{"id":99335,"date":"2026-11-08T01:00:23","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T06:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=99335"},"modified":"2026-11-07T08:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T13:16:30","slug":"qotd-what-is-a-hoplite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/qotd-what-is-a-hoplite\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: What is a Hoplite<\/em>?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Before we dive in, we need to clarify some terms<\/strong> and outline periodization<\/strong> or nothing that follows is going to make very much sense.<\/p>\n

First we can begin with the very basic question of what is a hoplite<\/em><\/strong>?<\/p>\n

The term “hoplite<\/em>” (Greek hoplites<\/em> (\u1f41\u03c0\u03bb\u03af\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2), plural hoplitai<\/em> (\u1f41\u03c0\u03bb\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9)) means “equipped [man]” or “armored [man]”, from hoplon<\/em> (\u1f45\u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd), “equipment, tool, weapon”. You will still sometimes hear that hoplon<\/em> was the name for the hoplite<\/em>‘s shield, but this is not quite right: the shield was an aspis<\/em>, whereas hopla<\/em> (the plural of hoplon<\/em>) is used to describe a hoplite<\/em>‘s full kit. Diodorus offers the etymology of hoplite<\/em>, “these were earlier called hoplites<\/em> from the aspides<\/em>, and then took a new name, peltasts<\/em> from the pelte<\/em> [a lighter shield]” which at no point insists that the aspis<\/em> was called a hoplon<\/em> (Diod. Sic. 15.44.3).1<\/sup> So while many Greek troops are named for their shields \u2013 chalkaspides<\/em>, argyraspides<\/em>, peltastai<\/em>, thureophoroi<\/em>, etc. (notice all of those \u2013aspides<\/em>!) \u2013 especially in the Hellenistic period when Diodorus is writing (which may be why he makes this guess), hoplites<\/em> were not one of them: they were not named for their shields but for their whole panoply<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

We might thus define a hoplite<\/em> as a “fully equipped man”, where the equipment in question was generally at a minimum the aspis<\/em> (a large round double-strap grip shield), a doru<\/em> (a fairly standard one-handed thrusting spear<\/a> whose only unusual characteristic is that its spear-butt is unusually developed) and a metal helmet; one certainly gets the sense from the sources that some sort of body armor was also an expectation here (e.g. Hdt. 9.63.2, but it is not clear how often that was realized in practice (frequently, it must be said \u2013 but perhaps not always). These men also generally carried swords as backup weapons.<\/p>\n

By the time we can see them clearly<\/em> (in the 400s) these fellows generally<\/em> fight in a formation the Greeks call a phalanx<\/em> (\u03c6\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03be), but we need to issue an immediate caution that \u03c6\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03be is not a technical term in Greek but rather the equivalent to Latin’s acies<\/em> in that it just means “battle line”. Consequently Greek authors can and will use it to refer to any<\/em> clear battle line and it gets used of hoplites<\/em>, but also pike-wielding sarissa<\/em> infantry and also Roman legions and also barbarians and also chariots<\/em> and also elephants<\/em><\/strong> at points<\/a>. The word is actually even more general<\/em> than this and seems to have at its core the idea of a beam or trunk \u2013 it can mean the main mass of something (as opposed to its edges), like the trunk of a tree or a beam of wood, it can mean the finger-bone but also is used for rows of eyelashes. And you can kind of get how, metaphorically, you get from finger-bones in a row or eyelashes in a row or beams or planks (in a row at regular distances) or even just the central mass of a tree to either men lined up neatly or the central mass of an army<\/em>.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

We’re going to get into the particulars of exactly how we might imagine hoplites<\/em> fought and how exactly a phalanx of them (keeping in mind you can have a phalanx of other things<\/em>) might fight as we go along. But those are our key terms: a hoplite<\/em> is a soldier with a specific “full” or “heavy” equipment set (aspis<\/em>, spear, sword, helmet, cuirass) and hoplites<\/em> sometimes fight in a close-order shield-wall infantry formation<\/a> called a phalanx. I don’t want to go much further than this because what we’re going to see in part two is that some of the fights about hoplites<\/em> and especially about the phalanx are definitional<\/em> and I don’t want to load those dice here before we’ve even introduced the debate \u2013 better to come at it with relatively few assumptions.<\/p>\n

On to periodization<\/strong>. We generally break down this period of Greek antiquity into the following periods:<\/p>\n