11-03-2015, 10:28 AM
There's a lot of nonsense in this thread. When in doubt, return to the original sources.
Our main source for Thermopylae is, of course, Herodotus (book 7), and nowhere does he give a detailed description of what the Spartans wore. At 7.208, Xerxes sends a spy to the Greek camp and it so happens that the Spartans are outside the wall at that moment, exercising and combing their long hair. That's it. And when the Persians follow the path that Ephialtes pointed out to them, they run into the Phocians which they mistake for the Spartans (7.218). It's only after the Persians ask who they are that they realize they're not Spartans.
As regards the equipment that the Spartans would have used at Thermopylae, we have to turn to finds of armour and weapons at sanctuaries and to vase-painting. There's no reason to assume that the Spartans would have been different in this regard. They would have used bronze bell-shaped cuirasses or linen corslets; muscled cuirasses, as mentioned earlier, were not used until later in the fifth century BC. The same goes for pilos helmets -- not until. ca. 450 BC. Shield blazons would have followed the Archaic model (i.e. "anything goes"); use of "state" symbols, such as the Lacedaemonian lambda, didn't appear until the time of the Peloponnesian War. (We actually spend some time discussing this in our latest Ancient Warfare podcast, on issue IX.2 (Theban ascendancy), which will be available online around 13 November. )
The notion that you didn't need armour if you were fighting in tight formation is nice, but not corroborated by the evidence. In fact, some modern commentators have argued that fighting in formation didn't happen until after the Persian Wars, though I think it can be dated to around this time or slightly earlier (see my book, Henchmen of Ares). The pictorial evidence is clear, though, and commonly depicts the use of some kind of body-armour. Again, by the time of the Peloponnesian War, there seems to be more variety and some men were certainly equipped more lightly (pilos helmet and tunic). Bronze greaves were common. Spear and sword were the main weapons.
As regards the red cloaks of the Spartans: most ancient sources use Aristotle as a starting point, but the earliest sources we have for this are Xenophon's Constitution of the Lacedaemonians (11.3) and Aristophanes' Lysistrata (line 1140). The latter was first performed 411 BC and the former is probably a bit later (must be in the first half of the fourth century BC). So, again, the evidence for the red cloak is fairly late and I doubt that the Spartans at Thermopylae were already using it (read: no evidence).
Our main source for Thermopylae is, of course, Herodotus (book 7), and nowhere does he give a detailed description of what the Spartans wore. At 7.208, Xerxes sends a spy to the Greek camp and it so happens that the Spartans are outside the wall at that moment, exercising and combing their long hair. That's it. And when the Persians follow the path that Ephialtes pointed out to them, they run into the Phocians which they mistake for the Spartans (7.218). It's only after the Persians ask who they are that they realize they're not Spartans.
As regards the equipment that the Spartans would have used at Thermopylae, we have to turn to finds of armour and weapons at sanctuaries and to vase-painting. There's no reason to assume that the Spartans would have been different in this regard. They would have used bronze bell-shaped cuirasses or linen corslets; muscled cuirasses, as mentioned earlier, were not used until later in the fifth century BC. The same goes for pilos helmets -- not until. ca. 450 BC. Shield blazons would have followed the Archaic model (i.e. "anything goes"); use of "state" symbols, such as the Lacedaemonian lambda, didn't appear until the time of the Peloponnesian War. (We actually spend some time discussing this in our latest Ancient Warfare podcast, on issue IX.2 (Theban ascendancy), which will be available online around 13 November. )
The notion that you didn't need armour if you were fighting in tight formation is nice, but not corroborated by the evidence. In fact, some modern commentators have argued that fighting in formation didn't happen until after the Persian Wars, though I think it can be dated to around this time or slightly earlier (see my book, Henchmen of Ares). The pictorial evidence is clear, though, and commonly depicts the use of some kind of body-armour. Again, by the time of the Peloponnesian War, there seems to be more variety and some men were certainly equipped more lightly (pilos helmet and tunic). Bronze greaves were common. Spear and sword were the main weapons.
As regards the red cloaks of the Spartans: most ancient sources use Aristotle as a starting point, but the earliest sources we have for this are Xenophon's Constitution of the Lacedaemonians (11.3) and Aristophanes' Lysistrata (line 1140). The latter was first performed 411 BC and the former is probably a bit later (must be in the first half of the fourth century BC). So, again, the evidence for the red cloak is fairly late and I doubt that the Spartans at Thermopylae were already using it (read: no evidence).
