van Wees (ed.), War and Violence in Ancient Greece (2009), pp. As Louis Rawlings, amongst others, has shown, the supposed limitations of the aspis were not nearly as severe as previously proposed “Alternative agonies: Hoplite martial and combat experiences beyond the phalanx”, in H. Hanson, The Western Way of War (second edition, 1989), p. There is no reason to think it was inferior in certain settings, as implied by V.D. 305-319), soldiers began to think of it as superior to older and other designs. Josho Brouwers, “ From horsemen to hoplites: some remarks on Archaic Greek Warfare”, BABesch 82 (2007), pp.
Its gradual dominance in militaristic depictions from the Greek world implies that from its origins – probably in the eighth century BC – onward (the chronology is, as Josho wrote, “shrouded in mystery” cf. Snodgrass, Arms & Armor of the Greeks (1998, second edition), p. Anthony Snodgrass put it authoritatively: “the most important single item in the panoply of the hoplite (…) was the great round shield” (A.M. It is important for us to recognize the proper name of this shield, as it was central to the warfare of Archaic and Classical Greece, and indeed the rest of the Mediterranean. Whitehead, “The myth of the hoplite’s hoplon”, Classical Quarterly 46.1 (1996), pp. As John Lazenby and David Whitehead poignantly argued, in the period of its supremacy, this type of shield was called an aspis by the Greeks (J.F. But this is most certainly an anachronism. Diodorus Siculus straightforwardly says that they “had been called hoplites on account of their shield the hoplon” (15.44.3). In later generations, in fact, ancient authors drew a direct line between the shield which was by then referred to as a hoplon and the hoplite. The association of this shield with the Greek “hoplite” is ubiquitous. Not only do we see the face of the shield (soldier on the viewer’s right), but we also see the double-grip system ( porpax and antilab ē) on the viewer’s left.
A detail is shown above, used as this article’s featured image ( source). A beautiful sixth-century hyrdria, currently held in the Louvre, is a great example of this. Most images of ancient Greek soldiers show them armed with a large, round, shield. It is archived on this website with the kind permission of the author. This article was originally published on Ancient World Magazine.
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