Carian Armourers—the Growth of a Tradition

Abstract

One of the more persistent and widespread minor traditions in ancient literature represents the Carians as the great military innovators and practitioners of early times. It is one of several ‘Carian’ traditions, in which this people is given a greater importance than it seems historically possible to allow, and which at one time led certain scholars to believe that the Aegean Bronze Age civilisation as a whole was Carian in origin. This particular example can be checked, up to a point, from the evidence of archaeological discoveries; and the experiment may prove worth making, both as a supplement to the archaeological record, and as a test case for the value and quality of such traditions. In its more extreme version, the Carians are credited with the actual invention of various military devices: this, as I hope to show, is unlikely to be true. But there is a milder form of the tradition, which states that the Carians habitually used these devices. This version may in part arise from the vaguer wording of certain ancient authorities, but as it stands it is quite acceptable.

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