History of the Phalanx Hoplite
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Part 7 - Armour
Military Technology in itself rarely if ever invents tactics. Consequently, we should imagine that Greeks throughout the Dark Ages fought in loose bands of poorly protected skirmishers who followed mounted nobles into battle.
As such serfs became detached from aristocrat houses and set off on their own, they would gain the means to craft their weapons to meet their own needs as ground fighters. Most obviously, rectangular shields were replaced by circular ones of strong oak, where the extra weight was handled by a new double grip. Linen and leather corselets gave way to bronze, and javelins and two spears were superseded by a single tough cornel spear with an iron tip. The depression of the round hoplite shield, the back plate of bronze and the addition of a spike to the bottom of the spear are more subtle refinements that reflect the needs of those in the middle and rear ranks who might rest their shields on their shoulders, push on the men ahead and use their spears butt-ends to dispatch enemies lying down as they marched.
Hoplite technology was not a dramatic revolution that creates the city state through superior weaponry of a new military class. Rather it is a reflection of the fact that middling agrarians were already established and now dictated the entire rule and rituals of Greek warfare, crafting novel weapons and protocols to ensure the exclusivity of yeoman infantry under the traditional Green practices of massed attack.
And there was nothing like the hoplite equipment anywhere in the Mediterranean, suggesting that only a free citizenry would craft, wear and maintain such cumbersome weapons that might total half the wearer's weight. Prejudice about their use is present in nearly all Greek literature. While the 50-70 pounds of wood, iron and bronze gave unmatched safety, the ensemble was also a curse. It was uncomfortable, ponderous, hot, impeding motion and mollifying most of its wearer's senses. Aristophanes joked that the breastplate was better used as a chamber pot, the shield as a well-cover.
Part 8 - Hoplite Accessories
There were no holes for hearing in the massive Corinthian helmets, no netting or interior suspension to cushion blows to the head. Instead, the wearer had only some stitched leather inside and his own hair as a buffer against the rough bronze. Spear thrusts to the head bruised the brain. The helmets narrow eye-slits cut off peripheral vision. And the massive horsehair crest, while lending a sense of ferocity to its otherwise diminutive owner and deflecting blows from above, must have further obstructed the vision of others in the phalanx, and made the bulky and top-heavy helmet even more awkward. Indeed, vase paintings occasionally show hoplites that were implausibly grabbed and pulled by their crests. By the later fifth century a conical bronze cap without facial protection was understandably preferred.
The bell corselet of a forth inch thickness of bronze, offered substantial protection against nearly every type of arrow, spear or sword attack, allowing Greek infantry to slice through the sea of spears in a way unmatched until medieval times. Yet, most early breastplates weighed between 25-30 pounds. Without ventilation, they became little more than solar collectors on the summer battlefield. Stooping, sitting or rising required huge effort and it is no accident that a favorite scene on both stone sculpture and ceramic paining is the scrum where soldiers stumble, fall, or lie recumbent, stuck fast in their cumbersome armour. We can only imagine how early hoplites, who originally wore additional thigh, upper-arm, ankle, stomach, and ever foot armour, could even move, much less fight under such weight. Many of the less affluent fighters must have preferred composite leather body protection, which, as armies became larger by the fifth century, became common, with reinforces leather strips dangling below to protect the groin. The universal flute players present on early vases thus seem logical - early heavily clad hoplites of the seventh and sixth centuries probably lumbered in cadence to music until the very last yards before the enemy. The reactionary Spartans always advanced to the enemy's spears at a slow walk set to flutes, and probably wore the heaviest of all panoplies well into Classical times.
The extraordinary double-gripped, concave 3-foot shield was singular: there were no circular shields of comparable size and design anywhere before in the Mediterranean. Greek phalanxes were calibrated by the depth of their cumulative shields- 8 deep, 25 deep, 50 deep - not by counting spears, or even referring to the rows of infantrymen themselves. The shields grip and arm support distributed the 16-20 pound weight along the whole are rather then on just the hand. And the depression of the shield, allowed the hoplites shoulder to be tucked under the upper shield rim: those in the middle and rear ranks could rest their arms entirely as the ponderous weight fell on the body itself. Because of the circumference of the shield the thickness had to be massively reduced unfortunately due to the weight. That means it was much easier to break. Throughout Greek literature we lean of the wood shield splintering or cracking. Its thin bronze faceplate, decorated by hideous blazons and later patriotic symbols, was designed mostly to inspire terror and in a practical sense to prevent weathering of the laminated wood core.
Greaves gave some protection to the shins from missile attack and downward spear thrusts. But the absence of laces may suggest that they were intended to be bent around the leg and kept in place solely by the flexibility of the bronze.
A good fit was essential, and so of all the items in the panoply we should imagine that such lower leg guards were the most troublesome ad so often likely to be thrown away. By late Classical times only officers and the wealthy wore greaves with any frequency.
Scholars are unsure to what degree the entire panoply was worn in different periods by all members of the phalanx. Heavier armament seems to have been a hallmark of the seventh century. Later, composite materials were substituted for bronze and some items cast off entirely in a slow evolutionary trend to lighten weight and gain mobility, as the size of armies grew and the nature of the enemy became less predictable. The cost to outfit a hoplite was not excessive- less than half a year's wage. The shield and spear were made of wood, and leg, arm and thigh protection was optional and rare, leaving the chief expense of the bronze helmet and breastplate well within the reach of yeoman farmers.
Part 9 - Weaponry
The small secondary iron sword or cleave was used to dispatch fallen and wounded enemies, and provided some insurance should the spear splinter. But the Greeks said 'taken by the spear', never 'by the sword', and the 7-9-foot spear was the hoplite's chief weapon used commonly for thrusting and rarely, and only in the most desperate situation, thrown. Because the left hand was need for the large shield the right one alone could wield little more than the weight of an 8 foot long, 1 inch diameter wood shaft with two metal points. All ancient Greek infantry armament is governed by this often unrecognizable relationship between the size of the shield and the length of the spear which often reveals either a defensive of offensive strategy of the military culture- lethal heavy pikes are impossible as long as a soldier must employ his left hand to hold a large shield to protect himself and his comrades.
In contrast to the later tiny shield, fabric body armour and enormous pikes of Hellenistic phalangites, the hoplite panoply during the age of the city state put its main concern, in defense- heavy breastplate, enormous shields, moderate length spears -which showed the conservation of its owner. Mobility, speed range- all the factors that promote real killing on the battlefield -were secondary to the hoplites chief concern: group solidarity and maximum defense, crucial to cement ties and allow the farmers to push through or knock down the enemy and so get back quickly to their home plots in one piece.
Part 10 - Wounds and Medication
The large shield breastplate covered the vital organs and directed attacks to another region. Yet even the sword and spear cuts to the unprotected areas could be treated without fatal complications, if not infected. While the Greeks knew nothing infection, long experience had taught them that wound cleaning and bandaging could prevent complication and stem blood loss.
Battle wounds likely to kill were penetrating spear thrusts to the unprotected throat, neck and face, thighs and groin. Especially lethal were deep puncture wounds to the areas, most likely inflicted in the initial crash, when the running hoplite could lend momentum and real power to his first spear stab. And just as serious were compound fractures inflicted in the mad pushing, when a heavier armed hoplite stumbled and was trampled and kicked by his own men. While Greek medicine knew sophisticated methods of setting bones and extracting shrapnel, its use of lint and fabric, together with plant juices, myrrh and wine, could not help major damage to the arteries and internal bleeding involving the vital organs. Any hoplite that fell would probably have been either kicked several times or finished off with secondary thrusts from the butt-end spike of the spear. Such victims most probably died in a matter of minutes from blood loss and shock.
The key to a hoplite survival was to withstand the initial crash, stay upright, and keep the enemy at his face should there be panic and flight. If a man could just manage that, there was a good chance that his bronze would keep out deep wounds, while slices, scrapes and stabs to his arms and legs were treatable and most often survivable.
Part 11 - Conclusion
By the early seventh century, the seeds of later Greek and Roman military dynamics had been sown: a radically new military tradition in the West was being used among the citizenry with its chief tenet centered around the heroic and face-to-face collisions of masses armies of free citizens, in which daylight fighting, notification of intent, and the absence of ambush and maneuver put a high price on nerve and muscle. At its start, the practice of shock battle was embedded amongst the narrowness of Greek agrarianism, whose moral protocols provided a break on the Greek tendency to improve technology and technique. Strategy was little more than taking back borderland. Yet within a few centuries, such agrarian stricture and ritual eroded. Decisive confrontation took on the spectacle of horrendous slaughter involving soldier and civilian alike- and on terrain and for purposes never dreamed of by the original Men of Bronze.
Sources-Warfare in the Classical World- by John Gibson Warry
War and Society in the Greek World- by John Rich
http://qa.perl.org/phalanx/history.html
http://www.holycross.edu/departments/classics/dawhite/
www.larp.com/hoplite/weapons.html