Reconstructing Ancient Linen Body Armor by Gregory S Aldrete & Scott Bartell & Alicia Aldrete

Author:Gregory S Aldrete & Scott Bartell & Alicia Aldrete [Aldrete, Gregory S]
Language: eng
Format: azw
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2013-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

Large-Scale Production

Thus far, the discussion has focused on typical militia-type soldiers who would have been expected to provide their own arms and armor, and on the limited resources that they might have had available to them to produce their panoply. What about wealthy individuals who might have been more likely to purchase their equipment immediately using cash rather than produce it partially or fully themselves? Related to this is the question of how states such as Macedon, which apparently supplied equipment to its soldiers in a systematic way, obtained large quantities of weapons and armor.25 Were there workshops mass-producing linen corselets, and if there were, did they also make the linen (and even possibly the thread) themselves, or did they purchase premade cloth and just do the assembly? How much would a corselet from such a workshop have cost?

There is some evidence for large-scale private manufacturers of arms and armor. In the late fifth century B.C., Cephalus, the father of Lysias, operated a shield factory at Athens that employed 120 slaves, and at times maintained as many as 700 shields in stock (Lysias, Against Eratosthenes 12.19). The father of the orator Demosthenes (also named Demosthenes) was another such arms merchant, running a sword factory with 32 or 33 slave workers (Demosthenes, Against Aphobus 27.9; cf. Plutarch, Demosthenes 4). Other sources mention piles of weapons and armor made by specialists in each type readily available for sale in the public marketplaces of Greek cities.26 In Sophocles’ Epigonoi, when preparations for war are being described, there is the line, “and for the wearers of breastplates the weavers are striking up the wise shuttle’s songs.”27 This ancient source explicitly cites weavers as being among the groups of craftspeople called upon to aid in the production of military equipment. Whether these weavers are male or female, free or slave, is not specified. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that there was a market in high-quality linen corselets being produced by manufacturers for sale to individuals seeking such armor.

When this market is expanded to include the equipment needs of entire states, the scale of necessary production begins to grow quite large. For example, in 326 B.C., Alexander ordered 25,000 corselets to be sent to him in India to replace the ones that had worn out during the march (Quintus Curtius Rufus 9.3.21). When Alexander’s troops mutinied at the Hyphasis just before his request for new corselets, one of their grievances was that they had been fighting for so long that their “armor was worn-out.”28 While the description of the new armor (which is particularly ornate, with decorative metal fittings) is ambiguous in regard to what it is made of, the fact that Alexander then orders the old armor to be burned indicates that the original corselets were made of an organic material that was combustible, and therefore most likely either leather or linen.29 If they were linen, and we multiply 25,000 by our notional construction time of 715 hours per corselet, then initially equipping part

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