The hoplites were soldiers from Ancient Greece who were usually free citizens. They had a very uniform and distinct appearance; specifically they were armed with a spear (dory) in their right hand and a heavy round shield in their left.[1]
Hoplite soldiers were organized in battle into the phalanx formation. The goal of this formation was to create uniformity and a powerful military force in order to maximize the effectiveness as the army as a whole, rather than use people as individual fighters. With the hoplite formation everyone was the same in battle. The phalanx formation appeared during the 7th and 8th centuries BC.[2]
The representation of hoplites in art show historians how the Greeks used this formation in battle as well as how the soldiers were dressed and what their armor looked like. The hoplite formation is shown in different styles of pottery such as white ground and black-figure and also on many different types of pottery such an olpe, krater,alabastron, and dinos. Across all depictions, hoplite soldiers wear the same armor and carry the same weapons in the same position. In addition, the aspect of uniformity is emphasized in these representations.
^Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Azar., Gat (2008). War in human civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199236633. OCLC 180753601.
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spear (dory) in their right hand and a heavy round shield in their left. Hoplite soldiers were organized in battle into the phalanx formation. The goal of...
in Greece c. 800–350 BC was the formationin which the hoplites would line up in ranks in close order. The hoplites would lock their shields together...
with spears and shields. Hoplite soldiers used the phalanx formation to be effective in war with fewer soldiers. The formation discouraged the soldiers...
depict the hopliteformationinart. Representations of the hoplite phalanx give historians a look into how the Greeks used this style of warfare in battle...
warfare: the hoplite phalanx. Hoplites were armored infantrymen, armed with spears and shields. Seen in media, the phalanx was a formation of these soldiers...
muskets and bayonets and wore no armour. In ancient Greece, the hoplite was a common form of heavy infantry. All hoplites had a shield and spear, and perhaps...
accompanied the hoplites into battle. The battle scene on the Chigi vase shows an aulos player setting a lyrical rhythm for the hoplite phalanx to advance...
switched from the military formation of the hoplite phalanx of the Greeks to the formation with maniples (Latin: manipuli). In the former, the soldiers...
early 4th-century BC stone-carved relief from Pella shows a Macedonian hoplite infantryman wearing a pilos helmet and wielding a short sword showing a...
recruited in Greece. Some vases have also been found showing hoplites (men wearing Corinthian helmets, greaves and cuirasses, holding hoplite spears) carrying...
the army. The following spring, the Allies assembled the largest ever hoplite army and marched north from the Isthmus to confront Mardonius. At the ensuing...
Athenian general Miltiades deployed 900 Plataean and 10,000 Athenian hoplitesin a U-formation with the wings manned much more deeply than the center. His enemy...
of the hoplite phalanx formation – the sole pictorial evidence of its use in the mid- to late-7th century, and terminus post quem of the "hoplite reform"...
Pelopidas and the Sacred Band behind the main hoplite phalanx, others believe he put it in front of the main hoplite phalanx and behind the cavalry, while others...
Athenian victory in the Corinthian War. In the battle, the Athenian general Iphicrates took advantage of the fact that a Spartan hoplite regiment operating...
Spartan Army fielded 35,000 lightly armed helots to 5,000 hoplites, but there is no mention of them in his account of the fighting. Often, Greek historians...
ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς), that is to say, either victorious or dead, since in battle, the heavy hoplite shield would be the first thing a fleeing soldier would be tempted...
Macedon, hoplites were equipped with extremely long spears (up to 21 feet) called sarrisae. Used in conjunction with the phalanx formation, this made...
that of leather or linen. The phalanx formation proved successful, because the hoplites had a long tradition in hand-to-hand combat, whereas the Persian...
Spartan Army was largely composed of hoplites, equipped with arms and armor nearly identical to each other. Each hoplite bore the Spartan emblem and a scarlet...
the Roman army were hoplites. Census data from the Roman Kingdom shows the soldiers were hoplites who fought in a phalanx formation similar to how the...
roughly one per hoplite. The number of 34,500 has been suggested to represent one light skirmisher supporting each non-Spartan hoplite (33,700), together...
of Classical Art and Architecture. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195300826.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-530082-6. "Hoplite". World History...
cavalry—to which the hopliteformations had little real defense—which substantially weakened his position. Khalid's invasion of Roman Syria in July 634—by invading...
lightly armed troops, and revealed how devastating the hoplites could be in battle. The phalanx formation was still vulnerable to cavalry (the cause of much...
Greeks evolved a new close-order infantry formation, the phalanx. The key to this formation was the hoplite, who was equipped with a large, circular,...
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