Greek hoplite shield design meanings10/31/2022 ![]() ![]() There is no overlap or touching of shields and so in this loose formation you need a less restrictive shield.Ģ. The shield becomes unsuitable because you're doing a lot more one versus one fighting. If you loosen up the phalanx, a few things happen:ġ. The heavy armour keeps the front nigh on impenetrable to most infantry and the spears keep anyone at bay and allows the phalanx to advance. The point is to get as many spear points into a small amount of space in front of the phalanx. Secondly, a phalanx is designed for heavy infantry. That's assuming the hoplite even has a sword at all, since not every hoplite would carry one if they couldn't afford it. Man to man, a legionary will completely outclass a hoplite in terms of sword on sword combat and the legionary's more mobile shield is more than enough to give him that extra advantage to overcome the hoplite, with his clunky shield and little training. In an evolving world where combined arms was key, the Greek states stagnated and paid the price for it.įirst off, a hoplite isn't exactly trained with a short sword. The biggest failure of the Greek states in their wars against the Romans wasn't the formations and tactics themselves, but their short-sightedness and inability to incorporate good cavalry and other elements like flexible light and heavy infantry, as well as skirmishers. Hoplites after the 3rd century would start to use other, more flexible shields like the Scutum and Celtic shields, stressing the need for a more balanced and less specialised way of fighting. ![]() The design of the legionary shield allowed for some fairly good individual maneuvers on the battlefield, while the hoplite shield was restrictive anywhere outside of formation. The hoplite phalanx is fairly inflexible and so while it would have held out for a while from the front and maybe even come out on top, from the sides it was unable to put up an effective defence.įurthermore, Roman spacing was far more loose while hoplite spacing was fairly tight. Moreover, the flexibility of the Roman system allowed it to engage the hoplites from the flanks as well as the rear. The Romans were able to get past the spears, absorbing most hits from them, something light infantry like at Thermopylae weren't able to accomplish, and then get to work with the gladius, which would have had relatively trouble penetrating even the armoured linothorax of a hoplite. ![]() Heavy armour and close range weapons allowed Roman legionaries to get in exceptionally close, to the point where the massive one-handed spears the hoplites used became fairly ineffective (the dory is usually held from the rear, due to the balance of the spear being located there due to the weight of the sauroter and is less effective at close range compared to other spears). 2K A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia.846 A Total War Saga: Fall of the Samurai.Through a set of controlled practical experiments, the effectiveness of the hoplite shield is tested to establish its defensive qualities vis‐a‐vis the long thrusting spear, the hoplite's primary offensive weapon. In this paper, I explore the structural and functional aspects of the hoplite shield, the single most important item in the Greek hoplite's panoply, to determine its efficacy in a combat environment. As a consequence, many of our understandings of the nature of hoplite combat, the how, remain deficient. This has resulted in an incomplete picture, with much of the focus on the strategic and tactical aspects of battle, to the neglect of practical and functional considerations of combat. Summary Greek hoplite warfare has traditionally been explored through the extant textual and pictorial evidence. ‘ Twas When my Shield Turned traitor’! Establishing the Combat Effectiveness of the Greek Hoplite Shield ‘ Twas When my Shield Turned traitor’! Establishing the Combat Effectiveness of the Greek Hoplite. ![]()
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