Hoplite cuirass
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- The Classical Greek hoplites (soldiers) wore a rather fetching cuirass or "corslet". I have made a reconstruction of one, and I have a few points to make about it. There is a theory, to which I do not subscribe, which says that these things were made of many layers of linen. I made mine from very thick leather, and I feel pretty safe in it.
One point I meant to mention but forgot appears in another (very short) video: • Another quick point ab... .
I weighed my cuirass, and it came out at 14 lbs (6kg).
More details on this subject on my website:
www.LloydianAspects.co.uk
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"People come up to me and knock on me as if I were some sort of door, and of course I sort of cheerfully punch them in the face and reply" - lindybeige Well then
Please tell me I'm not the only one who noticed the Buzz Lightyear face on his door.
I imagine Buzz is faced either at a toilet or shower. This way he both admires Lindy and horrifies guests.
+paranoidude dam noticed him only after reading your comment 0_0
so blind.......
+paranoidude
What buzz lightyear, you must be hallucinating.
JK
I saw It and came looking for this comment. Jesus, that face.
beyond and infinity To
The more sweat it wicks up, the softer it would get. Old fashioned glues were even smellier than modern ones.
"To infinity... and beyond!!"
I had no idea what you were talking about until I went back and looked. Nice catch.
Augustus Julias Those are the best catches :3 The superfluous ones that don't always make sense in the context :3
Thank God I'm not the only one who noticed.
Hiøtr Björgson Snepill Why?? There's nothing bad about it xD
I thought I was insane. I was like 'He's looking at me....'
2:41 made me laugh so suddenly, I nearly choked on my tea! :-D
why is buzz lightyear... you know what I don't think I need to know
Rewatch the video.
Look closely at the door on the left.
All of your questions will be answered.
I know that style of armor was popular during the Hellenistic Age when they used the massive sarissa (essentially a pike), but during the Archaic Age and early Classical Age bronze cuirasses were still popular and didn't have shoulder protection, so overarm was easier. They also used a shorter spear
I have just discovered this guy (on searching linen thorax because I was interested if it actually worked) and he's awesome. Mad as a box of frogs. But awesome. Love all this kind of stuff.
Did you find the research on the linen armor and the testing on it?
To a degree, yes, the bronze ones tend to be earlier and later, and there were more of my kind in the mid classical, but there was plenty of overlap. Philip of Macedon had an iron one made in the shape of linen/leather one.
Perfectly feasible. Homer was writing a poem, and needed nice-sounding adjectiival phrases to describe people all the time. Achaeans were usually "flowing haired", but I wouldn't interpret this as evidence that no Achaeans ever got bald patches.
I imagine another reason for the additionally security for the belly is simply a result of the human body's lack of natural protection. With the chest, you have your ribcage to protect to some degree, but at your belly, there is nothing but muscles and fat. No bones for the weapon's tip to catch on and nothing to prevent them from wreaking havoc inside. Given how interior wounds and organ damage were likely to cause people to die within the following days and weeks, it seems sensible to take extra precaution at one of the most vulnerable and easiest to reach areas.
But I don't think they'd bother if they weren't afraid to get hit there, would they?
Yes, I was going to add a similar comment. A long and painful death followed a belly wound.
It's not like your ribs can't break into your organs. They aren't armor either🤣. If i take a flanged mace and smack it against your bronze scaled thorax it will break your ribs. Don't act like your bones are armor. If that was the case then people wouldn't have worn any chest or back protection or as much.
Also bone breakages take longer to heal and are harder to treat when or if they become infected. So i wouldn't say your ribs give you any protection at least not in warfare. In hand to hand combat yes they most certainly do, but against bronze and iron, no not even a little. And if so it's minimal.
Hello Buzz Lightyear. Stop looking at me like that.
Yeah, i cant stop noticing it either. I caught it about two minutes in.
The coloring on the top of the armor makes it look like clone trooper armor
You made me curious about the linon. I did some measurements and calculated that making a cuirass consisting of 16 layers of linon for an average 175 cm soldier only approx 7 m^2 of linon will be needed. That's probably not too expensive for a guy, able to purchase a sword and a big bronze helmet. After all greeks had enough linon to make sails for their ships.
P.S:: I'm not arguing with the idea, that linothoraxes were probably made from lether, just with the cost of linon point.
Doesn't it get warm in England at all? Do you _always_ wear a sweater?
According to historical records, it got warm once about 370 years ago.
Dthen Must be nice. I live in Florida. The heat during the summer, man it's brutal. Actually I was there during summer. It rained a little at the beginning but for the rest of the two weeks, the weather was beautiful. I was told that I got lucky.
I live in texas, and while it might be more humid in florida i would bet you that it gets at least as hot. I sometimes go through the whole winter without wearing pants, only shorts
Likas Well if it's hotter there than it is here then I feel for you man.
here, we broke some records in 2011
Number of 100-degree days for select cities (as of Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011)
--Wichita Falls: 100 days
--San Angelo: 96 days
--Waco: 85 days
--Del Rio: 82 days
--Austin (Mabry): 83 days
--Austin (Bergstrom): 69 days
--Abilene: 79 days
--Dallas: 70 days
HAHAH BET YOU CANT BEAT THAT IN FLORIDA
I'm heartily unimpressed by your choice of authoritative source, and you seem to be confusing this type of cuirass with the "muscled" or "bell" cuirass, which was often bronze.
The linen armor, considering the costs, could have been a high status sort of item. the literature points to it being quite more protective compared to leather of the same weight; so that could also explain homer's linen reference: it makes the argives more magnificent.
+Guillermo Garcia Viesca (Gilderbeast)
It seems like while linen might've made very good armor, the superior type in both protection and prestige would probably be a padded bronze breastplate.
Something like this: s168.photobucket.com/user/Chesterthegreat12/media/Mycenaeanarmour2.jpg.html
Although who knows if Homer even existed or if the iliad & Oddysey weren't compiled from myriad stories a century after the fact. I'm fairly sure the gods didn't make personal appearances too.
Albrecht Shnoodle only 5he Odyssey was considered by some Classical Greek writers to be made from several earlier poems ,superimpose to a single tale.you see in Ithaca merchand goes to the palace of Odysseus and asks one of the suitors if he knows when Telemachus,the son of the hero,will come back to 5he island with his ship ,because he needs the ship to go to Tamessos ,in Cyprus to by copper.and before that Odysseus encounters some rough seas in the south of the Pelloponeese and after that he doesn’t know where he is .two different periods.one where the Mediterranean is used for trade purposes and war and the other the hero doesn’t know the area some miles away from the main part of southern Greece.those two stories I believe they are apart at least a thousand years apart.in the Iliad they are not unknown people or states ,except when he talks about some northern countries where the Sun doesn’t shine as in Greece.maybe he talks either about Scotland or Scandinavia.sources of copper or rar3 minerals.
Why would it cost more? Have you not seen the research?
2:10 what if you made the front longer while the back ones shorter so you could sit
MrEdgarr I think it wouldn't be historically accurate.
MrEdgarr you can't sit if the ones in front are too long either. They won't bend.
+Mac Rebs But I think he means that the ones in the front would go down to the knees.
Jacob Furrow Oh, yeah. Sorry. Had a brainfart.
Maybe just have one especially long one in the front for, um... protection.
@lindybeige, This is wonderful -- I have lots of ideas for improvements, but they're probably not historically accurate. A note about sitting: perhaps the Greeks were not sitting on backed chairs in the field. Look at the Japanese samurai sitting in their armour, always on a stool, kneeling or cross-legged.
*taps the crotch area* "these are quite hard" my God... I'm sorry internet.
I've been watching yur channel for like 4 years continous and never got bored but fascinated with your knowledge almost all ancient history, about the Hoplite cuirasses you show in the video, i think yours that you are wearing can be known as a spolas, in my opinion, the Greek Hoplites linothorax depends on the availability of the materials they have, it could be made of whole leather, partly leather-partly metal core-faced with linen or leather or so on. Its based on the individual hoplite's preference, style, and financial affordability of the user themselves, and also the types of material they had in their area..linothorax was like their version of our modern tactical vest, made from either combination of hard and soft materials or wholly soft materials,.that's my opinion only......few years ago I read about a journal (long gone, can't find the website anyway till now)...about ancient south Chinese army wearing a thick paper armour glued together.......can you confirm it if its true......
Sorry nobody replied, but I can confirm the Chinese did use glued paper to make armour at some point. It was glued into scales or lames to make scale & lamelar armour. I think it was finished with a weatherproof laquer. Early medieval period if I remember correctly.
Yeah, somehow, I couldn't find that article on that anymore for years..., If I'm not mistaken the paper armor was popularly used among the chinese soldiers posted in the southern borders of China due to humid weather there, making metal armor uncomfortable to be worn with much sweating they're gonna get if worn there....last time I read that article in 2010 btw...
and the mythbusters guys did made a show on that, I think....
Lindy....you are quite hilarious. Informative, educating, well thought out, very rational, all of that and more. But you sir, add a good portion of humor to everything. Thank you.
I doubt that you get a chance to read through these comments, but I'd like to give you some feed back if I may; at the end of this video you apologize for not knowing when to shut up, to that I say bollocks. Your personality is easily responsible for a great number of your viewers, so please don't shut up. Please over feed us with information that challenges the word relevant, in doing so you are teaching that it is wise to cultivate a curiosity that won't be quieted. Cheers!
Is anyone else now wondering if hoplites wore some sort of ancient pasties?
regarding upper-arm spearing, you chose to make them as wide as possible! Perhaps that is the reason they were narrow?
I am currently reading a book by Robert Flaceliére who writes something along the lines of "instead of a metal cuirass, they also wore something that protected the chest, of leather or linen, that was made more effective by metal components" (unfortunately I'm reading a greek translation so I may have misquoted him) so your thorax is indeed a historically accurate one
I would also like to add that the thorax of Phillip the second is in a museum somewhere and while it looks like a "linothorax" it was made of iron
Really cool construction and video. I was just at a renaissance fair being reminded of how little people care about historical accuracy. I know it's a theme-park fantasy, but WoW armor just grinds my gears.
when I crafted our association's linothorakes we tried with kitchen knives (better steel and edge than any ancient counterpart) and with a full thrust against a 12-ply piece (backed by some cloth, a quilt if I recall correctly) we managed to have the point stick out a little over a centimeter on the other end (less than half an inch) and slashing on it was pretty useless :)
They were made of course linens. Which were very cheap and were better for armour than expensive linens. It was not hard to make bad quality linen.
The scales would have been a copper alloy of some sort. Mine are brass. Yes, I made them myself from sheet brass.
Totally agree with your assesment of leather vs linen. I also made my corset from leather, but when I learned how much dye would be needed to make it white, I faced mine with bleached linen for temp control. I believe the overhand thrust was used because a wall of shields impedes the undhand thrust too much, plus it easier to aim overhand. Nice post, thanks!!
I was thinking the same thing, on top of which the training received by warriors would most certainly include bone trauma causing the calcium lattice of the bones to reinforce itself which cane make the bones exceptionally strong so the rib cage of a warrior would be its own additional armor something unachievable in the belly region.
another reason why Spartan warriors were so tough given their training regiment from birth.
@malkrow21 The usual story is that they were abandoned, but yes, they seem to have done away with defective babies, which may partly explain why they died out.
@schizoidboy Yes. Lamellar armour was often rawhide, but the big drawback of rawhide is that it goes floppy and weak if wet (it also smells terrible!). The lamellar stuff was coated in various waxes, varnishes etc to keep out the wet.
An interesting idea. It's possible, but that would require the corslet to be very accurately fitted, and for the wearer to gain no weight over the years at all (unlike me). It would have to be stiff and springy enough to return to the closed position after every breath, and you would be expanding your chest against this resistance. You could be right, but I suspect that there is something we don't know about this join.
Have become obsessed with watching your many videos old and new, i love history but sometimes have little interest in SOME of the topics you cover, yet find them fascinating! you have an ability to inspire interest big time, should be a teacher! well, i wouldnt want to be one lol but i would have learnt so much more had i had a teacher like you. Your attitude has cheered me right up today aswell after a shite day.
The scales on mine are brass, but others would have been bronze. The surviving greaves we have are bronze, but my reconstructed ones are iron. Iron ones may have existed, but iron doesn't survive nearly as well as bronze. Standard hoplite panoplies had greaves and helmet. Also many foot guards and some thigh guards have survived. I can't think of any evidence for armour on the arms.
@noobler9 I do not have any reason to believe that a stab from a spear would be less armour-penetrating than a stab from a sword. The spear is heavier so has more weight behind it, and since the blow comes from further away, the wielder can afford to commit more of his bodyweight to it.
@kMondrakken I wouldn't call the Republican Roman and Samnite tri-disc armour "belly", and they gave no protection to the belly from the side, where a hoplite cuirass is most likely to have scales. Ottoman/moghul armour was again plated more on the front of the torso (video on this to come, but don't hold your breath), and the style involved holding it in place by direct join to the mail all around the edges, so it seems that they plated the bits that were easiest to plate.
+Lucas Takao said:
"What was this armor good for? I don't see how It would protect you from much of anything. They probably made it for more uniform and good looking hoplites rather than for protection."
That's because you don't know how hoplites fought. They fought in formation, in a phalanx, with very long spears and protected by bronze shields. Their "fight" was basically a pushing match: the spears of your enemies pushing at your shield and your spear pushing at their shield. The side that gets pushed the most, breaks rank and runs. Very few hoplites actually died, is estimated less than 5% of the total number of combatants. Usually a fight would stop once one of the phalanxes break and run: match was over, those who stood their ground won. A certain style and one could say very honorable fight.
However when romans came along and the phalanx was broken, romans would pursue and cut to pieces fleeing hoplites. Romans weren't interested in honor, they wanted gold and the rich trade of Greece. And they conquered them in few short years.
One last point: don't forget, is Greece, that means is very hot so you cannot engage in prolonged battle wearing a heavy, enclosed armor, or you will boil. Literally.
In conclusion, this type of armor is more than adequate for the type of fighting the greeks were doing.
That idea of a pushing match is just silly, particularly once you actually have a clue about how sharp weapons and shields interact with each other. If stick-based pushing matches were the way of the day, they wouldn't use sharp points which would glide off but flat tips that would stay put better. Bronze spearheads would most certainly just bend from the pressure, if you could even get them to stay on the enemy shield.
Besides, the pushing wouldn't do anything in the first place. Unless you are shoving them off a cliff, pushing the enemy backwards physically doesn't do any good. When two lines are pressing against each other, they act like plastic to one another. Any deformation in one means deformation in the other. As you shove one portion of their line back, that portion of your line is now forward compared to the rest of your line (going from something like || to {{ to
I don't recall noticing the Buzz Lightyear head when I first watched this forever ago. A decent chuckle to be had.
@tenthousandsuns Of iron, we have no idea. So far as I know, one has been found, and it might have belonged to a king (possibly Philip II of Macedon - Alex's dad), so it could have been exceptional. Bronze was more common, but it seems that in the Classical period, most cuirasses were of other materials.
@SarevokRegor Making linen is VERY labour and land intensive, and you need to process it, which is very hard work, and then weave it, and then you need several layers, OR you could just skin a cow.
@noobler9 The ancient Greeks were not bronze age, they were in the iron age, and the strength of wood did not alter between the two periods. Their swords were clearly designed to be useful at chopping. The kopis/falcatta particularly so.
@ComradeAlpharius Yes. It was a matter of pride to look good, and all period depictions of them show them in bright colours. Pink was popular.
True, the side seams do not gape on the statues, but they would be idealised, like the rest of the statue. The statues never carry water bottles either, but fighting a battle in Greece without one would be a silly thing to try. The seams are clearly shown as fastening as I fasten them. It is a mystery.
Roman lorica has been found archaeologically, and it is iron. Of course, this doesn't rule out non-iron lorica. I don't know what the written evidence is for iron.
That's true! The belly protection in bronze scales would indeed make you think they used more underhand attacks in general then overhand. I've always wanted to try some hoplite gear out myself so I could finally understand the answer to the question of overhand versus underhand.
I didn't know simple leather would be such a good substitute either. And much easier to produce, so more efficient as well. Great videos!
@Supertomiman Yes, but they were not so common, especially at the height of the classical period. Earlier ones were not the sculpted muscle type, either (look up 'bell cuirass').
@aiascunaxu Yes, Homer is that reference to linen corsletted Argives. The term "Linothorax" used to mean classical hoplite armour (many centuries after the Trojan War) is modern.
Is that buzz lightyear on the door?
@FoxtonLOL I suppose first I'd have to collect together, shred, and dry out a load of fish swim bladders to make the glue, or boil up lots of cow hooves. I don't know whether it would be better to create a big slab of multilayered glued cloth and then cut out the cuirass shape, or to glue together ready-shaped pieces of cloth (shrinkage and warpage and crinkling problems?) Possibly you could glue layers of cloth to a stiff core of... leather?
The underarm can go up to the face or down to the feet, or across to the open side of the next man; the overarm can go down to the upper body and that's it, and that's if you can reach.
Yes, other tests on laminates of cloth have been done, and it can be shown to be effective. The 8-min documentary I saw is far from comprehensive, though. Their website claims "About two dozen" references to linen armour. I suspect that this is a number that includes a lot of vague refs shoe-horned to fit. I'd be interested to see what they are.
One of my fav armors yours right there specifically.
A professor at the University of Green Bay in Wisconsin reconstructed linothorax armor with completely accurate materials. As it turns out, it works very well. The team who worked on it found that the linen would actually conform to a person's body shape.
Also, there is evidence of the yoke being attached at two points on the breast, not always the single point with both straps tied together.
@cinemonter Yes, the single reference is from Homer. "Corsets"? I suspect you mean "corslets" unless they were all trying to hide their paunches. The term "linothorax" is _derived_ from Homer's poetic term, and now applied to armour from a millennium later.
I had a go at water hardening it. I cannot say for certain how well it worked.
You are not wrong. You can say kwi-rass if you want. I've usually said it the way you hear here. I don't recall where I got this pronunciation from, but certainly it was long ago.
@TheArtistOfKuroo Yes, I'm aware that it can work, but lots of things can work, and yes I have seen pot paintings showing the two-strap arrangement.
just wanted to comment about the linen armor. Me and my ancient European history prof got into talking about rome and greece and the armors they could have used stuff like this and the linen came up and now i do know that from experience 12 layers of heavy duty linen with a close weave can stop a 120 pound bow with a bodkin head at 30 feet so it was possible they used a linen with perhaps rawhide or leather or metal plates over vital areas. Now there isnt backing to this just experience
I have a very long torso. The pteriges start at approx. my waist. My upper thighs are largely unprotected. Pictures from the period show warriors with their genitals below their pteriges. The pteriges make it possible to bend at the waist.
... Oh my god... It's buzz lightyear!
First lindybeige video I ever watched and I've been hooked ever since! Content gets better and better ever day.
The only reason I can think of as to why there are only two side fastenings is that if can then slightly bend/fold/curve when you bend over which would allow more movement, whereas three would make the cuirass more rigid and not allow as much lee way. There is a decent chance that I am wrong as I am no armourer :D
I think I have a pretty solid answer on why they reinforced the Belly first like that.
It wasn't to do with that being the most vulnerable or most important area in terms of tactical fighting, although Belly thrusts and cuts were effective, so was going for the Upper Chest or the Head.
Put simply, being gutted like that and spilling your entrails out onto the ground was commonly considered the nastiest most gruesome death. You die slowly, you die painfully, you die messily and you die smelly.
BUZZ LOOK OUT
It is pigment painted on, and there is a depression marking its edge - a little linear dent which I made with a biro that had run out of ink.
it was proven that the glued linen armor could actually stop an arrow better than a sheet of bronze of the same thickness interestingly enough an arrow fired at point blank range went straight through the bronze but only went half way through the linen. also it seems to work similarly to how the mongols wore lacquered leather armor with a silk shirt underneath and the arrow would get stuck in the silk shirt.
@malkrow21 I have not independently researched this question, but there is some literary evidence for it. I don't know if the source was Spartan, though. Hobbling them and leaving them on a hillside was one disposal method. Leaving a child to die and killing it are two different things, one might argue, either from a religious perspective or with regard to the amount of guilt one feels.
you could indeed use linen, and quilted together it would protect reasonably against the weapons of the period. We find exactly the same thing in medieval jacks, which were effective against medieval weaponry made of significantly better materials. That's not to say these were fabric, but it is feasible.
@Tareltonlives But as my archaeology lecturers were fond of reminding us: an absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.
@legendsofgrine On campaign you would have your armour on much of the time, and even during a battle you would want to rest and still remain ready for action. I think that if you wore armour that you couldn't sit down in for very long, you'd soon decide to redesign it. Do you play sports? What if a designer gave you football kit you couldn't sit down in?
There was a documentary about the battle of Thermopolie i saw and it showed a theory on what made the armor. Some called it Lamilar armor. Wool leather bronze and leather again then linin on top. The layers make it stronger and the linin helped keep them cool.
They had white and blue paints. Whether they would have used that exact shade of blue, I cannot say.
Just discovered your videos! Given that I am a graduate history student and prospective classicist with regards to ancient warfare, I find your videos to be very helpful!
Yes I agree, I'd want more protection for my neck. One problem with the neck, though, it that it does make you very hot if your protect it - like wearing a scarf.
The Roman imperator Marcus Antonius,was said to of worn Greek Hoplite armour,apparently quite useful in protecting you from arrows..
In places is is more than one layer thick, but much of it is one very thick bit of leather.
@zdkezios The vase paintings I have seen clearly imply that the edges butt against each other rather than overlap.
The word linothorax does come from a greek word, mentioned in the Iliad by Homer as an adjective meaning 'wearing a breastplate of linen.' Which is pretty explicit in that linen was in fact used. It's then briefly described due to its use by Ajax the Lesser.
@lindybeige
doesn't really matter wether they did not protect the sides, how they attached the armor, etc. the focus of additional armor seemed to often have been the stomach area which makes sense since the lack of a rib cage there meant that any sharp stick or knife could be easily inserted directly into vital organs. It was generally sensible to armor up there, obviously if you could armor even more areas you'd do so as well, it is just more obvious in such armor hybrids that optimize parts.
Again with the reconstruction today: I have to say, that your point about getting hit in side of your body is completely right. It is nearly imposible to hit your oponent somewhere else than to his cheek, eye or to right side of his body
you have some of the best historical arguements i heard, when you put it simply it makes sense i also think they reenforced the belly area of the cuirass since it lacks the protection of a mans rib but that theory for the use of spears could win the arguement for the under arm people i have heard of something called the Iphikratean which is a cuirass made of fabric simply quilted together but that wouldnt have been used by classical hoplites since i think it was developed during Alexanders time
@lindybeige , not quite, hides were expensive too, and the thick areas which would be useful for armour (don't know if you could join up thin bits) could be worth a most of it . Some references state that a buff coat was worth between a 1 pnd to a 1 pound 10 sh at 1646 , and the amount of linen that would cover a similar amount of the body to 16 layers (~ where it and boiled leather are even) would cost 2 pnd. However the relative cost of linens and hide varied over the centuries if anything .
I agree with your conclusion. I made my personal armor in '07; leather with linen glued on the outside. The reason is just as you say; linen is VERY expensive to make. But leather? Well, you can just set some goats free on a mountainside and your making it. Much easier and less capital expenditure. I believe the left side was designed to overlap because, let's face it, as we grow older, our waists expand...get more robust.. well, you get the idea. Also, it allows one's armor to be handed down to the next generation; don't forget, the requirement to own (and possession of) a panoply was a sign of being a proud, voting, middle class citizen. A father would have been proud to pass on such a storied relic to his son. Any gap in the left side may have been covered by the shield, but it was still not a good idea, simply because it makes the armor bind, sort of. I believe the bronze scaling was first placed over the mid-section because while a wound to the chest may be bad, the rib cage provided the body's natural protection of the region. A gut wound, on the other hand, is horrific and agonizing. The shoulder plates don't really restrict the use of a spear. The shield wall would have topped out at shoulder level; using a spear at that height is entirely possible in my experience. One must really look at the panoply as a sort of integrated weapon system. The cheek pieces of the Corinthian helmet , when the user drops his head naturally for combat, covers the gap in the curaisse. The shin guards cover the legs exposed by the shield, etc.
frequentfiler Really enjoyed this comment, and I appreciate you chiming in with your experience. I'd like to save this comment as food for thought if you don't mind.
Janas Aurora Certainly! Keep up the good work, I enjoy your videos very much. Educational, yet entertaining.
Goat leather doesn't come very thick. You'd need particularly thick cattle/Bull leather
What if you just made the flap/tassel things long in the front so they protect you but short in the back so you can sit down
God dammit where's that feckin time machine when you need one?
Na, seriously, I guess you'd have to reconstruct the whole armour (maybe including shinpads and scabbard) to understand why it was as it was. All I learned from all this stuff that exists on youtube, school and what have you is, that there have always been somewhat clever people around. So you just mostly have to asume that they had their reasons.
+Dakuffa Maybe it was just a very stubborn superior officer who thought it looked more fashionable.
It would indeed look somewhat like a servant's skirt and thus be a little contra productive to the image of a superior concoueror
There are Thracian examples of Tube and Yoke cuirasses with pteriges of variable size, so not its not impossible that this was done.
Also, maybe the rear pteriges were processed into a softer leather.
I suppose you are right. I assume a roman gladius would pierce it like a hot knife through butter but a bronze sword or dull iron sword would have a lot of trouble.
I doubt it was normal, but I was using the depiction of anatomy merely as measure of the length of the piece of armour.
@colddrake80 Interesting thought. I suppose it could help a bit, but only on the right-hand side.
@jethro035181 This style of armour appears centuries after the Trojan War, and I don't recall much sex in Homer carried out by men in armour.
I just can't stop watching your channel. And now I'm all the way back to the origin of a pixel. You changed nothing.
One example of a third fixing point: the etuscan statue of Mars wearing a cuirass, which seems to be a lamentar armour
@IVscythia True, but the difference isn't so massive. I suspect that the answer lies elsewhere.
theres a good quote which seals the arguement in my mind even more
from Pollux's Onomastikon:
"Spolas de thorax ek dermatos, kata tous omous ephaptomenos, hos Xenophon ephe 'kai spolas anti thorakos'"
"The spolas is a thorax of leather, which hangs from the shoulders, so that Xenophon says 'and the spolas instead of the thorax.'"
This video is great and it inspired me to make my 'Hoplite cuirass' also known as a spolas. Your videoes are all great!
when he taps his groin and says "these are quite hard..."
The leather is attached to leather by sewing with thick linen thread.
Now i want to make all kinds of different period armors. That cuirass is amazing. I see more of your vids on the side here, i'm about to check them out.
I have a theory as to why there are only two connections on the side, the ancient Athenians and Corinthians etc. were considerably shorter and smaller than us, now I don't know how tall you are (you LOOK fairly tall) but I think that they didn't need them as the gap would have been too small for them to worry about it and bother with the time and money involved in putting a third on.
yeah avg height range 4'8"-5'2"
kuriousitykat more like 5'3-5'7
You just quoted 'Princess Bride in there... Well done, sir.
Illustrations of this armour? I am aware of modern interpretations, but do you know of an in-period picture? I don't. By and large, Mycenaean period soldiers are shown bare chested or in bronze. Pictures of these heroes drawn in the Classical period just tell us what the vase painters thought would sell well.