Spolas? "Subarmalis"?

[Dan Howard]

The only thing Homer specifically says about Achilles' armour is that it was made of bronze. There is also a description of him rotating his shoulders around after putting on the cuirass to see whether it fit him properly. Some have suggested that this passage is an indication of armour more complicated than a simple bell cuirass, but it is ridiculous to claim that it must be a Dendra Panoply.

The myth that he could only be injured in the heel is irelevant. According to the myth, his mother dipped him in the River Styx as a babe and it conferred magical protection. It had nothing to do with armour. She held him by the heel so that was the only place that was not magically protected. However, this myth seems to be much later than Homer's time. Homer wrote that the only place Achilles could be injured was "his pride". It wasn't until Ovid's Metamorphoses that we first find Achilles having a vulnerable spot on his body and it was Statius (A.D. 45-96) who first specified that it was his heel.

Regarding the time gap between Homer and the alleged date of the Trojan War, there is mounting evidence to suggest that the chronology we are currently using is wrong. If new proposals are more accurate then Homer could have lived less than two centuries before the events described in the Iliad. Far less time for the stories to be garbled.