Chaire-
I am making a movie about thermopylae, is this armor list accurate to recreate a spartan hoplite from 480 BC
-Bronze Corinthian Helmet*
-Sideways red crest on helmet
-Plain Red Tunic
-Red/White color sceme linen cuirass**
-Bronze colored aspis with red lamda***
-Spear****
-Bronze Colored Greaves***
-pleather sandals
-sword*
*made of styrofoam
**on the bottom where it is cut into strips, the ones on the inside will be black pleather
***Made of cardboard
****Sized in proportion to the mean height of actors playing spartans.
And since dienekes was a spartan officer ( right? ) would he dress the same as leonidas?
Sideways crest (Travesrse crest) is for King, Polemarchos or the Merarcoi officers. Red the King and Red-Black other officers.
No info about Dienekes being an officer, sorry.
Lamda was used by the End of the Peloponesain war rougly 100 years later.
Check Greek Shield Devices thread to get info on shield devices. and the relative Theromopylae threads
Kind regards
Quote:No info about Dienekes being an officer, sorry.
THE HISTORY CHANNEL LIED! but that's not the first time...
TV my young friend is for spectacle not education.
This should not hinder your enthusiasm on ancient history.
Carry on with your reconstruction base on our forum threads and please post a pic when you make it.
If you are uncertain ask. People here will help you
Kind regards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienekes it says here that dienekes was an officer, but wikipedia lies WAY more than the history channel, and my social studies at school, wich (social studies book) said that only 300 spartans were at thermopylae, and escaped. It even says that most of the iliad was true history, and king minos was real. But anythings possible. I'll look into this some more...
OK some sources say that he was an officer, others say platoon leader, or simply a soldier. I'll look in plutarch and herodotus for answeres too, are there any other things from antiquity on thermopylae?
He is never mentioned as being of a high rank in the ancient sources, if I recall correctly. Does Plutarch even mention him at all? He attributes the "fight in the shade" quote to Leonidas...
Not everyone agrees with this, but it seems much more likely that the Spartans predominately wore bronze muscle or bell style cuirasses rather than linothorax. There isn't any source showing them wearing linen armour circa Thermopylai - not that it means it never happened, but if you're trying to be on the safe side then bronze cuirasses would be more accurate than linothorax.
For helmets, why not mix it around a bit... include some Illyrian style as well, maybe?
I'm interested to see what this project is for, and how it'll be presented.
Dear Dan, most people are not knowledge seekers like you. They are lazy and simply copy others so they copy their mistakes too.
The battle of Thermopylae is described Herodotus Strabo and Pausanias.
The anecdotes about persons are given by Plutarch's "Lakonian sayings".
Dienekes is NOT clearly described as an officer. Rank it is assumed since he had right of response to the enemy herald. This is highly speculative though. All possible ranks attributed to him are speculative too.
B. Lawsons point on helmets is valid too
There were 4 known battles in Thermopylae:
480 B.C. Greeks vs Persians
279 B.C. Greeks vs Galatians
191 B.C. Greeks vs Romans
1941 A.D. British-Greeks vs Germans.
Two possible medieval battles are not well documented
Historicity of Trojan War here:
http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/war.htm
Kind regards
Well, I'm only resorting to the linothorax because I don't have the money to buy one, and no one I know has the money, or skill to forge them. I think that the dienekes officer or something is a theory, accepted by many scholars. Answering Zenodoros, I started this in march, as a 300 spoof, but evolved into a historical satire. The only real carachters are Leonidas, Alpheos, Maron, and Dienekes. I made up two fake ones, both there names are from the 300 spartans ( not 300 ), and one of the caracters is based on one from that movie. Now were alpheos and maron of high rank? I have a lot of jokes from monty pyhton in it, like the fish slapping dance ( a instead of fish, a persian slaps a spartans helmet with a rope several times, then the spartan whaps the persian into the aegean with his shield, and a fish eats the perian, and a voice says ( In a crazy german accent, yes, I know they were greek) "Velcome aboard, persian idiot! (laughing) I am Themistocles, and I'll be your captain." ) After the battle, a medieval peasant has a wheel barrow, and another peasant is with him and yelling "Bring out your dead" and picks up a spartan hoplite and the spartan says "Im not dead yet, I feel happy! I don't want to go on the cart!" Then one of the peasants says " Who are you?" to lenidas, and leonidas replies "I'm Leonidas, King of the Spartans" then the peasant says "What the hades is a spartan?" Then the peasant explains how there an anarch syndaclyst commune, which annoys him. then leonidas sees two persians who took his wallet, whcih happened to be empty, during the battle for his dead body, and he yells "YOU!" and all the spartans charge at them and chase them to the edge of a cliff, one falls off, and leonidas threatens the remaining persian with his sword, and the persians says " Umm, quoting 300, THIS IS MADNESS!", leonidas says "Also quoting 300, madness? THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!!" In the very beginning, leonidas stabs a history channel guy and says, "this is not the history channel, THIS IS SPARTA!" Yes, I do know that thermopylae is far from sparta.
Quote: ... Quote:THE HISTORY CHANNEL LIED! but that's not the first time...
Indeed. Has anybody seen that feeble 'true history' DVD which came out recently?
http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/3339805/ ... oduct.html
It contains just a few factual errors and odd opinions. Looks like they used outtakes from the "300" movie as well!!! :wink:
Quote:Chaire-
I am making a movie about thermopylae, is this armor list accurate to recreate a spartan hoplite from 480 BC
... Red/White color sceme linen cuirass ...
I am very dubious about the Spartans ever wearing this kind of cuirass - colourwise - regardless of what it was made from.
I thought they had an aversion to the colour white as being a colour for women!!! If this is true - then I suspect they would have died it another colour or perhaps just used the leather 'spolas'?
agree with the bronze armour, the majority of evidence regarding the linothorax comes from Athenian sources. The Spartans were the conservative of the conservatives of the ancient world.
Whilst we have little or no evidence for the Persian Wars,( if anyone knows of some, please post it !)regarding the appearance of Spartan hoplites, the Spartans are certainly not 'conservative' regarding their panoply in the Peloponnesian war! They seem to be pioneers in lightening their equipment, popularising light 'Pilos' helmets, giving up body armour, and using lighter shields ( if the incident of Brasidas' shield being penetrated is anything to go by ).
They might have been 'conservative' in a social context, but militarily - both tactically and in their panoply choices, they seem to have been very innovative, just as you would expect from Greece's foremost military power.
And if the majority of evidence regarding tube-and-yoke cuirasses comes from Athenian pottery, that it is not evidence at all for it's distribution as armour - it is merely historical accident that so much Athenian pottery has survived ( from the broken midden heaps in Athens and some exports, mainly )
As Agesilaus forcibly pointed out, the Spartan Homioi were soldiers, not potters !!
So, Dan, for your film, if you choose to depict tube-and-yoke corselets, or none at all, no-one can say it is wrong.
Spartans faced economic limitations.
Archidamos talked with worry about the resourced of the Athenian Leage
The trade was at the hands of the PEROIKOI and bronze had to be imported. So long as they were militarily dominant no problem.
Tribute could imposed on the vanquished in the manner of bronze or bronze wepons.
But when the Athenian shore raids upseted Peloponissos resourses were scarce and "pilos-helm was cheap mass produced and hoplites abanodned armor fo rservice on ships or to move fast to fend off raiders.
The pilos and no armos use thr stele of LISSAS who was a Tegean as reference and some dubiously interpreted Athenian pottery art.
Scarcity of resources and skilled artisans was main reason for "lightening" the hoplite, not innovation.
Kind regards
That is an interesting observation, but I am more inclined to think that innovation was the main reason - the Spartans were responding to the increased use of peltasts etc on the battlefield, and the fact that warfare now required troops to venture further afield than just outside their territory, and consequent longer times "in the field". ( even if scarcity of resources played a part ). As far as I know, Sparta was not particularly poor compared to other cities - the fact that it could field Greece's largest hoplite army at the outset of the Peloponnesian war and during the Persian wars is proof enough of that. The fact that Sparta did not leave so many splendid buildings and art to posterity does not mean that it was any 'poorer' than Athens.