11-26-2007, 01:03 AM
Hi Wolfgang!
Hello Paul,
a different opinion about the dating would be Eero Jarva, Archaiologia, On Archaic Greek Body Armour, Rovaniemi 1995, p. 33-46 and 560. He does not agree with the estimation which John Boardman gave in (I think, but I'm not sure) Attic Black Vases, 1974. Correct regarding Boardman! ... I haven't read Jarva, but isn't he doing the same thing? He wants to support his case/hypothesis re:armour, and so he tries to 'adjust' the evidence/pottery dates to fit. I would sooner trust Boardman's dating because he is the foremost expert on 'pots', and because he has no subjective interest in armour and is therefore neutral.
Paul, I'm so free to say that you discuss as usually, perhaps a bit harsh ...my apologies if I appear that way, it comes from having to defend my views, one against many, and it is very fustrating when people don't take the time to read what I actually post, or else deliberately distort it. I shall try to sound less'harsh' in future but in an excellent and convincing way. ..Thank you!.. But I'm not very happy with the ease with which you get rid of the poor Alkaios as a relevant source ... Yes, I could see that...and it is probably one of the few areas where our views differ. It was for that reason that I said....'even if we accept Alceaus as contemporary'....(in order to avoid differing over this) That he wrote about anachronistic weapons is possible but for me it is more probable that he dealt with modern weaponry. Why should he spoke about cuirasses of new linen in the case he talked about old Homeric armour?
I think you misunderstand here; as I have said before, the linen is 'new', just as plumes 'toss', helmets are 'shiny', bronze armour 'gleams', heroes are 'great-hearted'...this is the epic poetry style. Did he know and wanted to imply that linen armour was new in the 8th c. or in the 13th. BC? I think neither, just that in his narrative, 'new' linen was used( he would hardly have said 'old'!). He might as easily have said 'tight-woven' linen, or some similar epithet.
Hard to believe for me. His time, at the beginning of the 6th c., the mentioning of linen as a material for armour and the addition of the composite armour to the vase paintings shortly afterwards, make a good composition in my opinion.
"shortly afterward".....and there's the problem.Ten years, or a hundred years, contemporary, or epic, he can hardly be talking about something that doesn't exist yet ( the composite tube-and-yoke corselet.) If his reference had been, say, 20 years after the first appearance of the Tube-and-Yoke, then, assuming we accept it as contemporary and not epic, you have a solid piece of evidence......but it isn't ! Of course, that may change if a piece of pottery appears, positively identified to say, 650-620 B.C with a clearly depicted Tube-and-Yoke on it.......and if more fragments of Alcaeus appear, making it clearly a contemporary description, not epic,...but at present? Logically,it must be rejected as evidence, for the time being.
You may not be convinced and this is absolutely ok, but you cannot wipe the source away and claim that no source for linen armour is given.
....Oops, I think I just did in that last bit! :wink: Sorry! )
Critique about the sources is always possible, I could do the same for the two about hide/leather, being very late lexica, which tell us nothing about what kind of hide armour is meant, one refering partly wrong to Xenophon.
[color=blue][i]I'm not sure what you mean here...Onomasticon clearly tells us that when Xenophon says'spolas' it means 'leather/hide armour which hangs from the shoulder'. What could be clearer than that? ...And obviously he has had access to sources we don't have, to make such a statement.
To Xenophons cavalry armour: why are you so sure that it was bronze?
...Because Xenophon uses the word 'thorakes', which means 'body armour' and earlier, before the Tube-and-Yoke, there was only one type of 'body armour' for Hoplites - the bronze 'Bell' cuirass, so 'body armour' and 'bronze cuirass' were the same thing..synonymous.'Thorakes' is the original Hoplite's bronze armour, but a new word is needed for the new Composite Tube-and-Yoke when it appeared - hence 'spolas'.....
There were a lot of composite cuirasses depicted with cavalrymen. Agreed, don't get me wrong here, but Xenophon recommends 'well-fitting thorakes', (which isn't to say that all cavalry could afford, or even prefer bronze) and his use throughout all his works is consistent with the fact that when he says 'thorakes', he means 'bronze body armour'. Don't forget that fewer than fifty 'thorakes' were donated when the cavalry were raised, so it was a fairly rare item among the ten thousand - which would be entirely consistent with the bronze 'muscled cuirass'...and the shieldless cavalry need the best/most protective, cuirass available ( for which there is no substitute for metal).
If these cuirasses were made of linen or leather or both and perhaps had metall scales attached they would have been quite heavy. And bronze armour must not have been heavier. A measurement of the weights of bronze muscle cuirasses in the Axel Guttmann collection came to the result of an estimated weight for the original pieces of 3,5 to 5,5 kg. This is not very heavy, isn't it.
...True, and I would agree with you... Perhaps Xenophon's armour was a very thick piece, giving us no hint to the actual material. ...except that he says that it is a 'thorakes', not a 'spolas'...consistency again. Naturally, I can't "prove" that Xenophon always means bronze, but his use of the word is 100% consistent with him meaning bronze, so, on balance of probability....
But perhaps the discussion is partly a misunderstanding. If you didn't imply that the tube-and-yoke armour was only made from hide/leather and named spolas, I was wrong.
...I have said many times that I don't rule out other materials, and not just on this thread - see my earlier posts. We don't (at present) have enough evidence to know....but at present there is more evidence for leather/Hide being the base material for the Tube-and-Yoke than any other material...though again that may change in the future. But the three new things that have come to light in this thread...Alum tawed Hide as a material, a second independent lexica reference to 'spolas' being leather/hide, and the Macedonian grave finds ( apparently...I hope Ioannis can get hold of the papers) all add to the jigsaw of pieces, and all point away from linen and toward leather/hide.
I thought so. Then perhaps there is even no difference between our positions.
...Other than perhaps the significance of Alcaeus... :wink: :wink: It is clear that leather as a material for Greek armour is substituted by the sources. I agree that leather is better based on facts than linen at the moment. It may be probable that spolas was leather tube-and-yoke armour.
...we are indeed agreed!
D
Perhaps it was a chiton-like leather jerkin instead. ...except that there is no depiction or description of such a thing....
This discussion is fruitless.
Oh, I couldn't agree to that! This thread has turned up, as I say, three more pieces for the jigsaw...that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been thinking about/discussing the subject. So certainly not fruitless, (except in the sense that we can't arrive at any definite conclusions, yet)....but the more it is discussed, the more new pieces will emerge...so definitely not fruitless!
D lol:
Hello Paul,
a different opinion about the dating would be Eero Jarva, Archaiologia, On Archaic Greek Body Armour, Rovaniemi 1995, p. 33-46 and 560. He does not agree with the estimation which John Boardman gave in (I think, but I'm not sure) Attic Black Vases, 1974. Correct regarding Boardman! ... I haven't read Jarva, but isn't he doing the same thing? He wants to support his case/hypothesis re:armour, and so he tries to 'adjust' the evidence/pottery dates to fit. I would sooner trust Boardman's dating because he is the foremost expert on 'pots', and because he has no subjective interest in armour and is therefore neutral.
Paul, I'm so free to say that you discuss as usually, perhaps a bit harsh ...my apologies if I appear that way, it comes from having to defend my views, one against many, and it is very fustrating when people don't take the time to read what I actually post, or else deliberately distort it. I shall try to sound less'harsh' in future but in an excellent and convincing way. ..Thank you!.. But I'm not very happy with the ease with which you get rid of the poor Alkaios as a relevant source ... Yes, I could see that...and it is probably one of the few areas where our views differ. It was for that reason that I said....'even if we accept Alceaus as contemporary'....(in order to avoid differing over this) That he wrote about anachronistic weapons is possible but for me it is more probable that he dealt with modern weaponry. Why should he spoke about cuirasses of new linen in the case he talked about old Homeric armour?
I think you misunderstand here; as I have said before, the linen is 'new', just as plumes 'toss', helmets are 'shiny', bronze armour 'gleams', heroes are 'great-hearted'...this is the epic poetry style. Did he know and wanted to imply that linen armour was new in the 8th c. or in the 13th. BC? I think neither, just that in his narrative, 'new' linen was used( he would hardly have said 'old'!). He might as easily have said 'tight-woven' linen, or some similar epithet.
Hard to believe for me. His time, at the beginning of the 6th c., the mentioning of linen as a material for armour and the addition of the composite armour to the vase paintings shortly afterwards, make a good composition in my opinion.
"shortly afterward".....and there's the problem.Ten years, or a hundred years, contemporary, or epic, he can hardly be talking about something that doesn't exist yet ( the composite tube-and-yoke corselet.) If his reference had been, say, 20 years after the first appearance of the Tube-and-Yoke, then, assuming we accept it as contemporary and not epic, you have a solid piece of evidence......but it isn't ! Of course, that may change if a piece of pottery appears, positively identified to say, 650-620 B.C with a clearly depicted Tube-and-Yoke on it.......and if more fragments of Alcaeus appear, making it clearly a contemporary description, not epic,...but at present? Logically,it must be rejected as evidence, for the time being.
You may not be convinced and this is absolutely ok, but you cannot wipe the source away and claim that no source for linen armour is given.
....Oops, I think I just did in that last bit! :wink: Sorry!
) Critique about the sources is always possible, I could do the same for the two about hide/leather, being very late lexica, which tell us nothing about what kind of hide armour is meant, one refering partly wrong to Xenophon.
[color=blue][i]I'm not sure what you mean here...Onomasticon clearly tells us that when Xenophon says'spolas' it means 'leather/hide armour which hangs from the shoulder'. What could be clearer than that? ...And obviously he has had access to sources we don't have, to make such a statement.
To Xenophons cavalry armour: why are you so sure that it was bronze?
...Because Xenophon uses the word 'thorakes', which means 'body armour' and earlier, before the Tube-and-Yoke, there was only one type of 'body armour' for Hoplites - the bronze 'Bell' cuirass, so 'body armour' and 'bronze cuirass' were the same thing..synonymous.'Thorakes' is the original Hoplite's bronze armour, but a new word is needed for the new Composite Tube-and-Yoke when it appeared - hence 'spolas'.....
There were a lot of composite cuirasses depicted with cavalrymen. Agreed, don't get me wrong here, but Xenophon recommends 'well-fitting thorakes', (which isn't to say that all cavalry could afford, or even prefer bronze) and his use throughout all his works is consistent with the fact that when he says 'thorakes', he means 'bronze body armour'. Don't forget that fewer than fifty 'thorakes' were donated when the cavalry were raised, so it was a fairly rare item among the ten thousand - which would be entirely consistent with the bronze 'muscled cuirass'...and the shieldless cavalry need the best/most protective, cuirass available ( for which there is no substitute for metal).
If these cuirasses were made of linen or leather or both and perhaps had metall scales attached they would have been quite heavy. And bronze armour must not have been heavier. A measurement of the weights of bronze muscle cuirasses in the Axel Guttmann collection came to the result of an estimated weight for the original pieces of 3,5 to 5,5 kg. This is not very heavy, isn't it.
...True, and I would agree with you... Perhaps Xenophon's armour was a very thick piece, giving us no hint to the actual material. ...except that he says that it is a 'thorakes', not a 'spolas'...consistency again. Naturally, I can't "prove" that Xenophon always means bronze, but his use of the word is 100% consistent with him meaning bronze, so, on balance of probability....
But perhaps the discussion is partly a misunderstanding. If you didn't imply that the tube-and-yoke armour was only made from hide/leather and named spolas, I was wrong.
...I have said many times that I don't rule out other materials, and not just on this thread - see my earlier posts. We don't (at present) have enough evidence to know....but at present there is more evidence for leather/Hide being the base material for the Tube-and-Yoke than any other material...though again that may change in the future. But the three new things that have come to light in this thread...Alum tawed Hide as a material, a second independent lexica reference to 'spolas' being leather/hide, and the Macedonian grave finds ( apparently...I hope Ioannis can get hold of the papers) all add to the jigsaw of pieces, and all point away from linen and toward leather/hide.
I thought so. Then perhaps there is even no difference between our positions.
...Other than perhaps the significance of Alcaeus... :wink: :wink: It is clear that leather as a material for Greek armour is substituted by the sources. I agree that leather is better based on facts than linen at the moment. It may be probable that spolas was leather tube-and-yoke armour.
...we are indeed agreed!
D Perhaps it was a chiton-like leather jerkin instead. ...except that there is no depiction or description of such a thing....
This discussion is fruitless.
Oh, I couldn't agree to that! This thread has turned up, as I say, three more pieces for the jigsaw...that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been thinking about/discussing the subject. So certainly not fruitless, (except in the sense that we can't arrive at any definite conclusions, yet)....but the more it is discussed, the more new pieces will emerge...so definitely not fruitless!
D lol:
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
