6 |
The Burden of Hoplite |
We shall never know quite how Marathon was won, but we can be fairly certain that valour alone would not have won it, nor even perhaps the combination of courage with the somewhat rudimentary tactical skills which the style of Greek warfare at that time gave scope. The superiority of Greek equipment must have been an important factor here and elsewhere, and at times perhaps a decisive one.
—Anthony Snodgrass
Classical scholars who have cataloged the archaeological finds of Greek arms and armor, collated the references in Greek literature, and surveyed the painted ceramic evidence are struck by the magnificence of the Greek achievement: their unrivaled skill in metalworking, the attention to beauty in form and finish, the matchless protection offered by the bronze panoply, which gave its wearer a confidence in his superiority over all other contemporary soldiers. To the ancients, the excellence and outward beauty of their own military equipment were matters of natural pride. “The great hall is aglare with bronze armament and the whole inside made fit for war,” wrote the Lyric poet Alkaios in obvious admiration, “with helms glittering and hung high, crested over with white horsemanes that nod and wave and make splendid the heads of men who wear them.” After paying homage to the various articles of the panoply—the greaves, breastplate, shield, and sword—Alkaios simply finishes, “These shall not lie neglected, now we stand to our task and have this work to do.” (54) Aeschylus, a veteran of the battle of Marathon, saw the infantry success at Plataia as a victory of the “Dorian spear” (Pers. 817)—a battle in which Herodotus likewise felt that the weapons and the armor of the Greeks had been the key to success: “in warlike spirit and strength the Persians were not inferior, but they were unprotected by armor.” (9.62.4) Apparently, in his view anything less than Greek plate was hardly worthy of consideration as real protection. (Cf. 9.63.2, 3.94.4) In a speech to the assembled Athenians he makes his Aristagoras (an Ionian Greek who should have been familiar with the enemy equipment in nearby Persian territory) remind the audience that the Asians used “neither spear nor shield and so could be easily conquered.” (5.97.1; cf. 7.211.2; Diod. 11.7.3) Like the German soldier of 1940–41, the Greek hoplite of the classical period drew an almost smug assurance from the natural superiority of his own weapons over any other in the Mediterranean world.
In their appreciating this unusual Greek contribution and in being dazzled by its unique durability and beauty, both ancient and modern authors have been reluctant to discuss the disadvantages of hoplite arms and armor, but they were many. Heavy, uncomfortable, unbearably hot, the panoply was especially poorly suited for the Mediterranean summer; it restricted even simple movement, and in general must have made life miserable for the men who were expected to wear it. Most modern estimates of the weight of hoplite equipment range from fifty to seventy pounds for the panoply of greaves, shield, breastplate, helmet, spear, and sword—an incredible burden to endure for the ancient infantryman, who himself probably weighed no more than some 150 pounds. (Cf. Donlan and Thompson 1976: 341) Whatever the advantages this equipment offered in face-to-face battle, the Greek hoplite knew well that he was not really envied by his lighter-clad adversary. My own students at California State University, Fresno, who have created metal and wood replicas of ancient Greek and Roman armor and weapons, find it difficult to keep the weight of their shield, greaves, sword, spear, breastplate, helmet, and tunic under seventy pounds. After about thirty minutes of dueling in mock battles under the sun of the San Joaquin Valley they are utterly exhausted.
Before we examine the problems of the panoply in detail, four general trends must be kept in mind that illustrate quite clearly the discomfort which armed hoplites faced:
1. a gradual but steady tendency over some 250 years to alter, modify, and then discard entirely some elements of body armor;
2. the understandable habit of delaying arming until literally the very last seconds before the collision of spears;
3. the regular use of personal servants to transport hoplite equipment;
4. the natural urge to cast aside at a moment’s notice expensive hoplite armor which usually was purchased by the individual and not supplied by the state.
There was a definite trend over some 250 years not to augment defensive armor in an effort to enclose the entire body like some medieval knight, but, rather, to lighten or omit some pieces altogether. Ankle guards and protective cover for the thighs and upper arms, which seem better adapted anyway for dueling than for battle in a phalanx, were the first to go; they seem to have faded already by the sixth century B.C. The introduction of a so-called race in armor at the Olympic Games (520) and the final Greek charge at Marathon (490) may reflect a newfound mobility arising from a reduced panopoly. Such activity would have been quite impossible for the original hoplites of the seventh century, whose limbs were virtually encased in bronze. In any case, it is clear that the hoplites of the fifth century never had such auxiliary protection for the arms, thighs, and ankles. Their helmets, body armor, and greaves all became sleeker, lighter, and at times disappeared altogether, again suggesting continual displeasure with the weight of the old equipment of their forefathers. To judge from vase paintings of the mid-fifth century B.C. and the descriptions in Thucydides’ history, some infantrymen of the phalanx must have gone into battle without greaves, the Corinthian helmet, or the bell corselet. Instead, they often wore the Athenian pilos—a mere conical cap, possibly of bronze but more likely of felt—and either lighter bronze body armor which fitted more closely to a man’s torso, or linen corselets which contained little, if any, metal protection. By the early fourth century B.C. we even hear on occasion of something called the “half-corselet” which apparently protected the chest alone. (Plut. Mor. 596 D) Perhaps, by the end of the Peloponnesian War, soldiers might have seemed as ill-equipped to their hoplite ancestors of 250 years earlier as their lighter-clad adversaries from outside Greece; no doubt the staggering number of battle casualties in the Hellenistic period reflects this trend toward abandonment of body armor by the men of the phalanx.
Nor did all hoplites necessarily wear identical equipment—which is not surprising, considering that men brought along their own equipment and were never really provided with “general issue.” Most would have their own individual preferences for certain designs that provided greater comfort (and at less cost) and therefore might also modify (that is, lighten) their arms to their own individual tastes. Outside the parade ground, it is unlikely that the soldiers who fought in the phalanx were as uniform-looking as modern representations might suggest. While the degree of variety may not have been as rich as one saw among American ground troops in Vietnam, it is clear, from vase paintings, that hoplites on both the same and opposing sides often wore different helmets, body armor, and weapons; this suggests again that the difficulty of the panoply may have encouraged modification by individual soldiers who learned of the advantages of certain changes, or who thought that both money and weight could be saved by reducing the amount of bronze protection. (E.g., Anderson pl. 7; Ducrey pl. 48; Snodgrass 1964: pl. 15b) The breastplate was often discarded entirely by poorer hoplite infantry who probably had neither the money nor the desire to wear it; later, during the fourth century in the Syracusan army under the tyrant Dionysius, only officers and cavalry were likely to have worn body protection. (Diod. 14.43.2–3) Thrasyboulos’ “people’s army,” which overthrew the Thirty Tyrants at Athens right after the Peloponnesian War, carried both wood and wicker shields. (Xen. Hell. 2.4.25 and cf. too Thuc. 4.9.1) Xenophon, as a young man in Asia, was supposed to have been especially distinguished because of his unique arms (An. 3.2.7), though perhaps not to the same degree as the millionaire Nicias, who was said to have carried a purple and golden shield. (Plut. Nic. 28; cf., e.g., Ael. VH 3.24; Xen. Mem. 3.10.9–14; Plut. Dion 28.3) In contrast, it was to Agesilaos’ credit that on his return from Asia during the early fourth century he still wore his regular Spartan issue, which suggests that a few of his men on duty there had incorporated some Persian tastes. (Plut. Ages. 19.5) A few years later, on Epameinondas’ entry into the Peloponnese, it was rumored that the Athenians’ allies who followed him were wearing some “new” type of armament—the nature of which we are never told (Plut. Mor. 193 F 20); this may be further evidence of considerable variation in the panoply. Indeed, the story that after the fall of Pellene in 241 soldiers marked their allotted captive women by putting their own helmets on them makes no sense unless we understand that each hoplite’s headgear was easily distinguishable to wearer and onlooker alike. (Plut. Arat. 31.3) While most evidence of individual modification in armament comes from the fourth century and later, we remember that even earlier, in Thucydides’ famous description of the great preparations for Athens’ ill-fated expedition to Sicily (415), he makes an incidental remark that there was rivalry of sorts among hoplites as they readied their individual equipment, again implying that, in addition to regular mending and polishing, these men were perhaps making small changes in their offensive and defensive arms. The rise of the hoplite and his phalanx, where men of like background massed in formation, did not mean that they were always armed identically or even that men looked alike in the column. The actual conditions of battle made demands on men quite different from those of drill and parade, as they have ever since. We should imagine, then, that the hoplites, despite their interlocking formation, were not all that different from their Homeric predecessors in adapting their arms to their own particular tastes or the conditions of battle:
The kings in person marshalled these men, although they were wounded
Tydaeus’ son and Odysseus, and Atreus’ son Agamemnon.
They went among all, and made them exchange their armour of battle,
and the good fighter put on the good armour, and each gave the worse gear
to the worse.
(Hom. Il. 14.380)
There also seems to have been a special reluctance on the part of the Greek infantryman to put on his body armor, strap on the shield, and don his helmet until the last possible moment before battle. This expresses his sensible aversion toward wearing arms and armor until their life-saving potential was more significant than the inherent discomfort. Hoplites in sculpture and on vase painting, for example, usually have the Corinthian helmet pushed far back on the head, visorlike, suggesting that it was brought down over the face only when the hoplite began his charge. At times, we hear of men who are caught surprised without their armor and weapons, although there is no doubt that battle is only a few moments away. Like modern infantrymen, who have a natural tendency to go bareheaded whenever possible, the ancient hoplite gladly risked the chance of being surprised unprotected in order to be free as long as possible from the great weight and discomfort of his arms, and to enjoy unobstructed vision and hearing. Right before his attack on the Athenian oligarchs (403), Thrasyboulos, Xenophon relates, ordered his men to ground their shields while he made a last-minute address. (Hell. 2.4.12) Earlier, during the battle of Plataia, in the last moments before the charge the Spartan general Pausanias had his men relax their arms before they lumbered out. (Plut. Arist. 17.6) It seems quite natural to put down the spear and shield whenever possible, since both could be picked up in a matter of seconds. Yet, at other times we even hear that soldiers removed not only shield and spear but also their entire body armor. Perhaps they never put it on in the first place until they were absolutely sure they were about to charge. How else can we explain the strange behavior of the Mantineian horsemen who unbuckled their breastplates during a brief lull in the battle there? (Xen. Hell. 7.5.22) Plutarch expresses surprise that, after their victory at Kynoskephelai in 364, the Thebans did not unfasten their corselets but rather, in their eagerness to reach their fallen general Pelopidas, “ran up still wearing their full armor.” (Pel. 32.2–3) Although the Athenian army was drawn up for their first hoplite engagement since landing in Sicily, waiting in formation on the Syracusan plain, the Sicilians were somehow caught off guard and suddenly realized battle was imminent. Thucydides remarks that “they hastily picked up their arms and marched out,” again implying perhaps that they lacked body armor as well as shields in these last moments before combat. (Thuc. 6.69.2) When the fourth-century adventurer Polydamas bragged that he always led his mercenaries in full armor, he apparently was convinced that for most other soldiers that was certainly not the case. (Xen. Hell. 6.1.6)
Even when men were finally drawn up for battle, awaiting the moment to begin their charge, and their personal weapons-carriers had exited the ranks, any slight delay in the action caused them instinctively to drop their shields. Chabrias’ men, for example, in 378 were ordered to stand fast and receive the Peloponnesian invaders of Boiotia rather than charge forth; they took their shields off, rested them against their knees, and at the same time lodged their spears upright on the ground—something most hoplites must have done whenever they had the chance. (Diod. 15.32.5; cf. Plut. Eum. 14.4–5; Xen. An. 1.5.13) We often see that very scene on vase painting, where hoplites stand or even crouch down with their shields resting against their legs. (Anderson 1970: pls. 6–7; Ducrey pl. 84) The Thebans before the battle of Leuktra in 371 were heartened that the statue of Athena had “picked” up her shield—a shield which Xenophon tells us was usually resting at her knees. (Hell. 6.4.7)
Yet another indication that hoplite arms and armor were intended to be worn only during combat is the undeniable presence in nearly every Greek battle of personal servants for both regular soldiers and officers alike, their chief function being to carry the masters’ weapons and hand them over only in the very last seconds before the charge. Besides the standard battle equipment (breastplate, greaves, spear, sword, helmet, and shield), there were also provisions and utensils to carry; it is likely, then, that more than one “batman” accompanied each soldier to battle. The evidence for this constant presence of orderlies and personal attendants—either slaves, indentured servants, or the extremely poor—is found in nearly every Greek author. (Pritchett I.49–51) But these servants were more than generic helpers of sorts during the campaign, since there are good indications that they not only carried the hoplite’s arms and armor but passed them over only in the very last seconds before battle. Anaxibos, in a desperate situation near Antandros in 389, for example, after his last address to his men was finally handed his shield by his servants and immediately perished along with those hoplites remaining with him. (Xen. Hell. 4.8.39) When the Theban general Pelopidas commanded his infantry to charge against the Thessalians at Kynoskephelai in 364, we are told by Plutarch that he too joined in “after picking up his shield”; this suggests again that most would entrust their weapons to the help until the actual combat commenced. (Pel. 32.4) That is exactly the picture we receive in Aristophanes’ Acharnians, when Lamachos repeatedly bids his servant to pick up his shield. (1121–25; 1135–39) Xenophon himself in the heat of battle during the march of his Ten Thousand in 401 became separated from his weapons-carrier and so separated from his shield; he was nearly caught helpless until aid arrived. (An. 4.2.21–23; cf. Plut. Tim. 27.2) From a later drill manual we learn that the shield bearer held his master’s weapons until literally the last moment before the charge, when he was finally ordered to exit the ranks of the phalanx as the infantrymen picked up their spears: “Prepare arms! Let the orderlies depart from the ranks! Silence and pay attention to command! Take up arms!” (Asklepiodotos 12.11)
That hoplites themselves were not always up to carrying the great weight of their panoplies until the final moments before the charge is also clear from the curious carrying cases we sometimes hear were used to transport weapons. Apparently, both the shield and spear were packed away in leather bags to facilitate handling when not in use; indeed, we even know of wooden tripods designed exclusively to prop up shields while they rested on the ground. (Ar. Ach. 574; 1120; 1128) This also illustrates nicely the hoplite’s pride in his own weapons, for it is hard to imagine modern infantry taking such care of their government-issued arms. Like modern golfers who are supplied clubs from their caddies’ bags only before each swing, so too ancient Greek infantrymen picked up their heavy, awkward tools of the craft only when combat was inevitable. The general weight of the equipment, rather than any Greek notion of “equality” among the troops, explains why all soldiers, regardless of rank, were served by personal servants.
Finally, throughout Greek literature we find constant references to the abandonment of hoplite arms on the field of battle: again, I suggest, this illustrates the universal tendency on the part of Greek heavy infantry to be rid of their great weight and the general discomfort at the first sign that it might be dangerous to keep them. Remember that this equipment was paid for by the hoplite out of his own purse, an item of family honor to be hung up over the hearth on his return—in short not an easy thing to throw away unless there were good reason. The charge of rhipsaspia, or “tossing away the shield,” is associated with cowardice in combat. Those so accused were assumed to have been among the first to have abandoned their friends in an effort to save their own lives during a general collaspe of the phalanx; that is, they had endangered the men who had kept their arms and were not able, or had no desire, to make good such an ignoble escape. The frequency of this charge in Greek literature is not limited to Athenian comedy or oratory, where we would not be surprised to find such slander in the plays of Aristophanes or the speeches of Lysias. Indeed, men like Demosthenes and the poets Archilochos and Alkaios were all said to have flung away their equipment in battle. That this shameful conduct was attributed to such well-known authors is not really an indication of the martial timidity of Greek literary artists, but rather an illustration of just how widespread this tendency was. “Some barbarian is waving my shield, since I was obliged to leave that perfectly good piece of equipment behind,” bragged the Lyric poet Archilochos, “but I got away, so what does it matter?” (5) Much has been made of Archilochos’ new antiheroic stance at the very dawn of the hoplite age. His very flippancy perhaps suggests a particular sensitivity or defensiveness about the loss of such a “perfectly good piece of equipment”; this is quite a different view of the panoply than Alkaios’ undisguised pride in the beauty of his arms (expressed in his poem 54). We can be certain that the poet gave up its damnable weight only, as he says, when his very life was in danger. Herodotus reminds us that “in a battle which the Athenians won, Alkaios saved himself by fleeing, and so they gained possession of his arms and hung them up in the temple of Athena at Sigeon” (5.95.1); apparently he lost the love of his hoplite panoply once he left the banquet hall and walked the battlefield. Two hundred and fifty years later Aristophanes joked that Kleonymos threw his shield away whenever possible—on land, sea, and in the air (Vesp. 22); shields had become no lighter since Archilochos’ time.
The shield was probably the first piece to be discarded since it could be detached and cast aside most easily, and of course it was also both the most awkward part of the panoply to carry and the cheapest to replace (being the only item made largely of wood). But the helmet, greaves, and even breastplate were also left behind on occasion. What accounts for the particular emphasis on the shield in literature is the natural Greek notion that its loss alone affected everyone in the formation who were similarly equipped and thus was, in a sense, a crime against every citizen within the phalanx: “men wear their helmets and breastplates for their own needs,” wrote Plutarch, “but they carry shields for the men of the entire line.” (Mor. 241 F. 16; cf. 220A; Polyaen. Strat. 3.9.4) After the Athenian debacle on the heights of Epipolai during the Sicilian expedition in 413, Thucydides wrote, “more arms were left behind than corpses”—a picture startlingly reminiscent of the modern battlefield. (7.45.2) Simply put, for most hoplites (unlike light-armed troops or archers) who decided that flight was preferable to a glorious end in battle, there was no chance of escape from the pursuit of victorious enemy infantry and cavalry if they were burdened with arms and armor on their backs. Thus there was always in Greece a desire to lighten hoplite equipment, always a reluctance to carry the panoply or even put it on until the last seconds before battle, always a tendency to throw it away when flight was imminent.
The hoplite’s most important piece of defensive armament was his shield, a rounded, concave piece of wood some three feet in diameter, the exact size somewhat depending on the length and strength of the individual wearer’s arm. The thickness and type of hardwood used (and thus the real weight of the shield) are not really known, since most wood cores have long since perished, but it has been estimated at some sixteen pounds. (Donlan and Thompson 1976: 341) While this was a considerable burden for the armored hoplite to carry, the advantage over the earlier oxhide models of the Dark Ages was the greater protection against standing spear and sword thrusts, allowing the warrior the chance to approach his enemy at much closer range. Originally, the shield may have been rimmed with a bronze strip around its outer edge to prevent rot and splintering at the edges, but by the fifth century B.C. literary references and archaeological examples suggest that much of the face, like the old Homeric shield of the Dark Ages, was covered by a thin sheet of bronze, often in the shape of a distinctive blazon. This added little to the shield’s protective capability or even weight, but apparently imparted a sense of ferociousness to its wearer if it could be brought to a high polish and thus dazzle or even frighten the opponent.
Scholars make much of the shield’s distinctive arm and handgrips, the porpax and antilabe, which for the first time distributed the weight all along the left arm rather than concentrating it at the hand and wrist alone. These innovations made it possible to hold such an otherwise clumsy thing for the duration of battle. Yet it is usually forgotten that this grip also had severe drawbacks for the men in the field. Overall body movement was impaired as the left arm—for most men the more awkward and weaker one—had to be held rigidly, stuck out in front of the body waist high, elbow bent and the forearm straight and parallel to the ground, the hand tightly clenched to the grip. If the hoplite bent down or slipped, the lower rim of the shield would scrape the ground—a likely occurrence when its wearer was not much over five and a half feet in height. Balance was affected as well, and crouching or even bending over was difficult. Nor could the shield be easily handled once battle commenced. Because the entire arm was needed to maintain its great weight, the angle of deflection could be adjusted only with difficulty, and its shape suggests that it may have been really designed largely for pushing ahead. The shield could not be brought over at any angle to protect a man’s right side, and we hear of entire phalanxes caught helpless by a flank attack upon the extreme right, where the last file of hoplites had no protection at all for their unshielded sides. (Xen. Hell. 4.2.22; 4.5.13)
It is worthwhile to examine some of the frequent references to the discomfort of the hoplite shield. “It is not right, Xenophon,” complained Soteridas, a dissident member of his Ten Thousand, “that you sit on your horse while I struggle under the weight of my shield.” (Xen. An. 3.4.47–48) Those first few brave Plataians who chose to break out from the Spartan siege in 429 during the Peloponnesian War went out only with offensive weapons, followed closely behind by others who brought along their shields. Apparently they knew that there was little chance of escape if one man had to carry both (Thuc. 3.22.3); there is no mention here of body armor, but even the weight of the spear and shield alone must have been considered excessive. We can understand why “Right Logic” in Aristophanes’ comic play the Clouds (987–999) remarks that the youth of his day could only hold their shields thigh high; in other words, these soft young men were not up to the rigorous demands of the old hoplite standard, which expected men to maintain the more difficult chest-high position of battle. The often quoted aphorism (of unknown date) of the Spartan mother who admonished her son to return from battle with his shield, or on it, also reveals the shield’s intrinsic immobility and awkwardness: there was always present a natural (though repressed) tendency to discard it, while its unusual size and bowl shape made it ideal to double as a bier for the corpse should the hoplite perish. (Plut. Mor. 241 F 16) No wonder, then, that the Spartans punished those soldiers found lax in their duty by making them stand and hold their shields in position (Xen. Hell. 3.1.9): merely wearing the panoply, without the rigors of battle, was considered penalty enough.
Indeed, so great was the effort needed just to hold their equipment that when hoplites became worn out or lost concentration they instinctively first dropped their shields. The famous shield of Aristomenes, which Pausanias claims to have seen hundreds of years later at Lebadeia, had supposedly been lost by the legendary hero during the Messenian Wars. (Paus. 4.16.7) Two centuries later the Spartan general Brasidas, upon landing on the shore at Pylos to challenge the Athenian garrison there, was overwhelmed by blows, and after “he fell into the bow of his ship his shield slid off into the sea.” (Thuc. 4.12.1) Likewise, the Theban general Epameinondas lost his shield when he was wounded at Mantineia; brought out of the battle conscious, he asked if his servant had managed to bring it too out of the fray. (Diod. 15.86.5) The wind over the pass at Kreusis blew many of the shields right off the arms of the Spartan hoplites who were trying to make their way over the pass. (Xen. Hell. 5.4.18) This difficulty in retaining the shield must be what Epameinondas had in mind when he remarked that his Thebans could not maintain their power if they could not keep ahold of their handgrips. (Plut. Mor. 193 E 18) Heroes such as Brasidas, Epameinondas, and Aristomenes, and Spartans on the march, unlike the poets, “lost” rather than “cast away” their shields; but whatever the truth, we know that their weight and difficult configuration ensured that shields were a constant bother.
Recently when scholars conducted tests to reproduce the physical requirements which faced the soldiers at Marathon, they discovered that their modern-day subjects in these experiments had the greatest difficulty in holding the shield chest high:
It is significant to note that running the prescribed distance with the shield in chest high position required an average increase of 28% in energy expenditure for each subject … The experiment also showed that the weight and size of the shield were the critical factors. The hoplite shield, which appears to have weighed about sixteen pounds, could only be carried isometrically, and the considerable energy expenditure required sharply limits the distance over which troops could sustain great effort. (Donlan and Thompson 1976: 341)
Even with the handgrips and armgrips, the only way ancient infantry could hold onto this shield for more than a few minutes in battle was to rest it occasionally on the left shoulder—a point that is all too often forgotten. This was possible because of the extreme concavity of the shield, a shape that allowed the soldier “to put both the chest and shoulder into the belly of the hollow shield.” (Tyrtaios 8.24ff) The lip of the shield very nearly made a ninety-degree angle, creating a veritable bowl, rather than a plate shape. While it is true that such an unusual bowl shape helped to deflect blows and offered additional protection to the forearm, far more importantly, it allowed the shield’s great weight to fall upon the shoulder. Other shield types of smaller size and less weight—the Macedonian, Roman, and Persian, for example—lacked this radical concavity, perhaps because there was not the need to relieve the arm.
Once the two armies collided, a pushing match usually ensued, and so we can imagine that the hoplite naturally rested the entire weight of the shield on his left shoulder as he leaned into the men ahead. Perhaps this concavity, so radical in conception, rather than the more heralded armgrips and handgrips, was the real revolution in armament: it allowed a disproportionately large piece of equipment to be carried by even a small man (of some 150 pounds) and enabled him to find the perfect surface for channeling his power into the backs of those ahead of him. After Homer, as we would expect, the infantry shield was described for the first time as “hollow.” (Tyrtaios 11.24; 19.7; Mimnermos 13a) Thucydides remarked that Athenian prisoners on Sicily were forced to “fill four inverted shields” with their money—an image difficult to conceive unless one remembers the distinctive shape of the hoplite shield. (7.82.3) In Euripides we read that the warrior chafes his beard with the rim of his shield, another suggestion that the lip was resting on his shoulder right under the side of the jaw. (Troades 1196–1200) Indeed, a nearly completely restored Argive hoplite shield in the Vatican Museum confirms that a man could hang the inside of the rim on his left shoulder. (Connolly 54) We see this posture often on vase paintings, where men appear to rest their shields on their shoulders both when stationary and when in battle; often, too, a crouching hoplite protects himself from a blow from above by holding his shield horizontally, the lip on his shoulder tucked under the chin. (Ducrey pls. 2, 62, 84, 85, 187; Chase 74) A better representation may be found on an Attic grave relief of the late fifth century. (Anderson pl. 12) There a hoplite, probably with his shield on his shoulder, has both hands occupied: he is shaking hands with his right, while gripping the spear with his left. This important function of the hoplite shield rim can also explain its later disappearance during the Hellenistic period of the late fourth, third, and second centuries when infantrymen suspended their smaller shields from the neck in order to grasp the much longer and heavier sarissa, or pike, with both hands. The neck strap and decreased weight required no support from the shoulder, and so it is not surprising that the later military analyst Asklepiodotos could call the Macedonian version “not very hollow.” (5.1)
Another reason why the advantages of the shield’s lip are often neglected by scholars is the usual emphasis in vase paintings on the front ranks—the place where the initial stabbing occurred and where the shield more often than not was thrust out from the chest to deflect a variety of incoming blows. It could not be rested then at any time. Besides, the inherent action within the front ranks drew the artist’s interest and was much easier to portray than rank upon rank of nameless infantry pushing and leaning their shields against the men ahead.
Besides the weight and cumbersome shape, a final drawback of the shield was its relative thinness, being not much more than an inch to an inch and a half thick. As armor has been for more than twenty-five centuries since, the thickness was sacrificed for surface area; its three-foot diameter demanded that it be thinly constructed to keep overall weight within tolerable limits. Although they could not guarantee absolute protection from all incoming blows, the Greeks knew that these cores, unlike the shields of past centuries, were sufficient to withstand most attacks from spears and swords, provided these were stabs and thrusts at close range, where it was difficult to create momentum. The stories of weapons handed down from father to son (Plut. Mor. 241 F 17), arms hanging above the ancestral fireplace (Ar. Ach. 57, 278), shields seen hundreds of years later on display in sanctuaries (Paus. 9.16.3; 2.21.4; 1.15.4; Diod. 17.18; Arr. Anab. 1.11.7) are probably all plausible, since most hoplites were not posted on the front line and did not subject their equipment to that first awful crash, where spearhead collided head-on with shield, breastplate, helmet, and greave. On the other hand, for those few men who faced this enemy charge at the front of the phalanx, the shield as well as the spear was likely to crack or fall apart upon impact. We see broken shields in vase paintings and should remember, too, that this is a frequent occurrence in literature. Brasidas’ untimely death at Amphipolis in 422 was supposedly due to the failure of his shield to fend off a spear thrust. Asked how he received his wound, Plutarch has him reply, “It was due to my shield which turned traitor on me.” (Plut. Mor. 219 C; cf. Xen. An. 4.1.18) That same image is captured in Xenophon’s eerie account of the aftermath of the battle of Koroneia in 394, where after the collision of Spartans and Thebans shields lay smashed to pieces around the bodies of the slain. (Ages. 2.14) And in Menander’s The Shield we recall the slave of Kleostratos, Davos, who finds his master’s crumpled shield beside his supposed corpse. (75f) Finally, there are instances of entire armies which were re-equipped after battle, or eager to exchange their own armament for new issue, an indication, perhaps, that quite a few shields—the only member of the defensive panoply not made entirely of bronze—must have been shattered in the initial clash. (Xen. Ages. 1.26; Polyaen. Strat. 3.8; Diod. 17.39.2)
The favored type of headgear throughout Greece in the great age of hoplite warfare (700–500 B.C.) was the so-called Corinthian helmet. Unlike infantry helmets employed in Western armies of the twentieth century, a hoplite’s bronze helmet covered both the head and most of the neck, extending in the back all the way down to the collarbone. In its last and most elegant form, the cheek pieces and nose guards swept forward to such a degree that they nearly met in the center of the face, thereby ensuring that the eyes, nose, and even mouth were virtually enclosed. In theory, the massive bronze provided needed protection from spear thrusts to the face and head, and shielded the jaw from both lateral and frontal blows. Yet it must have been a most uncomfortable and difficult thing to wear. The obvious difficulty was that it impeded sight and hearing—there were no orifices for the ears. It would not be surprising if the simple formation and tactics of phalanx warfare—the massing into formation, charge, collision, and final push—grew, at least in part, out of the lack of direct communication between soldiers and their commander; dueling, skirmishing, and hit-and-run attacks were out of the question with such headgear, and the isolation created by the helmet demanded that each individual seek close association with his peers.
Even though the helmeted hoplite could scarcely see or hear, there was hardly any problem in locating the enemy, or any danger in being blindsided—as long as the cohesive formation of the phalanx was kept intact. Consequently, what sounds we do hear in the phalanx are usually singing in accompaniment with the flute (Thuc. 5.70.1; Plut. Lyc. 21; Xen. Cyr. 7.1) or yelling (Xen. An. 1.8.18; 6.4.27; Hell. 2.4.31; Thuc. 7.44); orders to advance or retreat were given by blasts of the horn. (E.g., Thuc. 6.69.2; Xen. An. 4.4.22) The Theban general Epameinondas’ purported command at the battle of Leuktra in 371 “to give me one step forward” (Polyaen. Strat. 2.3.4) in the heat of the fighting, if true, was probably not heard by many, unless he was wearing the so-called Boiotian helmet, which left the face entirely open.
If the Corinthian helmet curbed communication between soldiers and thereby mandated that commands and tactics be simple, the restriction in vision also necessitated battle by daylight. Night attacks were understandably rare and, if attempted, usually ended in confusion; the ordinary dust raised by thousands of marching or shuffling feet burdened by armor must have made daytime battle difficult enough. Also, much of the fear and panic that often swept the ranks of a phalanx before battle can be attributed to the frightful sense of isolation created by the Corinthian helmet as the wearer entered a world of his own, cut off from the men around him, his perception of the fighting deriving largely from the sense of touch, or rather, to be more exact, from the pressure of men to the rear, side, and front. If not through this pushing and shoving within his own immediate vicinity, how else might a man receive accurate knowledge of the fighting around him? Conditions of battle only added to the lack of perception. The headgear was never molded precisely to match the skull, so even deflected blows could knock the helmet askew, forcing it not merely to nod up and down, but also turning it sideways and thus at times eliminating vision altogether.
Besides the loss of perception, the helmet was uncomfortable because of its weight (five or more pounds) on the neck and because of the heat it generated around the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. The campaigning season, we should remember, was almost exclusively confined to the summer months. During that time temperatures in Greece routinely exceed 90 degrees F; there could not have been a more stifling type of headgear for a wearer—who was bearded and wore his hair long. (E.g., Hdt. 1.82.7–8; Plut. Nic. 19) Long hair, not the shaved head of our own time, was the proper sign of militarism, as the custom in Sparta at all times shows clearly. (Ar. Av. 1281; Vesp. 476; Lys. 1072; Plut. Phoc. 10.1; Lyc. 22.1) There was no ostensible reason for this preference, since the beard and hair provided a grip for any adversary on the battlefield, and could only make the helmet more uncomfortable and stuffy. Perhaps this is why we sometimes see in vase painting a hoplite smoothing his long hair carefully, pressing it down firmly to the skull before putting on the helmet, as if that will somehow make the fit more tolerable. (Ducrey 222)
The third drawback, in addition to reduced perception and general discomfort, was the lethal absence of interior netting or any suspension system other than a man’s hair that could absorb the shock of direct blows to the head. Although punched holes around the perimeter of extant helmets suggest that there was some type of interior felt or leather padding attached to the bronze surface, this cushioning provided no air space between the metal sides and the cranium and could not absorb fully the force of incoming blows. Most likely the material’s prime objective was to protect the wearer’s head and face from the roughness and heat of the bronze (Lazenby pl. 4); understandably, then, often we hear of soldiers who perished from blows to the head. Most ancient remains of Corinthian helmets are cracked, dented, or patched (e.g., cf. Weiss 195ff), suggesting that the wearer might often have suffered serious contusions even if the bronze managed to prevent actual penetration. (Ar. Ach. 1180) Strong blows could drive the metal hard against the padding around the head, shattering the cranium and perhaps pushing metal, leather, and bone deep into the brain.
Most helmets in the Archaic and early classical periods were equipped with horsehair crests. Some were attached directly to the helmet itself; others made use of a special bronze holder that arose from the top of the helmet. Apparently, they added height and frightfulness to the appearance of the small hoplite; at least that is how Hektor’s young son thought of it when he saw his father’s nodding crest. (Horn. Il. 6.469) Even Dikaiopolis was disturbed by the same sight in Aristophanes’ Acharnians (567, 586) and Tyrtaios’ call to “shake terribly the crest high above the helm” (11.26) was intended to create that same impression.
In a more practical sense crests may have blunted blows aimed directly downward to the center of the helmet (e.g., Snodgrass 1967: pl. 23) or arrows that rained down amidst the phalanx. Lykon, for example, in the Iliad “struck the horn of the crested helmet, and his sword broke at the hilt.” (16.339) Alexander the Great at the Granicus River in 333 was saved when his helmet crest blunted an attack by the Persian Spithridates. The Persian’s battle-ax split the crest, sliced away the plume, and nearly cleft the helmet, yet Alexander suffered only a nick on the scalp. (Plut. Alex. 16) But to anyone who has worn any modern headgear similarly equipped with some type of extensive ornament—a ceremonial hat or Halloween mask—it is easy to understand how the crest only made the helmet more unwieldy, especially when putting it on or removing it. If the crest allowed the hoplite to appear taller and therefore fiercer to his foe (e.g., Polyb. 6.32.13), it was even more likely to obstruct his own sight of incoming arrows and missiles, or even a spear thrust between shields. Vase paintings sometimes show hoplites being grabbed by their crests, so it also offered the same liability as the beard or long hair. (Ahlberg pls. 6, 10, 11) Finally, it is hard to imagine that the crest could really stay intact during the general pushing and shoving; Lamachos’ plume, for example (if we can believe Aristophanes), fell off when he tripped while leaping over a trench. (Ach. 1182) Can we be surprised, then, that crests are often absent on vase paintings and that extant helmets sometimes show no trace at all of them? Perhaps in many cases they were never worn in the first place.
The Corinthian crested helmet of the great age of the hoplite took a physical toll on its wearer. No wonder that in both sculpture and on vase paintings it is nearly always shown propped back on the head, suggesting that it was probably not pulled down over the face until the last seconds before the charge. (Snodgrass 1967: pl. 42) That it seems to have been superseded in the fifth century by a simple conical cap or other headgear that left the face open makes perfect sense. Finally, the Corinthian helmet, the shield, and, as we shall see, the breastplate, were too uncomfortable to be worn until the final assault; this is evidence, again, that a man’s equipment, like the very tactics of Greek warfare, was designed for only a few hours of battle each summer.
The lower legs could not be adequately protected by the downward movement of the shield, and so the vulnerable shins and calves were guarded either by an apron of sorts attached to the shield’s lower rim or, more commonly, by greaves—thin sheets of bronze extending from the kneecap all the way down to the ankle. Unlike the short, rather stubby leg guards of the Mycenaean period, the classical hoplite’s more elegant leg protection often lacked metal or leather laces. Instead, the two edges of the greave nearly met at the rear of the calf muscle. The punched holes we find on surviving examples may not be eyes for leather straps to hold the bronze steadfast, but rather, as in the case of the helmet, signs of the presence of interior felt or leather padding which was stitched to the bronze to protect the wearer’s leg from both the heat and chafing of the metal and perhaps to provide some additional protection. Modern scholars believe that these metal eyes in the hoplite’s greaves had nothing to do with a fastening system; greaves were “snapped on,” remaining in place by the sheer elasticity of the bronze and thus the snugness of the fit. The advantages of greaves were that they apparently offered the infantryman some protection from missiles whose high trajectory might enable penetration into the interior of the phalanx, wounding a man’s vulnerable tibia, which is without much flesh or muscular protection. Of course, too, they provided the men in the first few ranks some defense against low sword and spear thrusts. Also, unlike the other pieces of a hoplite’s body armor, the thin greaves did not add unreasonable extra weight. Yet, ironically, of all his equipment, greaves may have been precisely the most bothersome: like the awkward leggings of the First World War infantrymen, the greave was likely to chafe when running or even simply walking. Worse yet, regardless of how precise their fit and malleability they could not ride snugly on the leg without the aid of straps; perhaps those holes in the bronze served for both interior padding and leather or metal ties. While on the march or in battle, the constant movement of the leg, and more importantly, the occasional distortions caused by spear and sword blows, could well have modified the original fit, and so caused the hoplite constantly to rebend his greave. That would be a difficult task, with some fifty pounds of metal riding on his head and chest. Understandably Polybius remarked that it was crucial that soldiers take care to ensure that their greaves “look and fit well.” (11.9.4) In the Roman period their use by infantry nearly dies out completely; those examples which do appear are always equipped with ties—suggesting that the elastic models of the Greeks were not entirely successful.
The standard breastplate for the initial two hundred years of hoplite battle was the simply designed bell corselet, which consisted of front and back sheets of bronze connected together at the shoulders. Above the hip socket, the armor curved outward to form a flange, thereby creating the characteristic bell shape and apparently aiding the movement of the hips during walking or trotting as well as offering some protection against downward thrusts to the lower stomach. The groin and neck, however, were both left unprotected, if the wearer was to retain at least some mobility. (Xen. Eq. 12.2ff) Strangely, although there was little fear of an attack from the rear, this type of plate, which covered both the entire torso and the back, did not drop out of use in Greece until the early fifth century when lighter versions, of either bronze or even leather and fabric, finally appeared. Even then, infantrymen felt some type of body protection was necessary, and suggestions by some that hoplites in the latter fifth century wore no body armor at all are probably mistaken. (E.g., cf. Lazenby 32) Rather, what is surprising is that generation upon generation were willing to endure the plate corselet—a type of armor which through its great weight and inflexibility probably wore out its wearer within minutes.
Some idea of the discomfort of the breastplate can be found in frequent references throughout Greek literature to the importance of a good fit, the difficulty of movement, and the need for help in arming. Interestingly enough, such citations are mostly from the fifth and fourth centuries when the bell corselet was being replaced by lighter types; yet, even these improved, lighter versions were annoying enough to the wearer. The breastplate seller in Aristophanes’ comic play the Peace makes an impossible promise in advance to Trygaios that his product will be a perfect fit, for he knew body armor had to be made to the exact specifications of the wearer to be of any value. (1225) “The breastplate,” Xenophon remarked in his treatise on the art of horsemanship, “quite simply must be constructed to fit the body”; he added that a loose fit put an impossible weight on the shoulders, while body armor that was too tight was a “prison rather than a defense.” (Eq. 12.2; cf. Mem. 3.10.9–15) He worried in any case about the lack of mobility caused by the plate corselet; “the shape,” he said, “should not prevent either sitting or stooping.” To throw a javelin with the right hand, he added, required that a portion of the plate be removed entirely. (12.3–7) Just to Put on his body armor the hoplite was forced to ask for assistance. In literature and on vase painting, fellow soldiers or attendants must hold the helmet or buckle the straps on; greaves are usually already attached, suggesting, whatever Xenophon apparently believed, that once the breastplate was on, stooping might be a problem. (Anderson 1970: pl. 5; Hom Il. 3.330–38; 11.17–44; 16.131–44; 19.369–91)
Much of the difficulty in wearing the corselet was, of course, due to the weight of the bronze. Although the remains of bronze armor from Panhellenic sanctuaries in Greece and sites in Italy have usually been found corroded or damaged in the nearly 2,500 years since their fabrication, and so make exact calculations of their original weight impossible, estimates that the bell corselet of the seventh, sixth, and early fifth centuries weighed somewhere between thirty and forty pounds are reasonable. (E.g., Donlan and Thompson 1976: 341) Even during the Hellenistic period, when the weight of body armor was as a rule reduced, at times we hear of heavier models. Demetrios of Macedon, we are told by Plutarch (Demetr. 21), wore a breastplate of forty pounds; one of his infantry officers supposedly wore a panoply of well over one hundred pounds—twice the weight of most others in the army. Diodorus remarks that the breastplate of Agathokles, the infamous tyrant of Syracuse, was so heavy that no one else could handle it. (19.3.2) Indeed, many of the general references to the encumbrance of hoplite armor must refer to the breastplate specifically; after all, it accounted for at least half the total weight of the panoply. Medieval plate armor, for example, which bears a close resemblance to the hoplite’s helmet and breastplate, weighed between sixty and seventy pounds even without offensive weapons. (Wise 48) Even in much later times, when we know that body armor was far lighter than the bulky bell corselet worn by the first generation of hoplites, we still hear of complaints and difficulty: once the Macedonians under Philip V lost the cohesion of their phalanx, they fell easy prey to the Romans under Flamininus since “in hand-to-hand fighting they struggled with armor which was both heavy and uncomfortable.” (Plut. Flam. 8.3–4) Similarly, Lucullus reminded his Roman troops of the drawbacks of the enemy’s heavy armor: “it will be easier to defeat them in battle,” he said only half in jest, “than it will be to strip away their armor once they are dead.” (Plut. Mor. 203 A 2) We are told that once when the Greek general Philopoemen dismounted and marched ahead on foot, the weight and awkwardness of his breastplate (which must have been heavier than normal issue in Hellenistic times and thus perhaps not unlike the notorious bell corselet some four hundred years earlier) slowed his progress and nearly got him killed. (Plut. Phil. 6.3–4) Xenophon himself had a similar experience centuries earlier during the retreat of the Ten Thousand when he dismounted to push Soteridas out of the ranks. Because of the very weight of his corselet of plate armor he could scarcely make his way forward. (An. 3.4.48) It was probably this widespread unpopularity of metal body armor among fifth-century Athenians that Aristophanes was playing on in his Peace; there Trygaios suggests that the plate corselet could just as well be used as a chamber pot. (1224)
As difficult as the weight of the breastplate was, a greater problem was the lack of ventilation, since the solid, continuous plate of metal upon the body gave little relief from either heat or cold. In the summer, perspiration must have soaked the hoplite’s inner garment: the shiny bronze which could dazzle the enemy across the battlefield could just as well act as a solar collector of sorts that would make the entire surface hot to the touch. The leather, felt, or linen worn beneath helmet, greaves, and breastplate to cushion the shock of blows and give some relief from the temperature and roughness of the bronze upon the skin could also increase the general discomfort; the sweat from his chest and back must have bathed this underwear very quickly. We often hear, then, of hoplites who came near collapse from dehydration, or became delirious as a result of heat prostration—surely a likely phenomenon for armored men in a country where it is so hot in the spring and summer. Thucydides states, for example, that after a series of attacks on Pylos, both the Athenian attackers and Spartan defenders were worn out by “thirst and the sun.” (4.35.4) It was probably the discomfort of fighting in full armor under the summer sun that prompted the famous retort of Dienekes the Spartan at Thermopylai in 480: when he was told that the multitude of the incoming Persian arrows would blot out the sun, he replied calmly, “Then we might have our battle with them in the shade.” (Hdt. 7.226.1–2) That difficulty of wearing body armor in the summer months probably also explains why the last Athenian retreat from Syracuse in 413 quickly turned into a rout. Once the fully armed hoplites finally reached the river Assinaros, Thucydides relates, “the majority of them were fighting among themselves to have a drink of it.” (7.85.1) The danger of heat prostration for men in armor is also clear from Thucydides’ descriptions a little earlier of the fighting around Syracuse. At one point the Syracusan defenders grew lax on their guard against Athenian attacks upon their fortifications; once they had left their posts to seek relief in the shade, the Athenians sent out a sudden sortie against the unmanned wall. (6.100.1) Frontinus, too, recalls what must have been a favorite stratagem of ancient commanders: the Roman general Metullus Pius kept his own men in the shade while the enemy waited fully armed in the sun for his attack. Once they showed the effects of the rising temperature, he led his troops out to victory. (2.1.2,5)
In his Republic, Plato suggested that hoplites prepare themselves for the rigors of extreme temperatures by constant gymnastic training (3.404); he, too, surely knew the dangers that hoplites in full armor faced under a summer sun. Certainly, we can see why the so-called race in armor at Olympia and ritualistic hoplite dances in arms almost never required wearing the breastplate; so great was the weight and discomfort of the corselet that during even moderate activity it could never really be worn during such exercise in “full” armor. (E.g., Paus. 5.8.10) When hoplites were called out to fight in the spring, thunderstorms and showers could also make life miserable. The body temperature of any man caught in full armor would decrease rapidly as his wet undergarments became uncomfortably cold and sticky against the flesh. Agesilaos’ Spartans, for example, found that their battle gear was poor protection from the cold once they had been exposed to a hailstorm. To save their lives, he ordered fires in pots to be brought so that his men might be rubbed down with warm oil. (Xen. Hell. 4.5.3)
Even more crucial was the condition of the soil once it began to rain. A drenched hoplite carrying fifty to seventy pounds of arms and armor could scarcely maneuver once the ground was soft and muddy. Modern efforts to duplicate the difficulties faced by men in such armor have shown that ground that is sandy or merely loosely packed—not to mention wet or muddy—requires a 20–25 percent increase in oxygen demands. (Donlan and Thompson 1979: 420) Naturally, then, the approach of rain or hail had a depressing effect on the Sicilian hoplites at the first battle against the Athenians in 415 before Syracuse. (Thuc. 6.70.1) Demosthenes in a speech during the fourth century similarly remarked later that lightning, thunder, and heavy winds were likely to cause depression among infantry. (50.23) But the best example in ancient literature of what adverse weather could do to an entire army equipped with heavy body armor was the great catastrophe again in Sicily at the river Krimesos in 341 where everything imaginable went wrong for the invading troops of Carthage once they marched into the face of the storm and encountered Timoleon’s Greeks.
Then the gloomy darkness above the hills and mountain heights descended onto the battlefield, bringing with it a mixture of rain, wind, and hail. It swept over the backs of the Greeks from the rear, but struck the faces of the Carthaginians and blinded their vision, since there was an absolute deluge and unending lightning pouring out of the clouds. Under the circumstances there was widespread difficulty, but to the inexperienced the clashes of thunder seemed to cause the greatest harm as well as the noise of their armor being struck by the sleet and hail, which prevented any commands of their leaders from being heard. In addition the Carthaginians were by no means lightly armed, but rather, as I have stated, fully equipped in heavy armor; therefore, both the mud and the folds of their undergarments as they filled with water impeded them. As a result they were both weighed down and ill-equipped to fight effectively, and so they were easily overturned by the Greeks. Once they slipped and fell they were completely unable to rise again from the mud with their weapons in their hand. (Plut. Tim. 28.1–3)
Of course, the reason why men would endure such discomfort, such misery, beneath bronze breastplates so poorly suited for even simple movement was the unusual protection the metal offered against the blows of the spear and sword and against the rain of airborne missiles—the javelin, the arrow, and the slinger’s stones and bullets. The linen corselets that Pausanias saw hanging up on display at Athens in the second century A.D. were poor substitutes, in his view, for bronze armor, which alone could often turn back the thrust of the spear. (1.21.7) We remember, too, that at Kunaxa in 401 the breastplate of Cyrus the Younger withstood a direct blow from a javelin and allowed him to continue into battle. (Plut. Artax. 9.3) Yet, the breastplate did not offer its wearer absolute protection from all incoming attack (unlike that strange corselet of golden scales which the Persian Masistios wore at Plataia in 479 and which kept out all the spear thrusts of the Greeks even when he was finally forced to the ground. [Hdt. 9.22.2; Plut. Arist. 14.5]) We often also find both in Greek literature and on vase paintings hoplites who perish from blows that make their way right into the flesh. (E.g., Diod. 19.109.2–3; Xen. An. 4.1.18–19) No wonder, then, that Aeschylus, in his Seven Against Thebes (278), could describe body armor as “spear-pierced.” Usually in such cases the victims were subjected to the direct fire of slingers or archers at very close range; more often, the initial thrust of the spear was driven home through the momentum of a running hoplite:
With a sudden rush he turns to flight the rugged battalions of the enemy, and sustains the beating waves of assault.
And he who so falls among the champions and loses his sweet life, so blessing with honor his city, his father, and all his people,
with wounds in his chest, where the spear that he was facing has transfixed
that massive guard of his shield, and gone through his breastplate as well.
(Tyrtaios 12.21–26)
Those instances were rare, however, in comparison to the repeated blows from sword and spear by standing hoplites in the shoving melee of the phalanx. There, slaps and jabs at the breast could be turned, since the enemy had no chance to “tee off” and charge with his spear on the run. Consequently, there was a good chance that the bronze breastplate might turn back literally dozens of blows of all types, giving its wearer all-important time, a new lease on life on each occasion to strike down his foe. Often when we do hear of men who are finally overcome from wounds to their chest, the breastplate is stuck full of broken shafts, dented, or cracked from repeated assault, suggesting that the wounded hoplite became the focus of a frenzy of thrusts that finally—but only finally—overwhelmed his metal body armor. The Theban leader Pelopidas, for example, was eventually overcome at Kynoskephelai in 364 when the enemy backed away and targeted him with repeated jabs until his armor finally gave way. (Plut. Pel. 32.6–7) Likewise, the fourth-century Spartan king Agesilaos was severely wounded, although not mortally so, only after he was caught surrounded and subject to a multitude of spear and sword blows: his men “were not able to keep him untouched since he had received repeated blows which pierced his armor all the way to the flesh.” (Plut. Ages. 18.3–4) Even the outnumbered Spartans on Pylos in 425, who were trapped and outgunned by a host of Athenian light-armed troops, were not totally annihilated. Although their felt conical caps were a poor substitute for the bronze of the Corinthian helmet and thus allowed arrow wounds to the head, Thucydides nevertheless relates that many missiles “had broken off” in the armor of others, suggesting again that their breastplates had at least dulled the incoming hail of darts and so allowed them to continue their resistance. (434–3)
To the Greeks, the use of the thrusting spear was proof of the desire to approach the enemy at close quarters and stab him face-to-face—the choice of men who had no taste for the bow or missile and contempt for soldiers who would or could not come in close to fight. For Aeschylus, veteran of Marathon, the contrast between the archers of Darius and the spearmen of Greece left a lifelong impression of the moral superiority of men who strove to kill at close range. (E.g., Pers. 85–86; 147–49; cf. 25–32; 52–57; 278; 728–29; 816–17) The Greek spear was a heavy weapon for the right hand to manage alone, some six to eight feet in length; it was made of cornel or even ash wood; but it was only about an inch in diameter, and thus only two to four pounds in weight. There were no allowances made for left-handers, but this caused few problems, since the chief requirement for a spearman was strength rather than dexterity: the idea was not to find the target but rather to penetrate it. As the hoplite approached the opposing phalanx he brought the spear off his shoulder into an underhand position, both to make his final run easier and to enable him to jab the spear in the groin or under the shield of an enemy hoplite as he crashed into the front rank. Once the two sides met, however, there was a better chance to find an opening with the spear held overhand; in fact, most vase paintings show hoplites jabbing downward at the neck, arms, and shoulders. Since the chance for a running thrust was now well past, this change of grip to an overhand position could put enough power behind the blow to kill or even severely wound the enemy and thus create a gap in the opposing line. (Cf. Anderson 1970: 88–89)
Beside the iron spearhead, most spears also had a bronze butt spike at the base which made the weapon an ingenious device with a lethal point at both ends. The advantages of the butt spike were not merely the counterbalance it provided to the weight of the lance head, or even the protection it gave the shaft end from rot or wear when propped on the ground. It also allowed the infantryman an added dimension of attack, whether he was stationed in the first line or well back to the middle and rear of the phalanx. As we shall see, there were really two markedly different worlds of simultaneous combat within the phalanx: the stabbing and jousting in the first three ranks, and the pushing, shoving, and stumbling in the five ranks behind. For those at the focal point of the collision of infantry, the butt spike proved useful once the fighting became an entangled mass of hoplites; it gave the spear a killing point at both ends, allowing its holder to thrust backward should an attacker come on around him from the side or rear. In some extreme cases it might save a man’s life, as it gave him some defense, however awkward, from such blind attacks.
More importantly, however, these men in the initial three ranks were likely to have their spears shivered in the initial collision of bronze armor, wooden shields, metal swords, spearheads, and flesh. Apparently this tendency of the hoplite spear to shatter on impact was well recognized, and it is not so surprising, given the relatively small diameter of the shaft. Also, on vase paintings, sculpture, and in literature there are many examples of hoplites forced to beat or cut away enemy spears with their short swords. (Polyb. 2.33.5; Anderson 1970: pl. 10) Yet there must have been plenty of instances where the spear was not immediately abandoned once the lance head was snapped off or the shaft broken or cut off by a sword: the remaining shaft, with its butt spike, could be used for a time in close-in fighting. The Greek historian of Rome Polybius makes this clear: the problem with early Roman spears, he relates, is that “they were not equipped with butt spikes and so they were used only for the first blows with the spear hand; after that they broke off and were of no further use.” (6.25.9) In his view, the Greek version was far superior because it allowed the fighter to continue his attack with the spike once his lance head was lost. In any case, the butt spike allowed the hoplite a few more thrusts until he was finally forced to go to his secondary, and much less adequate, short sword. Indeed, the Spartan mother’s famous reply to her son’s complaint about the drawbacks of his short sword, “Add a step to it,” was really no reply at all, but rather an indication of just how vulnerable a hoplite had become once he was forced to adapt that posture. (Plut. Mor. 241 F 18)
Men in the middle and rear of the phalanx usually kept their spears upright, where they helped to deflect incoming missiles, and also kept the points clear of hoplites to the front and rear, preventing accidental wounding. (Polyb. 18.29–30) While held in this position, the only mode of attack was to slam downward with the shaft, driving the butt spike and its square, short shaft into an enemy lying at one’s feet. This was not a rare occurrence, as the square holes driven into the remains of ancient armor unearthed at Olympia show clearly. (Snodgrass 1967: 56, 80) Once the front ranks created an initial momentum, those to the rear would be pushing with their shields at the backs of their friends, but also stumbling over the debris of battle: the abandoned arms, the wounded, and the corpses of those already fallen. Many of the enemy who were already down and were being passed over by an advancing phalanx were not yet dead, but were trapped near the ground as the rear ranks walked over and around them. The best way of dispatching these unfortunate troops was to keep the spear upright and then jab it downward, allowing such a powerful thrust to send the butt spike right through the enemy’s bronze armor.
Although the butt spike increased the spear’s versatility in attack, the hoplite spear nevertheless had two distinct disadvantages. The first, of course, was the difficulty of movement within a massed formation. A shaft of some eight feet mandated that a hoplite’s range of movement and mobility be restricted by both the butt spike and the spearhead of his own men to the rear and front. For example, men in the second and third ranks of the column would have the sharp butts of those ahead (in the first and second rows) constantly before them. Likewise, soldiers in the first and second lines would have to contend with the spear points of those men to the rear which were jostling right at their own flanks. The use of the hoplite spear also meant that a man’s range of movement was also limited laterally by the weapons of his own comrades. Besides the need to keep in formation and thereby protect against enemy inroads, besides the constant attention to uniformity of advance, to maintain balance in the face of attack, to prevent falling and thus a horrible death by being trampled, the infantryman must also have been aware ironically of the dangerous bronze of his comrades, who were constantly moving at his side, changing angles right and left, and threatening a most ignoble death by accidental wounding. An extreme case was Pyrrhus’ phalanx, which became trapped in the cramped streets of Argos during the battle there in 272. So tightly was the formation pressed together, Plutarch relates, that the men were unable to raise their leveled spears again. Consequently, “many died from the accidental blows which they inflicted among each other.” (Pyrrh. 33)
Besides these restrictions in mobility, the spear of the hoplite, like the other wooden element of the panoply, the shield, had inherent structural weaknesses. (Xen. Eq. 12.12) Although usually constructed out of tough cornel wood or occasionally ash, the diameter of about an inch clearly was not sufficient to prevent the lance head from being snapped off (or the shaft itself from disintegrating in a sea of splinters) in the initial collision where the advancing hoplite slammed his spear into the bronze or wood protective cover of the enemy. At times, his thrust could be parried and his shaft broken by the sword blow of a downed hoplite. We often hear, in ancient descriptions of battle, of the widespread loss of the use of the spear relatively soon in the course of combat. Xenophon remarks that when Agesilaos encountered Tissaphernes’ troops near Daskyleion in 396, his men all shattered their spears on the initial clash. (Hell. 3.4.14) At Mantineia, Diodorus recalled that the sheer closeness of the fighting resulted in the destruction of the spears—requiring that the battle was to be played out, at least among the front ranks, with sword thrusts. (15.86.2) He apparently had an image of the ceaseless pressure from the rear forcing the spears of each successive front rank against the immovable bodies, wood, and bronze of the enemy; yet one wonders how there was any room at all for swordplay, given the density and pushing of armored men. At Thermopylai, only when the spears of Leonidas’ brave Spartans were all shattered were his troops overcome under a sea of missiles. (Hdt. 7.225; cf., too, Plut. Alex. 16.4; Eum. 7.3; Diod. 19.83; 17.100.7) When soldiers lost their spears, they were never allowed to filter inside the enemy ranks, which would have allowed hacking away with their shorter swords at cumbersome spearmen who were unable to bring their eight-foot weapons to bear against them. Instead, the wall of shields and spear tips of the men to the rear kept the intruders out and ensured that they would be smashed or impaled by the steady pressure.
If the spear thrust was sufficiently powerful to make its way intact through the bronze armor of an opponent, there was no guarantee that the hoplite could draw it back out in one piece. Epameinondas at his last battle at Mantineia in 362 perished from a spear thrust through his breastplate; the shaft had snapped on impact and left its spearhead embedded deep within his chest. (Diod. 15.87.1) On occasion, however, some desperate troops who had lost their weapons could dodge the initial enemy thrusts and then grab the shaft from the side, perhaps even snapping the lance head off with their bare hands before the hoplite could inflict any damage. For example, at Plataia in 479, Herodotus says, the Persians were at first successful in taking hold of the Greeks’ spear shafts and then shearing them off. This could only be true if we understand that the enemy had at least one hand free and that the length and thinness of the hoplite spear made it vulnerable to easy breakage by grabbing with the hands or cutting with the sword. (9.62.2; Polyb. 16.33.2–4) The relatively short life of the hoplite spear among the front ranks explains why hoplite battle quickly became a confusing contest of pressure. In a way, the frequent destruction of this eight-foot-long weapon allowed the battle to draw both sides even closer together. The few feet of protruding shafts on each side of the battle line no longer kept the enemies apart, and men now could meet together, pressing their very flesh face-to-face and hand to hand in a manner unknown in later military history. Once a man lost his spear and sword, his very body, encased as it was in bronze, became his best weapon, as his friends to the rear attempted to push him on through the enemy ranks.