Slitherine

efthimios wrote:Aspis is the shield, not oplon.

The name peltast comes from the shield that the Thracian tribes used: the traditional pelte

The equipment of a hoplite.

The suit of armour of the Athenian hoplite was hardly any different from the hoplites of other Greek cities. This hoplite is wearing a good suit of armour, which we will call panoplia from now on. The costs of such is a panoplia were very high, it could be compared with buying a good new car in modern times. That is why the hoplites only consisted of nobility at first. Later on the costs were reduced because new construction techniques were used. This enabled the normal man to buy a decent panoplia. More and more people bought one as it not only improved their chance of survival on the battlefield, but it also raised their social status. At a certain time there were enough hoplites to form a phalanx, and since then was the Greek army superior to any other army for a very long time. The creation of the phalanx not only resulted in military superiority, it also had social results as we already know from the history chapter.

On the head of this hoplite we find a slightly obsolete bronze Corinthian helmet. The Corinthian helmet remained the most used helmet through the history of Hellas, but there were many types available. Examples of this are the Chalkidic and Illyrian helmets which were better than the Corinthian type as they gave better protection to the cheeks and neck, and they had openings for the ears so that the orders were heard better. The helmets were made by hitting a plate of bronze on a wooden pole. This was done until it fitted the head of the buyer exactly. Of course this took a lot of work, and that is why these very expensive helmets often passed from father to son. The helmets were often decorated with a crest of horsehair, and sometimes even with engraved drawings. The horsehair for the helmetcrest was placed in a block of wood, very much like a brush, and placed on the helmet. Horsehair is very difficult to paint, so the colours were normally the natural colours: black, white, and brown. Sculptures always show hoplites with a helmetcrest, but know from archaeological studies that it was often not present.

The body was protected by a cuirass. The most expensive type was the bronze jointed cuirass, but the most common one was a tunic with multiple layers of linen or canvas glued together to form a strong protection. This tunic was often reinforced with small metal plates or bronze rings as we see in the picture. The cuirass itself consisted of a part for the chest, and one for the shoulders. The part for the chest had openings for the arms, and at the bottom there were two rows of plates which were placed like roofing tiles, the so-called wings or pteruges. The cuirass was wrapped around the body and closed at the left side were it was protected by the shield. The part for the shoulders completed the cuirass. Different types were used: the wings which protected the shoulders were shaped differently, or they were removable. This type of cuirass replaced the older type armour which was shaped like a bell.

In his left hand he is holding the famous hoplon, or shield. The word hoplite is based on this hoplon, and certainly not without any reason: the hoplon was one of the cornerstones of the phalanx.
Basically it was a wooden bowl which was protected on the outside with bronze plates, while the inside was covered in leather. It was held with a handle for the lower arm and a grip. The part of the shield that rested against the arm was often protected with an additional plate of bronze. The size of the shield resulted in quite a heavy shield: about 8 kilograms. Sometimes a piece of leather was hung at the lower side of the shield to protect the legs of the hoplite for arrows. The hoplites picked the decoration on their shields by themselves, and often drawings of animals or mythological characters were chosen. Here you see the head of a Gorgon, and popular decoration for the shield.

The hoplon was not big enough to cover the legs, that is why they are protected by a pair of bronze greaves, which were shaped in such a way that they followed the muscles in the legs. This had a decorative purpose, but it also reinforced them and now they could be clamped around the legs instead of using straps. In earlier times the warriors also used plates for the thighs, arms and feet but at the time of the Persian wars they were not used anymore as they were to heavy and they decreased the manoeuvrability of the hoplite drastically. The hoplite was very well armoured nevertheless.

The main weapon was the long spear, which could vary in length from 2 to 3 metres. The iron point has a bronze counterbalance, for a better balance, but it also could be used during an attack. The spear was normally drilled overarm, and the grasp was entwined with a leather strap for better grip. The spear was not thrown as was the case with the spears in the time of Homer: they were only used for thrusting. The second weapon was a short sword, which was carried around in a wooden scabbard which was wrapped in leather. The blade of such a sword was made from iron and around the 60 centimetres long, while the remaining parts were normally constructed in bronze. It was used for cutting as well for thrusting.

efthimios wrote:.......

First of all I am not from Athens! Imagine that!

Oplitis is not the one that carries the shield, if that was the case then all the infantry using shield in the greek world would be oplites. The name was given/taken not from the shield which was called aspis.

I don't know where you are quoting from but it is wrong.

bodidley wrote:
By the way Pyros, other people can make links to sites that support their arguements too : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspis

The spirit characterizing the new reality of the Archaic period -as it is expressed through the institution of the polis- requires from the individual to function as an integral part of the city, in order to have a place in its political world. That is to say, the individual must cooperate and suffer along with the rest of the citizens. This attitude is also revealed through the new war method that is introduced in the 7th century BC, the hoplite phalanx. Earlier, battles had the form of clashes between nobles of opposing sides. Now, fighting ability of all warriors is indispensable, so that battle order remains unbreakable.

Since the beginning of the 7th century BC, armies of most cities, of Athens for example, were composed of hoplites who procured for themselves weapons and food, with the exception of Sparta, where the equipment was provided by the state. The military picture of the Archaic city was made up by the citizen-soldier who fought as a member of a team.

The hoplite was the standard infantryman of the Greek cities, as established from the 7th century until the 4th century BC.
He took his name from the most visible part of his defensive equipment, the concave -usually round shield- called hoplon. Its diameter was 1 metre approximately and it was made of copper, wood and leather.
The other parts of his equipment were the cuirass, the greaves and the helmet, all made of copper. For the attack he was equipped with two spears, while the sword was not a basic part of the hoplite armour; it was used only in emergency cases and it was clearly smaller and less important than in the Geometric period (Alcaeus, no 357 in Loeb I, Greek Lyric). The poet Tyrtaeus mentions that the participation of gymnetai -who fought with bows, arrows and slings- was occasionally acceptable in the hoplite tactics during the Archaic period. The bow and sling were used since the 7th century BC and did not constitute parts of the pre-hoplite period in Greece.
The characteristic feature of the hoplite phalanx was the soldiers' overall battle array, which definitely dates before the hoplite equipment appeared in the Greek communities. The different parts of the latter appeared gradually, between 720 BC and 650 BC approximately. Generally speaking, we can not refer to a systematic and full hoplite equipment before the second half of the 7th century BC.

Ασπίδα
Έφεραν ασπίδες μικρότερες απ??™τους νότιους Έλληνες οπλίτες (το όπλον), περίπου 60 εκ., κυρτότερες, χωρίς στεφάνη, την οποία αναρτούσαν στον ώμο αφήνοντας έτσι ελεύθερα τα δύο χέρια για να χειριστούν τη σάρισα.

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So, PLEASE.... open your mind and learn that the ASPIS (Shield) that the Hoplite carried in battle had the name of OPLON (Hoplon).

bodidley wrote: I also have to question the importance of the fact that it is located in Greece and is award winning.

This article is from Wikipedia and is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

Hoplon
A circular shield of wood lined with leather and faced with bull??™s hide or bronze.

What does the Greek panoply say about Greek culture? ???Come home carrying your shield (hoplon) or carried ON it.??? Therefore, a smaller chunk of this unit is the panoply. [See the powerpoint presentation here.]

The panoply consists of spears, short sword, helmet, greaves (shin guards), cuirass or chest armor, and hoplon (shield??“interesting that the soldier??“hoplite??“is named after his shield).

HOPLITE PANOPLY: Shield
A hoplite was defined by his shield, the hoplon. Soldiers with this sort of shield were hoplites. Those without were not.

Greek hoplites were protected by a helmet, breastplate, and greaves, which covered the fighter??™s shins and calves. But the most likely piece of equipment to be abandoned by a soldier who found himself in trouble was his great shield, or hoplon, from which the hoplite soldier got his name. The shield was a rounded, concave piece of wood some three feet in diameter and covered on its face with a thin sheet of bronze. A warrior held the hoplon with his left arm, his hand clutching a grip near its rim, while his forearm passed through an armband attached to the shield??™s interior. The great weight of the hoplon was thus not borne by a soldier??™s hand and wrist alone, but was distributed along the length of his entire arm. The shield protected his left side, but did not extend to cover the hoplite on his right. This gave the bearer room to wield his offensive weapons??”a six- to eight-foot-long thrusting spear and a short sword??”with his right hand.

In the thick of fighting, the hoplon was essential. Hoplites were arrayed in a phalanx of variable width, usually eight or more rows deep, and advanced and fought as a unit, each man receiving some protection on his vulnerable right side from the left-most part of the shield of the hoplite to his right. Opposing phalanxes crashed into one another, the soldiers in the front ranks shoving and slashing at the enemy, trying to create a gap in their line. As long as a phalanx held, presenting an unbroken barrier of shields to the opposition, its hoplites were well protected by their equipment. It would have been unthinkable at this stage to drop the hoplon, despite its weight. But when a phalanx broke and its hoplites ran and were no longer a cohesive fighting force, the hoplon became a burden. The cumbersome shield now weighed down its bearer and made it far more likely that he would be overcome by the enemy and killed by a sword or spear thrust to the back.

It was best, in such circumstances, to discard the hoplon, and many soldiers did just that. In his description of the Athenians??™ defeat on the heights of Epipolae near Syracuse in 413, for example, Thucydides tells us that the panicked Athenians dropped their arms in great numbers, and surely what is meant in particular is the unwieldy hoplon: ???A large number of the Athenians and their allies died, but more arms were left behind than corresponded to the corpses, for the men were forced to jump down from the cliffs unarmed. Some died, and some were saved.??? The poet Archilochus, too, writing in the seventh century b.c., adopts the persona of someone who has thrown away his shield in order to save himself. The speaker of the poem does not appear to have regretted the decision:

Some Thracian delights in my shield now, which I left
behind, not wanting to, near a bush. A blameless piece
of equipment,
but I saved myself. Why should that shield matter to me?
Let it go. I will buy another one just as good.

But throwing away one??™s shield, an act the Greeks actually had a name for??”rhipsaspia??”was problematic. A hoplite who came home without his hoplon had lost a valuable piece of equipment that would need to be replaced. More important, he laid himself open to the charge that he had played the coward in battle, broke, and ran, impairing the fighting capacity of the phalanx and throwing away his shield in the process to best save his skin. For a Spartan, in particular, a citizen of the most military of Greek states, returning home without his shield would have meant disgrace. ???With it or on it,??? a Spartan mother is said to have admonished her son as she handed him his shield and sent him off to battle. Return with the shield, that is, or lying atop it as a corpse. For a Spartan, there was no honorable third course. In Athens, rhipsaspia was, in fact, a prosecutable offense. A man could lose his civic rights if he was convicted on the charge. And to say of someone that he had thrown away his shield was a serious insult. Indeed, to call a man a rhipsaspist was, itself, an actionable offense, an accusation one had better be ready to substantiate in court if one made the charge at all.

SHIELDS


The hoplite's distinctive gently convex round shield, or 'hoplon', was constructed of wood and reinforced with a bronze covering. Usually the shield diameter measured approximately one meter. A curtain of leather could be attached from the lower rim of the shield to protect the hoplite from arrows aimed at the legs. On the inside of the shield, a sturdy leather arm-strap, or 'porpax' was affixed to enable the hoplite to pass his left arm securely. In addition, a leather thong 'antilabe' that allowed the left hand to secure the shield, provided extra leverage. The eye-catching shield devices on each hoplite shield....

The reputation of the Spartan hoplite was well established. Their equipment was excellent, especially compared to that of non-Greeks. They had willpower and no fear of dying on the battlefield; to die in this way was the greatest honour a Spartan could hope for. At the back of every Spartan's mind, as he prepared for battle, lay the words of Spartan women ...that a Spartan hoplite should return home carrying his hoplon or being carried on it! When retreating, a hoplite discarded his hoplon (shield) as it was very cumbersome when attempting to run. To retreat was, for a Spartan, unthinkable. Hence the loss of a shield was considered cowardice. If a Spartan was killed in battle, his comrades carried his body on his hoplon back from battle for burial.

In his left hand he is holding the famous hoplon, or shield. The word hoplite is based on this hoplon, and certainly not without any reason: the hoplon was one of the cornerstones of the phalanx

The first class could afford what seems to have amounted to a Greek panoply. These units fought in the traditional phalanx formation used since the end of Dark Age Greece. These units were armed with a Greek hoplon or round shield, helmet, Greek sword, greaves or leg protection, a cuirass and a long pike that was used in the defensive manner of the phalanx.

Hoplon shield ??“ a circle of heavy wood, roughly 75-90cm in diameter, covered by leather and or bronze sheeting. This, in turn, was painted with a device representing the symbol of their city state (Sparta had the Lambda symbol) or individual choice such as a monster (to frighten the enemy) or gods??™ images (for protection and strength).


The shield was very heavy to resist the energy of an opponent??™s thrust or slash. So heavy that the shield was carried by a rope over the shoulder on the back when not in direct combat.

The defensive armour consisted of four pieces: helmet (kranos), cuirass (thorax), shield (aspis) and greaves (knimis). A weapon is called hoplon from which panoply and hoplite (a man with weapons) is derived (initially the shield was called hoplon (όπλον) but today hoplon is a general name for weapon).