Classical Greek traveller\'s pack

[Kineas]

I searched the red and black-figure libraries at Perseus and at Oxford and I found several illustrations of WHAT APPEAR TO BE packs made from a single goatskin with the legs used as four attachment points for a "bundle." I also see sacks like a modern navy duffel (without the shoulder strap, though!) and string bags.
Am I missing something? I know they didn't carry as much gear as a Roman (they were usually to days from home..) but a hasty perusal of Xenophon suggests that every hoplite carried some kit...
Anyone have ideas?

[Sean Manning]

I started a thread on this topic a few weeks ago and found a few hints. Its in Ancient Civ Talk, I think.

Greek citizen hoplites would have servants and pack animals to carry most of the kit, but that raises the question of how the slaves carried everything.

[Kineas]

Thanks!

I have noted a bunch of leather wallets, so now I'll make one.

This is what I think is a goat or cow skin pack with the carrying strap visible:


This is a slave or page carrying a small "haversack" and canteen for an athlete. kind'a cool.



This is a man carrying a fully laden duffle bag. Useful for carrying kit. Not the design on the bag.



I'm still looking for more, so any input would be welcome. I'll show pics of mine when complete.

[Kineas]

Whoops!

Another try at the goatskin pack

[jkaler48]

Thanks!

I have noted a bunch of leather wallets, so now I'll make one.

This is what I think is a goat or cow skin pack with the carrying strap visible:


This is a slave or page carrying a small "haversack" and canteen for an athlete. kind'a cool.



This is a man carrying a fully laden duffle bag. Useful for carrying kit. Not the design on the bag.



I'm still looking for more, so any input would be welcome. I'll show pics of mine when complete.

From the fellow's reaction getting the delivery of the bag the contents
must be exciting. Perhaps there is a woman, cute boy, or sheep in the bag
:twisted:

[Paullus Scipio]

I think this is the sort of thing you are looking for.....The first is a well known terracotta figure of the stock comic skourophoros(baggage carrier) wearing tunic, cloak and 'pilos' cap...the details may not be clear, but he carries a rolled cloak(?) containing various items, held together with straps, a water canteen , various other accoutrements and his master's sword.
The second shows another skourophoros marching alongside his Hoplite master bearing a similar burden to the other, but this time shield rather than sword....( from a terracotta in the Louvre)

[Kineas]

Cool. Thanks!

I think it unlikely that I'll find anyone to be a skourophoros--but I love traveling in kit, and so my first kit thoughts aren't arms and armour, but simple camp gear.

Besides, Anabasis leads me to beleieve that sometimes, they carried thier own.

Or died in the snow!

[Paullus Scipio]

Oh, I don't know! My eldest son re-enacts an 11th C AD Crusader, and I frequently appear as his servant......a 'Baldrick' ( of Blackadder fame) character......not everyone wants to be a 'glory boy', so you may yet find someone ( maybe a young re-enactor just starting who can't yet afford full kit ?) to be your skourophopros..... and if Greek drill commands are anything to go by ('Fall out the shieldbearers') the poor blighters carried the kit right onto the battlefield ....... :wink:

[Kineas]

This is way off topic, but having waged a ten-year long campaign to stop officers in my other period from acting like they had servants and treating their fellow reenactors as "enlisted men" in a manner that may have been accurate for 1825 but was just plain wrong in 1777...

I'm not sure I'm going to win any friends when I start recruiting shield bearers... :lol: