What the description of Sphacteria has to tell us

[Kineas]

Never got carried away, Paul... I doubt that all hoplites wore helmets, but not that Spartans did--just a few lines before, Thuc. notes them as being "well equipped."

Thirdly, lexicons are not 'gospel' - most were written a hundred years ago, and meanings are often no more than educated guesses, often wrong..... e.g. many still define 'longche' as 'pike!
Defining Thucydides use of the word as 'felt cuirass or jerkin' is another example - a wild guess, and obviously just plain wrong! "[something] couldn't keep out missiles; and when javelins hit their bodies the shafts broke off in their armour" - associate the two parts and you can see how the guess arose. Rolling Eyes

Fourthly, only a tiny fragment of literature survives....certainly not enough that a mere 34 references to piloi, the vast majority being references to the far more common cap, is in any way statistically significant to the use of bronze piloi as helmets !!

That said, though, while individual translators may have made errors, in general the late 19th c. Grecians were head and shoulders above today's best efforts, and it'd be odd to ignore what they have to say--especially for folks who don't read Greek. And while again, I agree that 34 refs is a small sample, it's not all that small, and it is always worthwhile to examine the linguistic evidence FIRST before going on to theory building. A better critique, and one I was going to post later, is that Josephus (just for example) seems to use Greek about as effectively as I do--so when he uses "Pilos" for the High Priest's crown, you have to be a little suspicious of the state of HIS lexicon--and that means that many of the other late classical sources may be equally biased.

An old professor of mine used to say "You can always debate the validity of sources--but you should never use that as an argument for not READING the sources."

Back to building Lorica's aspis. the first linen layer is on the face and her porpax is installed.