The strap itself was called a “porpax”, and the handle was called an “antilabē”. The Greek word for shield is "aspis", and the aspis donned by the Hoplites gave them their name The hoplon, mostly made of either poplar or willow wood, was backed with leather, and held securely by the user by placing his left forearm through a hoop and holding onto a grip near the shield’s rim At the advent of hoplite warfare, this was a breakthrough in the military, and was known as the Argive Grip. These men were armed with standardised equipment: bronze shin guards (greaves) and corslet, a bronze helmet designed to provide maximum protection to the head and face while still allowing for decent vision ahead of the wearer, and a heavy convex circular bronze-covered wooden shield called the hoplon, giving the soldiers their name of hoplite. The new soldier that emerged from all this change was called the Hoplite. To demonstrate that ALL male citizens were at one point soldiers, even the Athenian poet Aeschylus stood in the armies ranks for most of his life his grave even states that he wished to be remembered as a warrior, and not a tragedian. Desertion from the army could result in the individual loosing his citizenship.
Any male citizen was viable for military service from the age of 20, and remained in the muster role for around 40 years until retirement. It became the moral, social and political duty of a polis citizen to fight for his country during wartime. Depending on the size of the city-state, this allowed for a polis army comprised of anywhere between 3,000 and 8,000 fighting men at any one time, and these men would dominate politics of the leading states in several ways.
Spiked hoplite shield free#
While later on this criteria would seem to be somewhat restrictive, it was actually a very wide group, being made up of peasant-farmers who owned at least some of their own land in most states, this included roughly at least the upper third of the free adult male population.
Political honours were arranged according to the property men owned, and shared on some level by those who could afford to bare their own armament and panoply. The 6th century BC polis was commonly reorganised to produce vast bodies of trained military men, who would come to dominate politics. The military changes at the end of the 8th century BC in terms of weaponry, tactics and military personnel in turn brought further changes to social morality and politics. At the turn of the 7th century BC, in terms of supplies of raw materials and metal production skills and capacities, the Greek world’s economic base for weapons manufacturing was stable enough to allow for the breakthrough of a new form of warfare where before the Greek world had vast unorganised armies lead by champions, these new heavily armoured troops became the most effective military force in the Mediterranean, dominating the sea without much of a need to change their ways for centuries to come, and influencing other cultures around them in the process, until the rise of Macedon under Philip and Alexander, and eventually until the rise and conquests of Rome. In turn, this was crucial for the Greeks successful colonisation as they met tough and unfamiliar opponents across the Mediterranean. Metal trading, and its importance to those involved in it, were the symptoms of the military’s expanding technology.
A warrior’s status in Archaic Greece, and his parts to play in justifying and maintaining a collection of economic benefits, ethical values and political institutions, are already clear.
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