy III's Felt-Armoured Cavalry,” Slingshot 247 (2006).