Have you ever imagined what the Illiad would sound like if it were re-imagined by a young adult novelist? Maura Barry-Garland of the Columbia Spectator takes a look at this in a recent article titled “YA Lit Hum: Brotherhood of the Traveling Armor.”

In this installment, she looks at the Illiad re-imagined by Ann Brashares. Brashares takes the time to look at one of the notable pieces of Greek armor, the cuirass. She writes, “‘If the armor hugs your butt, it’s just going to look baggy on mine,’ Patroclus complained as he slipped the cuirass on. It slid over his head softly and came to rest at his sides, fitting like a glove. ‘It’s like it was made for you!’ Achilles exclaimed. The breastplate hugged his friend’s slim, toned torso and brought out the metallic glint in his dark eyes. Patroclus admired himself in the mirror and smiled even wider. At first, the shield had looked too busy for his taste and the breastplate too old, but on him they both came alive. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he grinned as he removed the armor, ‘It was made for you, Achy. You should try it on, too!’ ‘Sure,’ Achilles said, and he pulled the cuirass on. Miraculously, the armor fit him just as perfectly as it had fit his taller, thinner friend. The gleaming bronze offset his glowing tan and cast highlights on the contours of his muscles.”

Reading work like this might interest readers in getting their hands on their own armor. There are a couple of ways to go about that. One of them is to make your own, as detailed in a recent New Yorker article titled “How to Make Your Own Greek Armor.” Joshua Rothman of the New Yorker writes, “In Aldrete’s basement, the team built a giant slab of laminated linen and tried to cut the fabric according to a pattern, the way a tailor would. It was too tough. ‘We tried scissors, we tried a bolt cutter,’ Aldrete said. ‘Finally, we had to use an electric jigsaw that’s used to cut through metal—obviously, that’s not what the Greeks did.’ Chastened, they took a different approach, assembling each piece from individual layers of linen. Agrippa, the Aldretes’ black lab, salivated over the rabbit glue—’from his perspective, we were making tasty chew treats,’ Aldrete said—but, once he was shooed away, they were able to make a number of full-size linothoraxes, complete with decorations, including a Gorgon.”

Of course, if you don’t want to go through all this work, you can save yourself some time and ensure you get a high quality product with Brass Finish Roman Greek Medieval Cuirass Body Armor from Armory Replicas. This cuirass is hand-shaped from a single, large piece of 20 gauge mild steel, carefully pounded into the shape of a nicely muscled male torso. The design offers our customers a unique blackened brass finish design. As you will see, our craftsmen go into great details while sculpturing the chest, peck and belly button. Furthermore, the cuirass comes with a front plate and a back plate and two genuine leather straps on each side to accommodate different sizes. Its shoulder piece features an adjustable leather straps as well. This is a true collector's piece.

Whatever replica armory needs you might have, your best bet is Armory Replicas!