No "practicable" breastplates, hauberks, corslets, or any things of the kind have so far been discovered in graves of the Mycenaean prime. A corpse in Grave V. at Mycenae had, however, a golden breastplate, with oval bosses representing the nipples and with prettily interlaced spirals all over the remainder of the gold (Fig. 9). Another corpse had a plain gold breastplate with the nipples indicated. {Footnote: Schuchardt, Schliemann's Excavations, pp. 254-257, fig. 256.} These decorative corslets of gold were probably funereal symbols of practicable breastplates of bronze, but no such pieces of armour are worn by the fighting-men on the gems and other works of art of Mycenae, and none are found in Mycenaean graves. But does this prove anything? Leg-guards, broad metal bands clasping the leg below the knee, are found in the Mycenaean shaft graves, but are never represented in Mycenaean art. {Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, vol. i. p. 575.} Meanwhile, bronze corslets are very frequently mentioned in the "rarely alluded to," says Mr. Leaf, {Footnote: Iliad, vol. i. p. 576.} but this must be a slip of the pen. Connected with the breastplate or thorex ({Greek: thoraex}) is the verb {Greek: thoraesso, thoraessethai}, which means "to arm," or "equip" in general.
The Achaeans are constantly styled in the ILIAD and in the ODYSSEY "chalkochitones," "with bronze chitons." epics have therefore boldly argued that by "bronze chitons" the poet pleasantly alludes to shields. But as the Mycenaeans seem scarcely to have worn any CHITONS in battle, as far as we are aware from their art, and are not known to have had any bronze shields, the argument evaporates, as Mr. Ridgeway has pointed out. Nothing can be less like a chiton or smock, loose or tight, than either the double-bellied huge shield, the tower-shaped cylindrical shield, or the flat, doorlike shield, covering body and legs in Mycenaean art. "The bronze chiton," says Helbig, "is only a poetic phrase for the corslet."
Reichel and Mr. Leaf, however, think that "bronze chitoned" is probably "a picturesque expression... and refers to the bronze-covered shield." {Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, i. 578.} The breastplate covered the upper part of the chiton, and so might be called a "bronze chiton," above all, if it had been evolved, as corselets usually have been, out of a real chiton, interwoven with small plates or rings of bronze. The process of evolution might be from a padded linen chiton ({Greek: linothooraes}) worn by Teucer, and on the Trojan side by Amphius (as by nervous Protestants during Oates's "Popish Plot"), to a leathern chiton, strengthened by rings, or studs, or scales of bronze, and thence to plates. {Footnote: Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, vol. i. pp. 309, 310.} Here, in this armoured chiton, would be an object that a poet might readily call "a chiton of bronze." But that, if he lived in the Mycenaean age, when, so far as art shows, CHITONS were not worn at all, or very little, and scarcely ever in battle, and when we know nothing of bronze-plating on shields, the poet should constantly call a monstrous double-bellied leather shield, or any other Mycemean type of shield, "a bronze chiton," seems almost unthinkable. "A leather cloak" would be a better term for such shields, if cloaks were in fashion.
According to Mr. Myres (1899) the "stock line" in the Iliad, about piercing a {Greek: poludaidalos thoraex} or corslet, was inserted "to satisfy the practical criticisms of a corslet-wearing age," the age of the later poets, the Age of Iron. But why did not such practical critics object to the constant presence in the poems of bronze weapons, in their age out of date, if they objected to the absence from the poems of the corslets with which they were familiar? Mr. Myres supposes that the line about the {Greek: poludaidalos} corslet was already old, but had merely meant "many-glittering body clothing"—garments set with the golden discs and other ornaments found in Mycemean graves. The bronze corslet, he says, would not be "many glittering," but would reflect "a single star of light." {Footnote: Journal of Hellenic Studies. 1899} Now, first, even if the star were a single star, it would be as "many glittering" when the warrior was in rapid and changeful motion as the star that danced when Beatrix was born. Secondly, if the contemporary corslets of the Iron Age were NOT "many glittering," practical corslet-wearing critics would ask the poet, "why do you call corslets 'many glittering'?" Thirdly, {Greek: poludaidalos} may surely be translated "a thing of much art," and Greek corslets were incised with ornamental designs. Thus Messrs. Hogarth and Bosanquet report "a very remarkable 'Mycemean' bronze breastplate" from Crete, which "shows four female draped figures, the two central ones holding a wreath over a bird, below which is a sacred tree. The two outer figures are apparently dancing. It is probably a ritual scene, and may help to elucidate the nature of early AEgean cults." {Footnote: Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xx. p. 322. 1899.} Here, {Greek: poludaidalos}—if that word means "artistically wrought." Helbig thinks the Epics silent about the gold spangles on dresses. {Footnote: Helbig, p. 71.}
Mr. Myres applauds Reichel's theory that {blank space} first meant a man's chest. If thorex means a man's breast, then THOREX in 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 THOREX is 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 chitons and 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 thorex to 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 chiton meant chiton; that thorex meant, 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 mitrê, 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 (guige in 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.}