Homer and His Age

Mr. Myres applauds Reichel's theory that {blank space} first meant a man's chest. If thorexmeans a man's breast, then THOREXin a secondary sense, one thinks, would mean "breastplate," as waist of a woman means, first, her waist; next, her blouse (American). But Mr. Myres and Reichel say that the secondary sense of THOREXis not breastplate but "body clothing," as if a man were all breast, or wore only a breast covering, whereas Mycenaean art shows men wearing nothing on their breasts, merely drawers or loin-cloths, which could not be called THOREX, as they cover the antipodes of the breast.

The verb {Greek: thoraesestai}, the theory runs on, merely meant "to put on body clothing," which Mycenaeans in works of art, if correctly represented, do not usually put on; they fought naked or in bathing drawers. Surely we might as well argue that a "waistcoat" might come to mean "body clothing in general," as that a word for the male breast became, first, a synonym for the covering of the male buttocks and for apparel in general, and, next, for a bronze breastplate. These arguments appear rather unconvincing, {Footnote: Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xx. pp. 149, 150.} nor does Mycenaean art instruct us that men went into battle dressed in body clothing which was thickly set with many glittering gold ornaments, and was called "a many-glittering thorex."

Further, if we follow Reichel and Mr. Leaf, the Mycenaeans wore chitonsand called them chitons. They also used bronze-plated shields, though of this we have no evidence. Taking the bronze-plated (?) shield to stand poetically for the chiton, the poet spoke of " the bronze-chitoned Achaeans" But, if we follow Mr. Myres, the Mycenaeans also applied the word thorexto body clothing at large, in place of the word chiton; and when a warrior was transfixed by a spear, they said that his "many-glittering, gold-studded thorex," that is, his body clothing in general, was pierced. It does seem simpler to hold that chitonmeant chiton; that thorexmeant, first, "breast," then "breastplate," whether of linen, or plaited leather, or bronze, and that to pierce a man through his {Greek: poludaidalos thoraex} meant to pierce him through his handsome corslet. No mortal ever dreamt that this was so till Reichel tried to make out that the original poet describes no armour except the large Mycenaean shield and the mitrк, and that all corslets in the poems were of much later introduction. Possibly they were, but they had plenty of time wherein to be evolved long before the eighth century, Reichel's date for corslets.

The argument is that a man with a large shield needs no body armour, or uses the shield because he has no body armour.

But the possession and use of a large shield did not in the Middle Ages, or among the Iroquois and Algonquins, make men dispense with corslets, even when the shield was worn, as in Homer, slung round the neck by a telamon( guigein Old French), belt, or baldric.

We turn to a French Chanson de Geste—La Chancun de Willem—of the twelfth century A.D., to judge by the handwriting. One of the heroes, Girard, having failed to rescue Vivien in battle, throws down his weapons and armour, blaming each piece for having failed him. Down goes the heavy lance; down goes the ponderous shield, suspended by a telamon: "Ohitarge grant cume peises al col!" down goes the plated byrnie, " Ohi grant broine cum me vas apesant" {Footnote: La Chancun de Willame, lines 716-726.}

The mediaeval warrior has a heavy byrnie as well as a great shield suspended from his neck. It will be remarked also that the Algonquins and Iroquois of the begi

To the kindness of Mr. Hill Tout I also owe a description of the armour of the Indian tribes of north-west America, from a work of his own. He says: "For protective purposes in warfare they employed shields and coat-armour. The shields varied in form and material from tribe to tribe. Among the Interior Salish they were commonly made of wood, which was afterwards covered with hide. Sometimes they consisted of several thicknesses of hide only. The hides most commonly used were those of the elk, buffalo, or bear. After the advent of the Hudson's Bay Co. some of the Indians used to beat out the large copper kettles they obtained from the traders and make polished circular shields of these. In some centres long rectangular shields, made from a single or double hide, were employed. These were often from 4 to 5 feet in length and from 3 to 4 feet in width—large enough to cover the whole body. Among the Dйnй tribes (Sikanis) the shield was generally made of closely-woven wicker-work, and was of an ovaloid form (exact size not given).

"The coat armour was everywhere used, and varied in form and style in almost every centre. There were two ways in which this was most commonly made. One of these was the slatted cuirass or corslet, which was formed of a series of narrow slats of wood set side by side vertically and fastened in place by interfacings of raw hide. It went all round the body, being hung from the shoulders with straps. The other was a kind of shirt of double or treble elk hide, fastened at the side with thongs. Another kind of armour, less common than that just described, was the long elk-hide tunic, which reached to and even below the knees and was sleeved to the elbow."

Mr. Hill Tout's minute description, with the other facts cited, leaves no doubt that even in an early stage, as in later stages of culture, the use of the great shield does not exclude the use of such body armour as the means of the warriors enable them to construct. To take another instance, Pausanias describes the corslets of the neolithic Sarmatae, which he saw dedicated in the temple of Asclepius at Athens. Corslets these bowmen and users of the lasso possessed, though they did not use the metals. They fashioned very elegant corslets out of horses' hoofs, cutting them into scales like those of a pine cone, and sewing them on to cloth. {Footnote: Pausanias, i. 211. {misprint} 6.}

Certain small, thin, perforated discs of stone found in Scotland have been ingeniously explained as plates to be strung together on a garment of cloth, a neolithic chiton. However this may be, since Iroquois and Algonquins and Dйnй had some sort of woven, or plaited, or wooden, or buff corslet, in addition to their great shields, we may suppose that the Achaeans would not be less inventive. They would pass from the {Greek: linothoraex} (answering to the cotton corslet of the Iroquois) to a sort of jack or jaseranwith rings, scales, or plates, and thence to bronze-plate corslets, represented only by the golden breastplates of the Mycenaean grave. Even if the Mycenaeans did not evolve the corslet, there is no reason why, in the Homeric times, it should not have been evolved.