Spolas (...thorax ek dermatos...)

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Thanks for the comments everyone!
Christian,i think there is very little chance i won't wear it at Marathon.
About the pteryges,i am sure that there were many different types,and i should mention that about the whole cuirass. In the Parthenon frieze there were at least four cuirasses of this type that are depicted(and some traces of one or two more,but they're hidden behind some horses or are destroyed). All of them have considerable differences with eachother. But i do believe that they were all supposed to be along the same lines.

Stuart,i'm sure with a short search on the work "linothorax" and "spolas" you'll come up with insanely long discussions here in RAT about the matterial used for this type of cuirass. And you'll come up with different opinions too. If you ask me,i believe that these cuirasses were made of linen too.I won't even try to speculate how frequent the one or the other matterial was, but my reconstruction was based on an ancient lexicon that says that "spolas=thorax ek dermatos ephaptomenos eis tous omous", in English, "spolas= cuirass of leather attached to the shoulders" and also Xenophon mentions that a spolas was pierced by a an arrow and killed the spartan that wore it. The arrow had also pierced his shield first,but it was not a common arrow.It was a Karduchian arrow in the size of a small javelin. These things were NOT meant to be impenetrable.

By the way,does anyone know of a way to waterproof the leather without darkenning its white colour?

Khairete
Giannis