04-03-2009, 07:00 PM
Quote:Those Thracian shields are what I was thiking of in particular. I have opined previously that Iphicrates famous reform might have been a Proto-thureophoroi rather than a Proto-sarissaphoroi since a 12' non-tapered spear can be used with one hand and has roughly the reach (6') of an 8' counterweighted doru held at one third from the sauroter (5.3'), but is nothing like a sarissa.
This could be, but the only examples of this kind of shield that I am aware of (the Kazanluk and Alexandrovo frescoes and the find from Kyustendil) appear toward the second half of the 4th c. BC, well after Iphicrates' reforms.
But why do you think that the Iphicrateans' spears could not be anything like a sarissa? The smallest a sarissa could be is 12 feet, which would means that there is no reason given Diodorus' statement that the spears of the Iphicrateans and the smallest sarissae could not be interchangeable.
Ruben
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
