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Did the Greeks ever adopt foreign equipment ..
#31
Quote:
Sean Manning post=300427 Wrote:What is your evidence that Greeks invented the tube-and-yoke? Very early on we see it from Fars to Gaul, from Scythia to Cyrene.

All areas that the Greeks either colonised or visited - not that I am agreeing or disagreeing with your point BTW :-)
And therefore all places from which they could have borrowed that cut or been influenced by it. Similarly, almost all 6th century art showing detailed pictures of men in armour is Greek, so we would expect to see it first in Greek art whether it was a Greek fashion or a foreign fashion which the Greeks adopted (like the Scythian bow). I can't recall any scholar who has looked at this cut and tried to determine its origin.
Nullis in verba

I have not checked this forum frequently since 2013, but I hope that these old posts have some value. I now have a blog on books, swords, and the curious things humans do with them.
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#32
And do you have any evidence they were actually Greeks?

Say, the tube and yoke armor. It was ubiquitous among Celts, until mail came along. Should we assume the most numerous people in Europe, renowned craftsmen, adopted Greek equipment on such a scale after encountering a few Greeks?
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#33
Quote:
Ghostmojo Wrote:The Greek alphabet was certainly related to those of the near east, as were much of their proto-religious ideas. They also drew from Egypt which had been the preeminent power in earlier times, and the Greeks came into contact with them often, and not just because of their colony in Kyrene. Herodotos was clear on the religious connections with Egypt.
True. But why would any of this stimulate adoption of foreign military equipment? Nothing does that better than direct, open warfare...

~Theo

Why wouldn't it? Who can say how far trade extended and also things being gifted between figures of political or civic importance? That may (or may not) have included military equipment. Isn't is possible one king or leader offered up a set of his finest warrior's gear as a present to a friendly head of state?

Who first invented the horsehair crest on a helmet, for example, and how and why did it spread across the ancient world?
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[size=75:2kpklzm3]Xerxes - "What did the guy in the pass say?" ... Scout - "Μολὼν λαβέ my Lord - and he meant it!!!"[/size]
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#34
Quote:Say, the tube and yoke armor. It was ubiquitous among Celts, until mail came along. Should we assume the most numerous people in Europe, renowned craftsmen, adopted Greek equipment on such a scale after encountering a few Greeks?
I'm not so sure where this model came from that the Celts encountered 'just a few Greeks'? The Celtic world was not limited to Gaul, but stretched into the Balkans and all the way into regions long influenced by Greek culture. Celts were mercenaries in many places also colonized or influenced by Greeks. So if they indeed adopted the tube and yoke armour, then why not from any of these places? Chances aplenty, I'd say.
Robert Vermaat
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THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
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#35
If you look at the Parthenon Frieze you will see Greeks wearing Thracian cloaks, Thracian hats, and Thracian boots. Not only did they adopt Thracian clothing but they also created their own version of the Thracian peltast (some using Thracian shields) and adopted Thracian gods and heroes (Orpheus, Ares, Boreas, Dionysios etc). Thracian nobles are described as walking through Athens with "Thracian spears" though what they looked like nobody knows for sure - it seems likely that if they adopted Thracian riding equipment and Thracian peltasts they also adopted Thracian spears for those purposes.
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#36
Quote:Greeks colonized Fars before 480BC? Or Gaul, for that matter? And no, Massalia was just a coty on the coast, Celts inhabited massive territories.
Quote:Anyways, that is rather beside the point - the point is I don't see why we nearly assume that foreigners using gear similar to the Greeks' means they copied them.

The T&Y cuirass appears among the Persians to my knowledge only after the 5th c. BC, and among the Celts it appears after Greek colonization begins in the Rhone delta. We could add to this list the Scythians, too, for whom there is clear evidence of using the T&Y cuirass after Greeks first appear in the northern Black Sea. When you take into account the independent development of armour throughout the Old World in its varied forms at different times, it becomes clear that such similar equipment almost certainly did not appear by chance.

Quote:Say, the tube and yoke armor. It was ubiquitous among Celts, until mail came along. Should we assume the most numerous people in Europe, renowned craftsmen, adopted Greek equipment on such a scale after encountering a few Greeks?

We don't know that it was ubiquitous - we only possess a few scattered representations of it in Celtic art or other evidence of its use outside of the Rhone delta. Also, this isn't "just a few Greeks"- this was an important region (the French Mediterranean coast) which was widely colonized by the Greeks, who consequently had sustained contact over centuries with the Celts in their hinterland.
Ruben

He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
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#37
I wonder if scale armor was transmitted to the Greeks through the Scythians.

~Theo
Jaime
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#38
The Greeks had scale armour at least as early as 1400BC. The Scythians mentioned by Herodotus date to 800BC. It is possible that there is a common origin in central asia for scale armour. Or it developed independently in different places.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#39
Suggesting there is something not invented by Greeks is simply laughable.
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#40
well, muscle cuirass wasn´t invented by greeks?
Tenerife_boy
ADaL MP
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#41
It was, just like everything else that ever existed.

No, but really, I never objected to that.
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#42
The question, and its sarcasm , is an odd one given that, as George so well stated, the Greeks themselves believed they aquired the panoply from other nations. The Carians were so ubiquitous and infamous as mercenaries in the archaic period that the Greeks used the term "Carian" to describe a lowlife scoundrel. Greeks fought along side or against such men commonly as mercenaries. My advice is to ask such a question without the sarcasm on this forum, where you will find that most who will answer you know enough not the provide the knee-jerk hellenophilic response you are railing against.

I've often wondered why more peoples did not adopt hoplite panoplies and tactics given the great amounts of money they spent hiring Greek mercenaries and the success they enjoyed.
Paul M. Bardunias
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#43
Mainly because the Greeks were not as unique as they'd wish you to think. See the Carians, for example. Scythians, Arabs, Aethiopians, Celts, Iberians... All extremely common mercenaries, not just the Greeks. The enormous success is more due to them being available in huge numbers rather than any uber-advantage in tactics and technology.
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#44
Along with Paul, I am somewhat curious as to exactly what your point is. Nobody is disagreeing with you and most have accepted the basic premise of this thread...
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[size=75:2kpklzm3]Xerxes - "What did the guy in the pass say?" ... Scout - "Μολὼν λαβέ my Lord - and he meant it!!!"[/size]
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#45
The point was not entirely serious, and I indeed agree with you. Just probing the community. :-P

Sorry if I offended anyone in the process, I just like to know what the general mentality of the forumers is everywhere I go. :|
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