Spartan hoplite shield transfers7/6/2023 ![]() ![]() Together they sang and they danced, they worked out, they competed in sports, they boxed and wrestled, they hunted, they dined, they cracked jokes, and they took their repose. There was very little that they did alone. But, in the course of the Archaic Period (c.750-500 BC), with the establishment of the good order and lawfulness that the ancients from Homer on called eunomia, this is precisely what Sparta (or Lacedaemon) became: a meticulously, more or less coherently ordered whole – apt to elicit admiration.Īs a ruling order, the Spartiates constituted a seigneurial class blessed with leisure and devoted to a common way of life centred on the fostering of certain manly virtues. Herodotus once described Sparta as a kosmos, and Plutarch later followed his lead. A detailed analysis of the Battle of Plataea affords an intimate insight into these two military systems – one based on heavy infantry, the other on archery, cavalry, and more lightly armoured men – and into the ultimate superiority of the former. In Paul’s second article, he deals with that extraordinary collision between the ‘Western way of war’ represented by the Greeks and the ‘Eastern way of war’ embodied in the armies of the Great King of Persia. The weakness is obvious: the phalanx was a ponderous formation, and if it could be taken in flank or rear, it was doomed. What emerged was a shield-wall (when viewed from the front) given great solidity by its depth (viewed from the side). Even the most cursory reading of Homer (whose work, in its final form, dates to around 750 BC) reveals a form of warfare very different from the tight-packed, heavily armoured, eight-ranks deep blocks of spearmen that we hear of in the pages of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, writing in the 5th and 4th centuries.Īs Paul Rahe explains in the first of two articles forming our special this time, the hoplite shield, the aspis, seems to have driven this ‘military revolution’ – the shift from the individualistic fighting of aristocratic champions to the mass-formation fighting of the essentially middle-class phalanx. What might be called ‘Homeric warfare’ had been based on the prowess of individual aristocratic warriors mounted on horses or chariots and wielding bows or javelins as primary weapons. Photo: akg-images / De Agostini / G Dagli Orti. We do know that they brought it to the highest level of perfection. We do not know whether the Spartans were the originators of the hoplite phalanx. While the rest of Greece was working in the fields, the Spartans were drilling. This freed up the adult male citizen-body – around 10,000 strong at peak – for full-time military training. What is certainly true is that Sparta fielded the only fully professional army in Classical Greece – because it was the only city-state whose citizen elite were not required to labour, because they had a class of subject helots, effectively state serfs, to work their farms for them. Sparta looks more like a model for militarists, empire-builders, even fascists. ![]() Not so Sparta, with its obsessive focus on brutal discipline, preparation for war, and the subjugation of others. Athens is associated with art, reason, and democracy the sort of place where liberals, intellectuals, and bohemians might have felt at home. Publishers use these marks when books are returned to them.Everyone is either an Athenian or a Spartan, it has been said. Remainder Mark - A remainder mark is usually a small black line or dot written with a felt tip pen or Sharpie on the top, bottom, side page edges and sometimes on the UPC symbol on the back of the book.If excessively worn, they will be marked as "tray worn." Flat trays for SPI games are not graded, and have the usual problems.If excessively worn, they will be marked as "card worn." The cardboard backing of miniature packs is not graded.In most cases, boxed games and box sets do not come with dice.Due to the nature of loose counters, if a game is unplayable it may be returned for a refund of the purchase price. Boardgame counters are punched, unless noted.Major defects and/or missing components are noted separately.Example, EX+ is an item between Excellent and Near Mint condition. A "plus" sign indicates that an item is close to the next highest condition.When only one condition is listed, then the box and contents are in the same condition. ![]() Boxed items are listed as "code/code" where the first code represents the box, and the second code describes the contents. ![]()
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