5/3/2023 0 Comments Hoplite shield materialSo it seems realistic that even older men tried to remain active hoplites as long as their health allowed it. Remember, being a Hoplite was actually seen as an achievement one could be proud of. There were some Hoplites even under 20 years old and some around 60 years old. The ancient greek writer and Historian Thucydides, living from around 460 to 400 BC in Athens, claimed that in the year 431 BC only a maximum of 13.000 men (of the mentioned athenain 50.000 male citizens) were monetarily and physically fit for fighting as a Hoplite. And the mentioned problems brought the roman republic into serious trouble.Īthens as the city-state with the highest population had approximately 50.000 male citizens. So the men were not only burdened with the costs of the equipment but they were also burdened with a loss of work time that wasn`t balanced by pay for their military service.īy the way, centuries later early Rome (more on how Rome was really founded here in my article) adopted the Hoplites. Especially since Hoplites were expected to provide for themselves during a campaign. But the material profit was extremely limited. Sure, after a battle one might be able to plunder a bit. In Addition, to that, the burden was increased by the fact that Hoplites usually did not get paid. But were there any other requirements for being a Hoplite? Actually no.īeing a citizen of the city-state and the possibility of being able to afford the armor and weapons of a Hoplite (and to provide for himself during a campaign) was the only requirement for becoming a Hoplite in most greek city-states.īut the burden of paying for the own equipment was already tall enough to exclude a large part of the male population. So I just argued that a Hoplite had to pay for his own armor. The possibility for poor citizens to serve in the navy was a key step in the democratization of Athens since it allowed men without the necassary wealth for service as Hoplites to take part in the wars of their city states. However, the less wealthy men could either join the lighter armored troops or the navy. The financial burden of buying all the equipment obviously limited the number of Holites to the wealthy citizens of the polis. Click here to read my article on how the social structure of Sparta made it possible for the hoplites to also fight during the summer. The reason for that was that the farmers who made up a large amount of the Hoplites had to be home at their farms for sowing in spring and harvesting in late summer/early fall.ĭue to its social structure, Sparta on the other hand did not have these kinds of temporal limitations. They were farmers, craftsmen, and aristocrats who could afford to pay for all of the equipment a Hoplite needed.Īs a direct consequence of Hoplites being militiamen war in ancient Greece was usually limited to the early summer, Sparta once again being the exception. That means the men who would go to war were not professional soldiers. In the city-states apart from Sparta the military, including the hoplites, consisted of Militiamen. More information on that here in my article. Now the military of the ancient greek city-states was quite different from our modern military, Sparta being the exception. In order to be a full citizen of the Greek polis, you had to serve in the military. But all of them had one important similarity. Some were ruled as Democracies, some as Tyrannies, and some as Oligarchies. The origin of the Hoplites is closely linked to the idea of the polis, a Greek city-state that was formed and ruled by its free citizens.ĭuring the time of the Persian wars, click here to read my article on what started the persian wars, there were somewhere between 7 city-states (Poleis). That large round shield, the so-called hoplon, was highly important for the phalanx, the system the Hoplites fought in.Ĭlick here for further information in my article on how the phalanx actually worked and why it was so effective.Īpart from the Hoplon the Hoplite also carried a variety of other weapons and armor that made him capable of defeating numerically superior hostile armies. The Hoplite was named after the most important part of his equipment, the shield. What is a Hoplite?Ī Hoplite was a heavily armored Infantryman. In most greek city-states outside of Sparta hoplites were (unpaid) militiamen, not professional soldiers. The Hoplites were named after their shield, the Hoplon. But what is a hoplite, which requirements did you have to meet to qualify as a hoplite? And how did Hoplites train for battle?Īll these questions will be explained in the following article.įrom the 7th to the 4th century BC Hoplites were the heavily armored greek infantrymen. During the classical period of Greece the main military power of the greek city-states laid in the Hoplites.
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