Arming an Archaic Hoplite - the Knight of the Ancient Greek Battlefield

The ancient Greek hoplite is a very iconic figure in our histories, however the archaic hoplite often gets overlooked for those of the early classical and for me personally the archaic hoplite is a far cooler version from style to even style of warfare than the classical hoplite is. Today we're going to take a look at this more overlooked era of hoplite history, being the sort of mid to late archaic period, pre-Persian wars, and see how a well-armored hoplite of that period was armed. The first piece of armor that you'd actually put on are your greaves. For that I have to have my sandals off and I'm also going to wear some felted socks. Now we actually do have evidence of felted socks being worn in this period, however there's quite a big shoe debate about ancient Greeks regarding did they wear shoes did they not. I found these to be very helpful with greaves and the foot armor that we're putting on later and we do have evidence for them in the period and for us modern people who maybe don't go around barefoot a lot, socks are very much a welcomed addition to our panoplies. These go on just like regular socks like so and then these greaves are what we call anatomical greaves, which means that they are designed to fit basic human anatomy quite in a stylized way. We do also see in this period non-anatomical greaves. This is sort of when we start to see the anatomical armor kicking off. This I suppose you could say is the transitional period, sort of quite a broadly speaking area of time, but where you start to see the transition from non-anatomical armors to anatomical armors. These are self clamping which means they don't need to be fastened by straps or buckles. We do sometimes see greaves with the ability to be fastened but this seems to be the most standard and it can be a little uncomfortable, you just sort of have to go through it, but you essentially slot it on and slide it up your legs. With the socks it really makes the world of difference because it doesn't bite into your ankle which otherwise would do. You can sort of see how quick and easy that is to put on and that stays on really really well and same for the other leg. Something else that we see in the archaic period, which is what I'm going to go to next, is the addition of other pieces of armor that we don't see in the classical period, which are for whatever reason dropped. That includes sabatons, anatomical in this case, and also thigh armor or your medieval terminology your coisse. We see these depicted in art, we have a few archaeological finds, and these are essentially what protects your thighs. And this is something that I think is so cool about the archaic period top plate is that we essentially see an entirely armed individual, even in some cases upper and lower arm armor, you have essentially full plate armor in the 6th century or even the 7th century BC. This level of armament doesn't really reappear in the historical timeline until the medieval period, so it's really really cool for me that you have that sort of ancient Greek style in a full plate harness. Now there's a little bit of assumptions going into this style of armor, we don't know how they were worn. Originally ironmaidies, so that they were self-clamping, they eventually slipped. So what I've essentially done is I've made, very similar to medieval period, an arming belt. And that's how I'm gonna wear these, do them up as a belt and then they'll be buckled around my legs. However we also seem to see similarly self-clamping as well, but I think it's highly likely that an arming belt was worn. It was worn for later periods that wore the same piece of armor essentially, and through everyone that I know who have recreated thigh armor, some sort of suspension system has been needed. And for your sake I won't show you, put this on us, I'm gonna have to reveal quite a bit. So I've now got the thigh armor on and they all stay up quite well and they obviously protect the thighs. And again this is a really interesting piece of armor that we see dropped around 500 BC, you'll probably see it lingering a little bit after that. But this really only existed for, you know, maybe 100 years, 70 years, that we see in the artistic record and archaeological record. And then this sort of extra limb armor, arm armor, thigh armor, foot armor, just completely drops out of use. And we don't really know why this happened. There's a few reasons to that which we'll probably get onto later, but the next piece of armor that we'll put on are, well, our shoes and then the sabatons. It's always easier to armor your legs before you then come up onto the torso. So now that all the sandals are laced we come to actually one of my favorite pieces of armor, that being the sabatons, the foot armor. And these are really really interesting. These are based on a find currently housed in the British Museum and these I just think are so neat because it's like we need to find a way to protect our feet. So we are literally going to make metal feet with little hinged toes. And they just have a very simple sort of strapping method. There's a strap that goes underneath and then a strap that goes around the ankle. And the curve of that foot comes right up snug against the curve of the grieve, which means there is very very little gap to be exploited. My feet are really really well protected and your feet and legs are really one of the only spots ever exposed in hoplite style warfare, and really one of the only targets far from the head if you are well armored. And I think it's really really interesting why these pieces of armor fell out of use. And it's a theory and it's a discussion that you know we can't really answer. We don't know for sure. I don't think they would have been impractical as through our sort of tests and sparring that we've done I found that having this leg armor has been a massive advantage to me. I did have an issue where, and I think this is probably likely why we start to see these additional pieces of armor drop out of use, is at the recent events at Fort Loudoun just over a week ago, two weeks ago. We did a very very long march, about a three hour march, and I went in full panoply and I found that after about an hour and a half, I didn't realize this, my feet sabatons came loose, which obviously isn't ideal. And that was when I was not wearing my socks and they rubbed the roof of my foot raw. And I think that that might be an issue, is these things are sort of impractical on the march, on large campaigns, and in the archaic period we see far more smaller style engagements. We don't really see large military campaigns in the archaic period nearly as much as the classical. It would have been far easier for me to sort of chuck this on a wagon or have one of my sort of slaves or servants carry this for me, as opposed to when you were going on longer campaigns it becomes, you know, a little bit more difficult to transport these extra pieces of kit. You have to take, you know, more rations, more materials with you because you're going to be campaigning for a longer period of time as opposed to, you know, just the weekend across to the next polis. So that is my legs fully armoured, and as you can see I'm really, really well protected. And that's even without an addition of a shield. My feet are covered, my shins are covered, my thighs are covered. There are very, very few areas that you will be able to get me on my legs, and I'm still very mobile, okay. You don't really get too impacted in your mobility when you have leg armour. And this is, again, just one of the reasons why I love this sort of era of Greek armament, is, of course, this wasn't universal. This would have been a very aristocratic hoplite. This entire panoply is based on a Laconian bronze figurine, so likely a Spartiate, so a very, very aristocratic member of society. You would have still seen hoplites, you know, basically just affording bare minimum, no body armour, and you see this sort of prime, fully equipped hoplite. The panoplytes is often what we sort of see described, which means men with all the equipment as opposed to just equipped men, and you can sort of really see why you have that full panoply. And again, I don't even, I'm not even as fully armoured as I could be, as I don't have upper and lower arms. Next is probably my favourite piece, maybe second favourite piece of the panoply, that being the cuirass or cuirass. This is what is known as a transitional cuirass. It's sort of an early stage development from the more archaic bell cuirass to the more classical muscle cuirass. So you still see the more characteristics of the bell. You have the sort of swirled chest, which I think looks really, really awesome. You have the actual bell shape. The shaping of this cuirass is very much more bell than muscle cuirass, but you start to see that anatomy sort of coming in to this cuirass, that sort of transitional period. This sort of categorised this panoply as a transitional panoply, which is quite a large span of time. So you know, this is dated around 550 BC, 530 BC. You would sort of still consider the battle of Thermopylae in 480 to be the transitional period. So it is really quite a blurry transition. This is really, really interesting armour in the way that it is attached to you. On the right side, your most exposed side, you have pins. However, the pins are actually on the inside and they remain fastened. On the other side, you have a lip on both top and the bottom that the front cuirass slots into. That is then tied at the bottom by a loop. Now this is really, really interesting because it essentially allows you to actually grow in, to shrink and expand the armour, which means if I'm wearing perhaps more padding or more underclothing, a thicker kite on, I actually have about an inch and a half, two inch leeway. If you happen to put on a little bit of extra weight, you have a little bit of leeway in how well you can make this armour fit to you. Then on the top of the armour, you have a very simple pin. So there's a pin on the back plate that the front plate overlaps and basically just clicks into like a Lego brick. This probably is possible to put on by yourself. I haven't experimented with that enough, so I'm going to go and get some help to put this on and then come back and show you it on. So now I've got the cuirass, I hope you can hear me okay. My microphone is probably in here a little bit somewhere. These cuirasses are really important that they fit properly and with the bell cuirass, you get excellent mobility with these things because of the design. It rests on my natural waist. I can lower my shoulders and the cuirass won't move. A cuirass should not be sitting on your shoulders, that means it is not fitting you properly. It should hug very much around your centre of mass, your waist, and it ends at my natural waist. So my belly button ends about, and it flares out into why it's given the very characteristic bell name, the bell cuirass, because it has this bell waist. And this is actually quite a shallow bell and more like pure bell cuirasses. We see almost like a tutu, like a full flanged out piece like that. But this still protects me for anything coming down, so about here, but it allows me excellent mobility in flexion. Now I actually find that the cuirasses interfere more because it actually hits like that, but otherwise you can flex very, very easily with the cuirass that's fitted properly with a nice bell. I can move far better in this than I can actually with my later muscle cuirass that comes down a little bit further. Next is your sidearm. In this case I have what is called a kopis. It literally means chopper. This is a sword idealized for cutting. It has its centre percussion moved further up due to the leafing of the blade, which allows very powerful slashes. The kopis wouldn't be the only sword that you'd see in this period. We would also have seen the xiphos, which is more of a leaf-shaped blade. You see in the later periods a very, very short almost dagger, otherwise of similar length, but more of a multi-tool used for stabbing and slashing. Of course you can still stab with the kopis, but it is optimized as a weapon. This is very different to later swords in the medieval period, for example, that are typically worn down on the hip. This is for a couple of main reasons. One is a smaller sword, so I can have it sort of tucked up there and it sort of remains out of the way. It also allows for when I am using this in conjunction with a shield, which I would always be doing, if I get in a tight press situation, I can grab this very easily. If my shield is pressed and I'm compacted, to grab down here is not very easy. It's far easier and I expose myself far less if I draw it that way as opposed to having to pull it out here. Also keep in mind I'm basically shoulder to shoulder with people around me or very, very close to people around me and drawing like that is going to impact them more than if I sort of draw like that. All right, the next piece of art that we put on is probably the most characteristic, of course, the helmet. This is what is called a myroscrintine helmet. This is more of an archaic style helmet and this seems to be very popular in and around the Peloponnese, possibly due to being manufactured by a Peloponnesian workshop. We have a little bit of evidence linking this actually to use in Sparta, which is really, really cool. That's basically just categorized by this slight notch in the ear, but otherwise it's decently similar to other crintine helmets of this period. You pad it out with an arming cap of some sort. We have evidence of sea sponge being used. I believe Aristotle tells us about a sea sponge. We have archaeological Etruscan finds of a grass woven hat, otherwise probably what was most common was a felted pilos hat, something that you wear in with the helmet. This helmet is very, very light and that's something that we see time and time again with Hellenic armors of all types is that they are very close fitting, they are relatively thin and they are very, very light. This can give us a lot of indication into the style of warfare that these guys would be fighting in and why they make certain stylistic and practical changes with their armor. For instance, these helmets were likely made originally from a casted front and then worked out in one piece, with the fronts often left thick. We even sometimes see as drastic as 10 millimeter nasals with like 0.5 millimeters on the back. This one is also accurate in the sense that it's pretty much uniform, it's two millimeters in the front and 0.8 millimeters in the back, but we often see the front being thickened and the back left thinner and this can also be seen in archaeological records that we often see the back of helmets with a big hole because it's a thinner metal. Now next would be the shield, but I'm going to go and turn our attention to spears. You will see I have two spears here, a little bit different to one another. I'm not sure if this one's in frame. You have the very stereotypical and famous dory used by the hoplites which is around, this one's on the shorter side about seven and a half feet. We typically see you know seven to nine feet or around 2.5 meters and double-ended. It has the iron acme at the front and the bronze sorator on the back. It does a few things, it acts as a counterweight, I can hold the spear a lot further back than forward which gives me more reach. Also it can be used very helpfully to allow the spear to stand up straight which is honestly one of my favorite things for it. It can be used to dispatch fallen enemies on the ground. This is an archaic style spear. You will notice it is significantly shorter, this is maybe around six and a half feet or around two meters. It is single-ended, does not have a sorator on the back and you'll also notice this here which is called an ankyle. Something that's really, really interesting that we see in the archaic period is two spears being brought to battle that doubled as javelins. So these guys were throwing, almost certainly these guys were throwing spears, they were a lot looser in style of warfare. We have artistic depictions of hoplites with rock throwers and javelin throwers standing directly behind them. The archaic period seems to be far less structured and far less of a dense compact phalanx than that of the classical period. We see hoplites throwing spears and it's very, very awesome to see. The you have your aspis in this hand, in that aspis you can also hold another spear very easily and you can throw this one. So the ankyle is essentially a booster for when you throw a javelin or a spear. It essentially allows you a little bit of extra oomph for the throw, it essentially slings it and some tests have shown that it can add an additional third of range to a throw. And you have to keep in mind as well, I'm not necessarily wanting to line up and do olympic style javelin throws. That's going to expose me quite a lot, it's going to be a little bit awkward for me to do when I'm fully kitted up. So I can, with the addition of an ankyle, remain pretty covered and still deliver a pretty powerful throw with the addition of the ankyle without having to make it a full body explosive motion. It's actually quite unclear when we start to see the dory emerge as a weapon used by the hoplites, but it's likely that this kit would have overlapped with it as well. So it's sort of neat, I typically use the dory more at our events because most people are representing classical hoplites, but it's also cool to show the different styles and spears that we see as well. And as you can see this is a fully kitted up archaic hoplite. I'm incredibly well armored, I'm very very well armored, and that's even without my upper arm and lower arm armor which also existed in the period. And you can see how covered I am with the addition of the shield. You know this was the knight of the ancient greek battlefield, this is pretty much as armored as you get historically speaking. You only really top this in the 15th century and 14th centuries. This is incredibly incredibly well armored and you have the addition of a very large shield. And that's something that's so interesting when we look at the archaic period is we often see these extra bits of armor which get, you know, dropped off. We see the bell sort of flaring out and we see far more missile weapons in the style of warfare. It is highly likely that lots of these extra additional pieces of armor were to combat the extra throne threats. The bell waist would do a very good job at stopping projectiles from coming down and hitting me. It's not just direct hits that you're having to worry about in this period of warfare where you're having to face against a lot of missile troops. It's ricochets, it's deflections, it's arrows bouncing off of shields, it's rocks bouncing off the guy next to me. Therefore that explains why we often see a lot of extra pieces of armor is because you're not even just having to defend from more weapons coming at you in general. You're having to defend yourself more from, you know, unseen threats. Ricochets, bouncing that, you know, otherwise could lacerate you or cut you. These extra bits of limb armor sort of help neglect that. And again they're very very thin. These armors aren't three millimeters. This cuirass and stuff like that we see now around around a millimeter thick which is still very very good at stopping stabs. You've tested it practically. A bronze cuirass, you're not stabbing through. You're just not. If you break through you're going through less than a millimeter. Not enough to maim the person at all. But this armor can tell us a lot about the style of warfare that we're likely seeing in this period. You are seeing lots of missiles, you are seeing, you know, more individualistic combat. You're not seeing as tightly packed as a phalanx as you would in the classical period. You're seeing javelin men and missile men in the ranks of the hoplites. You're seeing hoplites themselves throwing missiles. You're seeing probably a lot more one-on-one style sparring. Sort of a little bit of a bridge between Homeric era combat of more one-on-one duels and classical mass formational battles. The archaic period is likely sort of a bridge between those. Such an interesting period of history. I think the coolest looking armor of all time for me personally. I love the style and the option as well of having full plate. I think it's just absolutely awesome. And the style of warfare is super interesting as well. There's so many mysteries that we can't quite answer. We have these little clues that point us to assume these things. But yeah, overall this is an archaic hoplite armed almost to the full ability. Again, you might just see some upper and lower arms, but you would also see hoplites, many of them armed less than this in this period. This would have been very, very well armored for the time. What do you think? What is your era or your favorite era of ancient Greek armament? Is it the archaic period like mine? Is it the classical? Is it the Hellenistic? Let me know your thoughts down below. Thank you very much for watching this video. I hope that you enjoyed it and learned something. If you have any questions about the planet, please feel free to leave them down below. I'll try my best to answer them. And if you'd like to support the channel further to help out this a little bit more, then we do have channel memberships that you can join. A special thanks to our channel members who continue to support the channel. Your support truly does mean a lot. And I'll hopefully see you in the next video. Thanks very much for watching.