Hoplites of the Archaic Age

[PMBardunias]

However,this stance with the arm forward is indeed very common in aspis depictions. And what would that mean?

This discussion is interesting in that half of us are saying that the boetian shield never existed and was a creation of artists and the other half are trying to discover how it was used- obviously these two points of view are irreconsilable.

I am of opinion that we do not understand what we cannot trust vase images to be accurate depictions of combat any more than some future archeologist could trust "300" or "Gladiator" to represent their combat styles. There are many elements that surely depict accurate contemporary weapons and tactics, but that doesn't mean they were intended to by the artist at the time. The artist was most often portraying scenes from what was to him history. He and his audience knew that the heroes depicted did not fight the way a Hoplite did- they most famously threw their spears.

What does this have to say about what we see on vases? I am convinced that the "arm up and out" position is an artistic convention to portray the action of throwing. When you throw a javelin, you raise the left hand as a counterbalance and fulcrum. Below is a famous statue of Zeus throwing. Add an aspis and he looks exactly like the pose we are discussing.

Also, we can't forget the many problems of translating a 3-D figure to a 2-D vase image. The position that is most commonly seen for moving ranks of men on vases in with the edge of the shield forward. This is NOT a combat position- it has been suggested that they struck with the rim in a bladelike fashion. This could surely be a marching position though, and the ancient greeks who may have valued the moment of tension before combat more than images of combat itself might be showing this.

Then again there is the problem of shield blazons. They are clearly a favorite subject for artists, and this is really the only way to show them off well given the conventional postural restrictions of vase art.