greek aspis

[jabames]

Did some hoplites have simple shields? And not those bowl-shaped ones; because I want to make a shield with just one piece of plywood.

[PMBardunias]

No

[Matthew Amt]

Well, if it's a really THICK piece of plywood (about 5"), sure, ha! But you've got a heck of a lot of work ahead of you.... If you want an el-cheapo costume-quality shield, start with a saucer sled and add a flat rim to it. That would be better than just a flat shield.

Khaire,

Matthew

[hoplite14gr]

How about a mound and a combination of glue and sawdust?

Kind regards

[Astiryu1]

I ran into this problem as well...after I made the shield! :x lol:

One could pop a mold off of the above mentioned sled with fiberglass and layer it afterward. For practice it would be good but again for re-enactment not ideal.

[WorkMonkey1]

This is an interesting point, my main interest is in English Anglo-Saxon history, with their shields we know very little, none have ever been found intact, and the artistic depictions are very stylised and all confirm to the same designs, but did every single Anglo-Saxon use an identical shield when they were produced at a local level by local indivudual manufactuerers? I dont think so.

As I understand it there are several actual examples of intact aspis' that have been found, so you have an idea of what they did actually look like, but I also understand that these generally come from high status graves? If so, they are not indicitive of what the common soldier is using, Hoplites are civilian militia yes? That would be like me suggesting every Anglo-Saxon warrior went into battle with the kings shield from the sutton hoo burial. I would imagine there would be some variation in construction as well as quality at a regional level, maybe, I dont know, this isnt my area of expertise. I spose if they were made in workshops there would be a reasonable consistency in quality, but like today, surely you would get cheap, bad workmen, and expensive good ones?
I know hoplites generally were drawn from the middle classes but if you'd fallen on hard times, or had no spare cash could you still afford all the top quality, bronze faced gear? I would have thought any sort of round shield would work in a phalanx.

Regards
Stuart

[Matthew Amt]

It is not good practice to assume that all the evidence is a fluke, or that imagination bears more weight than historical evidence. I don't want to sound like I'm picking on you in particular, this is a pretty common thing! But we should always go with the evidence at hand, whenever possible, being ready to change our tunes when new evidence emerges.

In this case, EVERY depiction of a hoplite shield shows it as domed or dished. There is some variation on the depth and cross-section, and there is variation on the angle of the rim. But there is never any suggestion that they could have been flat. Likewise, all surviving examples and fragments show the same thing. We don't have too many whole bronze faces, but they're all dished. There are also a number of rim pieces, generally from sloped rims (if there's enough metal to tell!). Much of this material is not from graves at all, but from places like Olympia where captured weaponry was dedicated at the temple (and later dumped down wells when they ran out of space!). Finally, I believe there are literary descriptions of "hollow" shields and such. That means that the pictoral, archeological, and literary evidence are all in agreement, and it don't get no better than that!

If you want to add "practical" arguments to that, a flat shield of that size will be unmanageable with the usual porpax (armband) and grip. On a dished shield, most of the weight is *behind* the arm, making it lean back nicely into the shoulder, but on a flat shield all the weight will be *in front* of the arm, making it tip awkwardly away from the hoplite (known as "tabling"). You'd spend all your strength fighting your own shield.

Likewise, the vast majority of depictions of early medieval shields clearly show them as domed. I don't know why people insist on saying such things are "highly stylized", since the shape, boss, handle arrangement, and other details are frequently shown with surprising detail, details which match the archeological record quite closely. It's true that the wood rarely survives, but surviving bosses, handles, and reinforcements are often made to fit a convex board. Sutton Hoo is a dramatic rarity, a royal grave with a number of imported items, but there are hundreds of other finds of nice plain shield bosses and weapons, all decently made. They match the artwork. Why assume that all these obviously skilled artists and blacksmiths were lying or incompetent, particularly when the details are so consistent?

Finally, we simply can't assume that "the usual" stuff was significantly different from that shown by ALL our evidence, nor that poorer warriors or unskilled craftsmen would slap together something to "make do". If you could not afford a shield, then no culture that I know of would require you to own one (or they would issue it at state expense). If you called yourself a shield maker, but could not make them properly, you would starve from lack of business. And we constantly see ancient people making an item in a particular way, often seeming to us to be unnecessarily complicated, simply because they felt that was the proper way to do it! OR possibly because there was something about that method of construction which served a purpose that we have yet to ascertain. And of all the cultures I've studied over the years, Classical Greece is the all-time best (or worst?) for making EVERYthing more complicated than it needs to be!

Hoplite shields were dished, period. If you have any *evidence* to the contrary, we'd love to see it!

Khairete,

Matthew

[Astiryu1]

That is agreed I often find on my flat shield the Argive grip isn't ideal. I support the weight with a shoulder strap and could easily use a centered grip. I unfortunately have no boss yet to convert the shield. I can usually swing the shield where it needs to go but I do weight lifting exercises to get used to it. If you do the weight lifting thing with the shield move slowly and do not lock the elbow as this would hyper extend the joint and hurts a little. In the long run this damages the joint and is really bad. Practice a good basic left foot forward stance while holding and lifting the shield as well. Most would agree this is the common stance of the hoplites. I am unsure about the techniques of hoplite warfare but I try many things. I am currently working on a hip check against the sides of my shield to break someones footing when in the clash. Thoughts on this are welcome as I am experimenting. PM me so as not to steal the thread.

[Paullus Scipio]

I spose if they were made in workshops there would be a reasonable consistency in quality,

There is literary evidence that shields and other arms in classical Greece were made in bulk in 'factories', albeit they were still made by hand, which implies standards......

[PMBardunias]

The masters of these "factories" could be mobile as with many other skilled trades, for example Athens brought in a foreign master shield maker to produce shields for them. This mobility would tend to limit regional variation, since technical advances or simple fashions could rapidly spread.

Back the the original question, even if a classical Greek picked up a round flat shield he would not be a hoplite, since hoplites were defined by specific type of shields. He could wear an atypical helmet, throw away his greaves, but not substantially change his shield.

[Astiryu1]

Anything remain of these factories? I "assume" that they were state funded to supply shields to an order though I could be wrong.

[WorkMonkey1]

Likewise, the vast majority of depictions of early medieval shields clearly show them as domed. I don't know why people insist on saying such things are "highly stylized", since the shape, boss, handle arrangement, and other details are frequently shown with surprising detail, details which match the archeological record quite closely. It's true that the wood rarely survives, but surviving bosses, handles, and reinforcements are often made to fit a convex board. Sutton Hoo is a dramatic rarity, a royal grave with a number of imported items, but there are hundreds of other finds of nice plain shield bosses and weapons, all decently made. They match the artwork. Why assume that all these obviously skilled artists and blacksmiths were lying or incompetent, particularly when the details are so consistent?

Well that's not true, infact we have no evidence to suggest early medieval shields were convex, infact we have several intact shield boards from scandanavia, and every single one of them is flat, there is scant evidence to suggest boards were convex, and it's usually in the form of bent shield grips, that would appear to fit onto a bent board, this is mostly likely caused by earth pressure though. However, different point completely, early med shields are centrally gripped, and thus work flat, I can see your point about the arm loop not working very well on a flat shield, the entire weight is being borne onto your shoulder, very uncomfortable I would imagine. You don't need to be so aggressive in your responses though. I thought this was informal discussion? :wink:

[Matthew Amt]

Sorry, didn't mean to sound aggressive! And yes, I left out Scandinavia, which is indeed turning up flat shields. But I have to disagree that there is "no evidence" for convex shields in the rest of Europe--look at all the artwork! Artwork is evidence, and it shows a lot more than what survives archeologically, so it's invaluable. And it is often detailed and pretty consistent. It needs to be used with care, no mistake! But it can't be dismissed.

Other people have dismissed curved shield reinforcments as being bent by the weight of the earth, but I'm not sure that's a safe assumption. Seems to me a domed shield laying flat on the floor of a grave would tend to be squashed flat, as the Dura Europas scutum was. Odd that some things we find flat are assumed to have been curved originally, while things we find curved (which agree with artistic and literary depictions) are assumed to have been flat originally! Plus, that doesn't answer angled flanges on bosses, which are very common. We've argued about Roman bosses with sloped flanges, and the same arguments apply to medieval ones. Basically, no point in making them that way for a flat board!

So, yes, absolutely, some early medieval shields were flat. But some were convex. No way around the preponderance of evidence.

Of course, this all only vaguely applies to *Greek* shields! So we should probably stick to the topic lest we get spanked by a moderator.

LOVE your avatar, by the way! GOT to make me a Valsgarde helmet...

Vale,

Matthew

[Old Husker]

Apparently, shield factories in the 5th century B.C. were family owned, at least in Athens. Famously, one such factory owner donated shields to the rebels at Piraeus in 403 B.C., who were resisting Spartan occupaton (consisting of a few troops and backing of non-democratic puppet governments) after losing the Peloponnesian War. The rebels also manufactured some shields of their own, though, lacking time and material, they did not finish these wooden affairs with a bronze sheath.

[WorkMonkey1]

Having a boss with a sloped flange helps the boss to grip the board, they clenched the nails rather than rivetting them, and they work themselves loose under stress, then angled flange helps to keep tension. As for the art work, how would they depict a flat shield from the side? it would just be a straight line. I think the convex nature of the artwork is an attempt to render a flat shield from the side in perspective.

Anyway, we've got side tracked.

Were slaves not used in factories to make shields? I have read a shield maker "Lysias" employed 120(?) slaves in his factory, is this actually making the shields, or doing ancillary tasks? If unskilled slaves are making shields, what was the quality of the items they were knocking out?