Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (43 page)

Despite these considerable drawbacks, it has frequently been claimed that the hoplite shield is no less apt for single combat than other shield types;
³³
but this claim is too optimistic. The shield seemingly afforded good protection against any kind of edged weapon brought to bear against it, but that protection came at a price. Its size, shape and weight were enough to require some sort of alleviation, and this need in turn dictated the well-known combination of the double grip and holding posture peculiar to this shield type, entailing a series of consequences for close combat. When in use, the hoplite shield—uniquely—was supported on no fewer than
three
points: the elbow (the
porpax
), the wrist (the
antilabē
), and, by means of using the unique “lip” of the shield edge to hang or rest its weight there, the shoulder.
³⁴
The left-side-forward posture not only seems natural to assume in combat; it also greatly relieves the strain on the arm and shoulder by taking advantage of all three support points. Furthermore, when the rim is rested upon the bearer’s shoulder, the shield is carried aslant, its lower rim jutting out before the hoplite. This has the additional advantage of enlarging the
zone of protection considerably. The inclination of the shield would also have served to make spear and sword thrusts glance off the shield, although, as is in evidence from iconography, the upper edge of a shield supported on the bearer’s shoulder was also directly under his chin if he was adopting a sideways-on stance. This meant that a thrust delivered to the top half of his shield might glance off the polished surface and straight into his face or throat, just as anything that jolted the shield forcefully upward at the lower edge, such as a swift kick, must have directed the upper edge in the same direction. Nevertheless, vase images clearly bear out that this was in fact the normal grip and defensive stance with a hoplite shield; and people who have actually worn replicas of hoplite armor have assured me that this way of handling the shield is not only the logical but indeed the
only possible
way.
³⁵

Furthermore, the hoplite shield had certain design drawbacks compared with other, lighter shield types having a single central grip. The double-grip system dictated that the shield could be held with the left arm
only
, whereas a single-grip shield could easily be shifted from one hand to the other to ease the strain on arm and shoulder. The hoplite shield for this reason generated even greater strain on the left arm, and supporting it on the shoulder was an absolute necessity, not simply a convenience. For the shield to afford sufficient protection, it must also be held as far away from the body as possible, and aslant at an angle of approximately 45°. This increased the angle of deflection and kept penetrating weapons farther away from the bearer’s body, but it also increased the strain on the left arm considerably.

However, an even more serious drawback was the fact, to my knowledge hitherto overlooked in scholarship, that in order to use a double-grip shield properly, it can only be held out at half an arm’s length, since the forearm must of necessity be bent and held at right angles to the upper arm. The zone of protection therefore begins already at the elbow, and cannot be extended beyond it. The frontal range is thus drastically reduced. A single-grip shield, on the other hand, can be held out at a full arm’s length, or about twice as far from the body as the hoplite shield. This is important because it means that a hoplite shield’s surface area must necessarily be much larger than a single-grip shield needs to be: the single-grip shield, being held at a full arm’s length from the body, can afford to be much smaller while still offering the same degree of protection. It decreases the adversary’s angle of attack just as effectively as the much larger hoplite shield does, simply by being held at twice the distance from the body. Furthermore, by merely turning the wrist, the single-grip shield can be rotated to maximize the angle of deflection, even when the bearer reaches across to his own right side. Thus, incoming attacks can be countered earlier and perhaps “nipped in the bud” by merely parrying with the shield. That these exact advantages of a smaller, single-grip shield were well understood in antiquity is demonstrated by Diodoros, who comments approvingly on the Iberians’ use of such targes.
³⁶

A hoplite shield could of course also be moved about to a certain degree, but, owing to its awkward size and shape, not exactly briskly; and if it was moved about actively to parry or block incoming blows and thrusts, this was carried out with the shield very near the body: there was little time and room for secondary measures if a parry came too late or was misdirected.

Weight, shape, and size together thus made a hoplite shield very awkward to “wield”; and it is open to serious doubt whether anyone, no matter how strong or how well trained, was able to sustain its weight, let alone wield it, for any considerable amount of time during combat.

Comparison with a Modern Combat Shield

A major problem facing scholars trying to assess the combat aptitude of ancient weapons is naturally the scarcity of possibilities to try to handle them, let alone under anything resembling actual fighting conditions. Accordingly, the next best thing would be if it were possible to obtain this much-needed information from somebody who has actually tried using similar items.

Police forces around the world have regularly used shields against rioters throwing stones, bottles, or even Molotov cocktails; and Danish riot police have often seen action, particularly against squatters in the 1980s, but on many other occasions as well. The police are among the very few today who have any experience with handling a shield in combat, and the theory and practice of shield fighting employed by them is therefore very relevant in a discussion of what can and cannot be done with a shield. For this reason, I contacted the riot squad section of the Danish police academy in Copenhagen. The following is the distilled result of a long interview I conducted with Chief Inspector Claus Olsen of the Danish police, who supervises the combat training section and has taught riot control for many years, including the use of double-grip shields in phalanx-like formations.

Danish police riot control forces regularly used shields from the 1970s until recently, when they were almost completely abandoned in favor of more mobile and offensive tactics. The shield in question is rectangular with rounded corners and made of Plexiglas, and so its shape is possibly more reminiscent of a Roman legionary
scutum
. It is fitted with a double-grip carrying system that allows for ambidexterity, placed in the middle. The grips are affixed at approximately 45° to the vertical edge, so that the arm is inserted at an oblique angle. The shield measures 95 × 60 cm, or 5,700 cm
²
and as such is roughly comparable with the surface area of a hoplite shield, but the weight is nonetheless kept down to a mere 2.74 kg. Despite the shield’s weighing no more than between 34 and 39 percent of a hoplite shield, however, it was considered a weapon suitable only for defensive fighting. Policemen would typically form defensive lines (termed “chains”), and stand so close that the edges of their shields actually touched. They then advanced to the combat zone and kept their position. The defensive character of these formations was underlined by the fact that policemen in combat gear would also be equipped with visored helmets, greaves, bulletproof vests, and thick, padded gloves.

According to Chief Inspector Olsen, the shield was deemed too heavy, large, and awkward to be wielded freely, and to be put to offensive use—so much so, in fact, that a provisional concept was devised for offensive action. The stationary shield line might under certain circumstances be supported by hastily summoned plainclothes
policemen, who would be equipped only with modified standard shields. The modified shield is identical to the normal type, but is simply sawn off just above the middle near where the grips are affixed, so that a little less than half the shield remains. Much like a buckler, this lighter shield could be swung around with comparative ease; and unlike the large shield, the adapted version could therefore be used offensively, combined with a lack of body armor to ensure crucial mobility. These policemen, cowering behind the wall of shields held by the front line in full combat gear, would then be able to move around the chain, dart forward, and close with rioters who had ventured too close to the line. It should be noted, however, that this was a stopgap measure intended to enable police to arrest the most aggressive individuals, since police generally had no interest in actually
clashing
with the rioters but rather aimed at containing them and driving them away from crowded spaces, thereby protecting the public and property.

The stationary, defensive police line could thus benefit from the unarmored, lighter troops, who could prevent aggressive missile-throwing rioters from coming close to their position with impunity—something that was otherwise a possibility. In other words: policemen with shields, and in combat gear, were considered unable to fight hand-to-hand, whereas they were extremely well suited to braving barrages of thrown cobblestones and bottles. Individually, however, they could do little more than that, and the practice of leaving the line to pursue rioters was discouraged for two reasons: first, this threatened to disrupt the shield wall and endanger the entire position; second, although well protected, policemen were unfit for single combat because of the large, heavy, and unwieldy shield.

It may of course be objected that Danish police shields are rectangular and as such not comparable to hoplite shields; but this is immaterial, since riot squads of other countries’ police forces operate with riot shields of other shapes, among them circular, as I have witnessed myself in Greece.
³⁷
Clearly, then, it is possible to make a satisfactory shield line, providing sufficient shelter for the members, with round shields.

The standard police shield, deemed too heavy and clumsy by well-trained and physically fit riot squad policemen, weighed not much more than a third of a typical hoplite shield. It seems unlikely that hoplites in bronze armor would have been able to do what fit and trained policemen cannot, or at least deem hopeless—namely, fight as duelists in serial
monomachiai
, wielding their three times heavier shields with ease against attacks from all corners.

Physiology

Another factor worth considering is the physical characteristics of the men actually wearing the armor. When theories are put forward about what could and could not be done while wearing hoplite armor, frequently based on assessments of what “adult males” are capable of, the tacit assumption must
eo ipso
be that Greek men of antiquity are immediately comparable to modern Western men.
³⁸
However, whereas the weight and measurements of the surviving specimens of armor, and to a certain degree
weapons, are naturally constants (leaving aside for the moment the effects of oxidation, corrosion, weathering, and other decay of the materials, and the corresponding compensation estimates made), there is no guarantee that the individuals who had to wear and use them were physiologically similar to modern men. The questions concerning bearer physiology are thus of crucial importance for understanding the “relative” weight of hoplite weapons and armor; yet the problem of this relation has seldom, if ever, been addressed. It is therefore well worth examining the available data supplied by skeletal remains from the Archaic and Classical periods.

John Lawrence Angel, who in 1945 examined skeletal remains exhumed in Attica, put the average height of the Greek male in antiquity at no more than 162.2 cm, and of the female at 153.3 cm. It should be pointed out, however, that these data accrue from a rather scanty sample material: 61 male and 43 female skeletons from Attica, as against a total of 225 datable males and 132 females in all of Greece proper.
³⁹
Similar results accrue from Angel’s 1944 analysis of all ancient Greek skeletal remains known at the time: here, the result is given as 162.19 cm for males, with a range between extremes of 148 and 175 cm. The result for females overall remains the same.
⁴⁰
Angel, whose interest was primarily “racial” analysis, lists crania from Attica, Boiotia, Corinthia, and Macedonia; but unfortunately he does not indicate the distribution of more complete skeletons, which may have formed the basis for the calculations.
⁴¹
Nevertheless it must be assumed that the average measurements actually represent the average, geographically as well as chronologically.
⁴²

The comparatively scanty material notwithstanding, we would be well advised to keep in mind that, in the words of Lin Foxhall and Hamish Forbes, “this sample may be biased in favour of higher socio-economic groups since it is the graves of the comparatively wealthy that are most likely to receive attention from archaeologists.”
⁴³
If this is accepted, it follows that the average Greek male was in fact likely
less
well nourished, and the skeletons examined by Angel may well belong in the absolute upper percentile.
⁴⁴
Walter Donlan and James Thompson give the average height of Greek males in the Classical period as approximately 170 cm, with body weight between 65 and 67 kg.
⁴⁵
Unfortunately, however, their article gives no information about how these results were arrived at; so Angel’s data must assume priority.

The modern European or American adult male, on the other hand, measures approximately 179 cm on average.
⁴⁶
Determination of body weight is more complicated, as it depends to a large extent on a wide variety of other factors (age being but one); but the average weight of modern males between the ages of twenty and sixty is 80.97 kg.
⁴⁷
It is therefore certain that Greek men in antiquity were shorter than Western men today; and it is also highly likely that they were noticeably lighter, considering a diet consisting largely of cereals and pulse and to a certain extent vegetables.
⁴⁸