Leather Cuirass

[MeinPanzer]

Right,Xenophon only said "spolades instead of thorkes"But the fact that the spolas is supposed to be "in contact" or "to touch" or to "be attached" to the shoulders,is a point for the shoulder flaps...He sais that it's a leather thorax,"thorax ek dermatos" but next he sais that Xenophon uses the word as alternative to thorax.A bit confusing...Probably because he did not know what he was describing and was based mostly in others' descriptions and mentions.In other words,he did the same as we're doing today,only he probably had more references,being closer to the classical times.
Khairete
Giannis

I agree that the specific mention of the shoulders suggests the shoulder yokes of the tube-and-yoke cuirass. The yokes are, of course, the most prominent part of such a cuirass.

I think with his usage of thorax he simply means thorax in the sense of a body armour; keep in mind that the second time thorax is used in that passage, he quotes Xenophon, so he is not really contradicting himself. By his day, "thorax" probably had just a general meaning.

That would require a LOT of hides though...not to mention the processing of those hides to make them into armour. Not very feasible when compared to linen.

Sounds to me like the "leather" was part of a subarmalis, though not comprising the entire garment.

Greece was a pastoralist society and, as has been stated before, it would be equally, if not more, difficult to get a hold of large quantities of linen in Greece. Rawhide could be used for armour, requiring little to no preparation, and even treated leather probably required a similar amount of work to construct a cuirass as making several layers of linen.

Pollux definitely indicates that some sort of leather armour was worn in the Classical period.