T shaped staff

[hoplite14gr]

The spartan staff and other stories... :mrgreen:

The source is a plaque from Sparta museum. But it depicts only one type of staff.
Then a historian proclaimed a "mantra" that this was the "Spartan staff".
There was also an illustration showing a Laconian office based on the "Cleveland statue" (that has his hand in a tight fist by the way) holding a t-shaped staff.

There are various types of staff in Greek art.
Yes "Vactiria" is the walking staff usually associated with the elderly people.
And YES Bacteria were named after this word because the first discovered looked like mini staffs :!:

Skytalle is a rod. Correct. Yes the Spartans did use an encryption method base on the length of the skytale. The fact the Non Spartan write about it means that the code was eventually broken

This rod was not confined to Sparta! In the forth century Argos a big number of people were murdered in political riots and the the ancient authors called the day of "SKYTALLISMOS"

The "SKIPTRO" sceptre (symbol of power or authority) that is usually considered a rod but in ancient times was occasionally a staff:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8qFQe2oHlJA/Tq...aranto.jpg

Sometimes the sources either talk clearly of a rod or staff used in action and some times two different sources say different item used in the same action.

To summarize. The Laconian staff is a coined term like the Laconian sword

We are totally in the dark what type of stick the Spartans carried.
There is room for many interpretations.

Kind regards