The Arms, Armor, and Iconography of Early Greek Hoplite Warfare (2024)

Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece

Donald Kagan (ed.), Gregory F. Viggiano (ed.)

Published:

2013

Online ISBN:

9781400846306

Print ISBN:

9780691143019

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Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece

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Gregory F. Viggiano,

Gregory F. Viggiano

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Hans Van Wees

Hans Van Wees

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Pages

57–73

  • Published:

    June 2013

Cite

Viggiano, Gregory F., and Hans Van Wees, 'The Arms, Armor, and Iconography of Early Greek Hoplite Warfare', in Donald Kagan, and Gregory F. Viggiano (eds), Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (Princeton, NJ, 2013; online edn, Princeton Scholarship Online, 19 Oct. 2017), https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691143019.003.0002, accessed 6 June 2024.

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Abstract

This chapter examines hoplite equipment. Although elements of the bronze panoply associated with the classical hoplite began to appear in the late eighth century, what set the hoplite apart from his predecessors was above all his distinctive heavy wooden shield with a double handle, which is first attested circa 700 BC. This date may therefore be regarded as the beginning of the hoplite era. The shield has a central metal armband (the porpax), through which the bearer thrust his left forearm up to the elbow, and a hand grip (antilabe), at the rim of the shield, that he grasped with his left hand. A great deal of the debate about the origins of the classical phalanx centers on what the adoption of this type of shield might imply about the nature of hoplite fighting and battle formations.

Keywords: hoplite equipment, early Greek hoplite warfare, hoplite warfare, hoplite arms, hoplite armor, hoplite iconography, hoplite shield

Subject

Ancient History (Non-Classical, to 500 CE)

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