Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (19 page)

FIGURE 2-2. Line drawings illustrating the use of the hoplite shield. (a) Phalanx formation, assuming three-foot intervals and a frontal stance. (b) Phalanx formation, assuming six-foot intervals and a sideways stance. (c and d) Profile views of hoplite shields as carried in combat, tilted back against the left shoulder, on (c) a Middle Protocorinthian vase, the Berlin aryballos attributed to the Chigi/Macmillan Painter, c. 650 BC, from Kamiros (Berlin inv. 3773), and (d) a Siana cup by the Heidelberg Painter, c. 560 BC, from Boeotia (Athens, NM 435). (e and f) Hoplites running and squatting with left shoulder turned forward, torso almost at a right angle to the shield, on (e) a terra-cotta plaque from Athens, c. 520–510 BC (Acropolis Museum 1037) and (f) an Attic red-figure cup, c. 520–510 BC, from Chiusi (Louvre G25). Drawings courtesy of Hans van Wees.

Hoplite Body Armor

After the hoplite shield, the Corinthian helmet has been regarded as the piece of equipment with the greatest impact on the manner of fighting.
⁷
Its weight may have contributed to making warriors less mobile, but more importantly its extensive cover restricted the hoplite’s range of vision and reduced his ability to hear. It is commonly
argued that these limitations meant that the wearer of a Corinthian helmet could operate in relative safety if he were surrounded by comrades in a close-order formation; as in the case of the shield, the counterargument is that the limitations were not so severe that a hoplite could not still operate in a relatively independent fashion.

The hoplite corselet was composed of two bronze sheets: a breastplate modeled to the shape of the chest, and another plate for the back connected by metal bands and
leather lacing over the shoulders and down the sides. Corselets are commonly worn by hoplites in archaic art, but it has been noted that they are very much less common than helmets and shields in actual finds, which may suggest that only about one in ten hoplites wore a bronze cuirass.
⁸

The panoply also included greaves, which were hammered out of a sheet of bronze, and customized to fit the fighter and the shape of his calf muscles. The greaves covered the warrior’s ankles and shins, and were held in place by the pliability of the metal itself. The clear differences between the greaves that first appear on vase paintings of the seventh century, and the types known from the Mycenaean period, argue against continuity.
⁹
Although it was once argued that greaves were the last major addition to the hoplite panoply, circa 650 BC, it is now clear that they were introduced at about the same time as the rest of the armor, in the late eighth century.
¹⁰
As in the case of the corselet, greaves are much more common in archaic art than among actual finds, and it has been suggested that only about one in three hoplites wore them.
¹¹

Thigh guards and arm guards are also attested in archaic archaeology and iconography, but were probably quite rare. By contrast, finds and images from the classical period (
fig. 2-3
) suggest that hoplite body armor at this time was generally very
limited: a simple
pilos
(conical cap) helmet, protecting only the top of the head, and a tunic were all the cover most classical hoplites seem to have enjoyed, apart from their shields. Whatever restrictions body armor may have imposed on the most heavily armed hoplites, they evidently were no longer in force by the late fifth century.

FIGURE 2-3. Classical hoplite equipment. Attic tombstone, late fifth century BC. Berlin. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Photo: Anderson 1970, pl. 12. Redrawn by Nathan Lewis.

The Early Hoplite Phalanx in Greek Art

Representations of battle in archaic vase painting have played a major role in the debate about the origins of the phalanx. A series of images on Protocorinthian vases in particular has often been adduced as evidence for the development of the classical phalanx in or before the seventh century. Some doubts about this interpretation have been raised, however; it has been suggested that these vases represent scenes which have parallels in Homer’s
Iliad
. If so, the images do not provide evidence for the existence of the phalanx but may instead reflect a more open and fluid battle order. The captions below set out the main points of contention.

The scene reproduced in
figure 2-4
is the earliest to show the inside of a shield and therefore the earliest to show an unmistakable hoplite shield, with central armband and peripheral handle. However, a few Geometric vases from circa 700 BC show round shields with figured blazons, which almost certainly also represent hoplite shields.
¹²
Unlike his classical successors, the hoplite on the Lechaion aryballos is equipped with two spears, the second of which is held in the left hand gripping the shield handle; most other hoplites on later Protoattic and Protocorinthian vases also carry two spears in the same way, and it seems very likely that at least one of the spears would be thrown rather than thrust at the enemy. The other figures in the scene are differently equipped. To the left of the hoplite, a kneeling archer may be thought of as fighting the enemy from behind the shelter of the other man’s shield, as described in the
Iliad
. The fighters on the right all carry Boeotian shields, with their distinctive scalloped edges; one man has the shield slung across his back, which shows that it must be suspended by a
telamon
.

The first iconographic appearance of a hoplite is thus as a single figure backed by an archer and opposed by nonhoplites. The hoplite shield here may be interpreted as a contemporary element in an otherwise unrealistic “heroic” scene (based on epic poetry and/or the conventions of Geometric art), in which case the image provides no further evidence for the nature of seventh-century battle. Alternatively, one or more of the other elements may also be derived from contemporary warfare, in which case
the image may imply that in the early seventh century the hoplite shield was not yet used to the exclusion of other types, that hoplites still used throwing spears, and that archers mingled with hoplites on the battlefield.

FIGURE 2-4. Protocorinthian aryballos from Lechaion, c. 690 BC. Source: Snodgrass 1964a (plate 15b). Reprinted by permission of Edinburgh University Press,
www.euppublishing.com
.

FIGURE 2-5. Protocorinthian aryballos from Perachora, c. 675 BC. Plate 57 from
Perachora
, vol. 2,
Pottery, Ivories, Scarabs, and Other Objects
edited by T. J. Dunbabin (Oxford, 1962). Reproduced with the permission of the British School at Athens.

The surface of the vase in
figure 2-5
has suffered extensive damage, so that many details are lost or uncertain. In the center, two figures on each side are locked in combat. On the right, one man appears to be attacking another while a third figure comes to the backward-leaning fighter’s aid; the advancing attacker may be imagined as belonging to the same side as the two men on the left of the central group. On the far left, a kneeling archer has released an arrow that is about to penetrate the shin of the leading fighter on the right of the central group. Behind the archer, a flute player, unarmed and wearing a chiton, has turned his feet to the left and is about to leave the battle for safety.

The armor of the figures shows a mix of hoplite and nonhoplite elements.
¹³
Judging from the crest and the neck protection, the five helmets that are visible seem to be Corinthian, though only the lead fighter on the left has what looks like a cheek piece. There are no greaves but, apart from the archer, the warriors are armed with single thrusting spears, which they use in an overhand style aimed at the opponent’s throat. The lead fighter on the left carries a hoplite shield; though the
porpax
and
antilabe
are not visible, the position of the arm leaves no question. Lorimer inferred corselets on several of the men as well. As for the nonhoplite elements, she argued that the figure between the archer and the lead fighter on the left is nude and that the warriors on either side of the figure with the hoplite shield carry Dipylon or Boeotian shields. However, whereas in Geometric art the Dipylon shield is always held vertically, here the fighters carry them slantwise like a hoplite shield.

Lorimer concluded from the mixture of hoplite and nonhoplite equipment and the presence of “heroic nudity” that, “though I have no doubt that one object of the Perachora aryballos was to depict the encounter of two hoplite forces, I have also felt certain from the first that the scene was at the same time meant to be heroic.”
¹⁴
On the suggestion of Dunbabin, she identified the scene as the slaying of Achilles by Paris. Whether or not the scene represents a specific legend, and whether or not nudity is an
indicator that the image is “heroic,” the Boeotian shield and the presence of an archer are not necessarily fictional or archaizing, so alternatively one could take the scene as evidence that hoplite and Boeotian shields continued to be in simultaneous use, and that archers still mingled with hoplites.

Apart from the use of hoplite equipment, further possible evidence for this image representing a closed phalanx in action, rather than a purely “heroic” scene, is the presence of a piper, who is assumed to have set a marching rhythm to help keep the formation intact (as in classical Sparta, according to Thucydides 5.70). However, the piper may instead have been present “for religious reasons” (as Thucydides implied was customary elsewhere in Greece), that is, to accompany the singing of a paean by the soldiers as they advanced into battle, without implying a regular formation.

An aryballos in the Berlin museum (
fig. 2-6
), which dates to about 650, depicts the encounter of four men on the far left opposing an advancing group of five, and then three men on the left of center face three on the right of center. On the far right, at the back of the vase, two hoplites attack two men that have fallen to their knees, and a third is in retreat. The wounded man to the left is about to receive the death blow in the back of his neck. It is not clear whether the three groups represent different stages of battle, or simultaneous actions on the right, center, and left of the battlefield, as one sometimes finds in the
Iliad
(esp. 13.308–29).