The problem arises when attempting to define what sort of range of shields was the term aspis associated with. This means that the term aspis was associated by the ancients with a wider range of shields than merely the type we refer to as the hoplon shield. Even the mythical shield of Heracles was called an aspis in the Shield of Heracles, though you do not read about a porpax or an antilabe anywhere, although there it is round and features a rim. I said that what we call 'hoplon shield', a fact owed to distorting Roman linguisitc mediation, was called by the ancients (Argive) aspis, BUT the non-hoplite shields of the Geometric or the Mycenean era are also called by Homer aspis, just like the shield of the Macedonian type is called aspis. Xenophon, Hellenica VII,V,XXI understand, I stated that hoplon meant any piece of the offensive and defensive equipment of the hoplite. ".and all alike sharpened their spears and daggers and burnished their shields" ".pantes de êkonônto kai lonchas kai machairas kai elamprunonto tas aspidas." For Herodotus the hopla just means arms, while when he has giving a definition of shield they used, he uses just aspis. Giving a definition of shield they use words as aspis, sakos, kikos, pelte or gerron but never hoplon. For example in ancient Attic dialect, as the one used for example by Xenophon and Thucydides, there's no trace of hoplon word at all. In archaic Greek Hoplon meant many things and it could have been a misinterpretation by Diodorus. Hoplon term could be a Greek incorrect shield definition, because the shield was just aspis. ![]() Besides, why not state clearly ' hoplitas'/' hopliton', which is what you would have found in Thucidides and Xenophon, if that was the case? I also find it extremely improbable that Polybius, when narrating the battle of Mantineia that first saw the reformed Achaean army, would have applied the term ' phalangitas' and ' phalangiton' to traditional hoplites, which is suspiciously close to the division of Pyrrhus' undoubtedly Macedonian type of infantrymen, the ' speiran phalangitike', and which as a term, as far as I recall, was never applied by classical authors to the iinfantryman of the hoplite phalanx. And it turned out just as Alexander had conjectured and exhortedī) it doesn't make much sense for the Achaeans to have switched from classical hoplites to thyreophoroi and thorakitai and then Philopoemen to change them back into hoplites at a point when the hoplite armament had been almost completely abandoned in Greece. Here's the account of Alexander's famous strategem against the Triballians:īut Alexander formed a plan by which he might cross the mountain with the least danger possible and since he was resolved to run all risks, knowing that there were no means of passing elsewhere, he ordered the heavy-armed soldiers, as soon as the waggons began to rush down the declivity, to open their ranks, as many as the road was sufficiently wide to permit to do so and to stand apart, so that the waggons might roll down through the gap but that those who were hemmed in on all sides should either stoop down together or even fall flat on the ground, and lock their shields compactly together, so that the waggons rushing down upon them, and in all probability by their very impetus leaping over them, might pass on without injuring them. At any rate, Plutarch's terminology is lent weight by Arrian, who also uses the term aspis for the shields of the Macedonian phalangitae. Whether mistaken or not, the point is that Plutarch uses the word aspis to describe the shield of the Macedonian type, since there is no way a hoplon shield, which featured a double grip, could be combined with a sarissa, which needed both hands to wield. I hard to say how accurate any late authors usage really was, but since Polybius mostly used phrases like armed in the Macedonian fashion, rather than describing the sarissa and shield combo I wonder if on balance its not more likely Plutarch is mistaken or being sloppy.I know this butĪ) it doesn't really matter if Pausanias' " larger dory and Argive aspis" or Plutarch's " apsis and sarissa" was actually the case. In the same event described by Pausanius he uses doru and argive aspis for the arms the Philopoemen recommended (8.50). ![]() ![]() ![]() I'm not so sure - Plutarch many in fact be using sarissa indistinctly not aspis.
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