When was the Aspis/ Hoplon phased out ?

[MeinPanzer]

Ruben/Mein Panzer wrote:

You are garbling the Greek here, which is perfectly clear. Plutarch says "kai ten aspida phorein di'ochanes, me die porpakos," which means "to bear the shield with strap, and not with porpax." He explicitly mentions the porpax, but to say that they do not use it.

Not 'garbling' intentionally - just trying to make my point clear, for this sentence in Greek, if translated literally, is ambiguous too !!

I would interpret it as 'bear the weight of', not just 'bear= carry' because the greek root word is used, for example, of pack-horses and mules. So I believe the sense is ' bear the weight of the shield with strap, and not ( bear the weight) with porpax" - which is an accurate description of the function of the strap, which also incidently helps support the weight of the 'sarissa'too - as anyone who has tried a reproduction 'pelta' and 'sarissa' can vouch for.......

I don't think that phoreo has the specific definition of "bear the weight of." The closest definition to that in LSJ is "to bear constantly, to wear" (A, I, 2), but I think it's stretching the Greek too far to see this specific reading. Nonetheless, it is a possibility.

Guys, am I missing something? Doesn't the mention of a porpax guarantee he is talking of an aspis? That is why I wanted the original Greek, I remembered that he used the word porpax and not "fixed grip". Aside from perhaps Sophocles Ajax, I know of no reference to a porpax in a shield that was not an aspis.

The problem I have with this is that it can be interpreted two ways. One is, as you suggest, that the Spartans were using the Argive shield up until the reform, and Cleomenes simply added straps and retrained the troops. The other possibility, however, is that they were using the thyreos, and that (as I've suggested before) he drew on stocks of Argive shields from temples, old armouries, heirlooms, etc., but rather than teaching them to use it in the old fashioned way, he added the ochane and taught them to use it with the sarissa. What might make the former more likely than the latter is that the men enrolled in the ranks were perioikoi, and I don't think they were engaged in active service in Hellenistic Sparta, so they may have been very old fashioned in armament.