Continuity of Greek shields

[PMBardunias]

Domes and arches started to be used because larger areas could be spanned with smaller building components.

Yes, because they support weight in exactly the manner I describe. They are load bearing structures. Domes did not originate with architects. Domes are found all around us- on top of us in fact since our skulls are domed. Eggs are simply two domes joined at the base. They are this shape not to support their own weight. but to keep from getting crushed!

No, *not* for that reason! Armor and shields are curved because the body is curved!

This speaks ill of flat-chested vikings! All bodies are curved, and yet Not all shields are curved. It is not simply the shape of the body that governs this.

Plus, curved surfaces help resist weapons penetration by making a glancing surface, and by effectively increasing the thickness of the shield--any weapon not hitting at a right angle has more material to penetrate.

Have your read my blog? I cover this in some detail. The "sloped" armor concept is surely one reason why armor would be angled, but not the only. Were it the only, we should see more shields that are acute angles.

It CAN rest on the left shoulder, but that is support INside the rim, just the wrong point according as I see your diagram.

Not inside the rim. The flat of the rim rests right on the chest and the front of the shoulder- the lower rim rests on the front of the thighs. You are standing facing forward, not sideways. The whole concept that hoplites pushed sideways is wrong. It only arose because we see hoplites handing their shields from their shoulders on vases- when not in close combat. You cannot push with multiple ranks in the this manner. With any force from those behind you, you will collapse to my position. Now if you don't believe in the othismos as group pushing, then all well and good. In that case we have no more to argue since we are speaking a different language- one side taking the words of the ancients literally, the other as metaphor. Either could be correct, but people should realize that IF there was a literal othismos, it could not have occurred as currently portrayed.

It cannot rest against the chest and thighs unless you are squashed completely flat against it, in which case you aren't pushing any more. I would love to see any ancient depiction of a hoplite in such a pose.

Exactly. This is the biggest problem I have in getting people to understand what was occurring. "Pushing" is not really what was done. "Leaning" is perhaps a better description. The fact is that a crowd of mutliple ranks simple leaning and shuffling forward will always force back a group of the same size "pushing" in another manner. This is because all of the force from each rank going back is added to the group lean, while ranks pushing do not transfer the force from the rear effectively. No matter how many ranks of men are "pushing" they will still only equal the force of the front few men, while the rest of the force simply dissipates.

Since we have no images of massed close combat or othismos, we will not see an image of this.

A bridge is built to stay completely still and unmoving while thousands or millions of vehicles and other things pass over it. A shield is built to keep a pointy thing from the flesh of its user, and it moves very freely, deflecting as much as blocking. A spear thrust is not the same as the weight of a structure or vehicle, no matter how a physicist wants to draw vectors and forces on a blackboard.

Matt, this is simply untrue. The weight of a truck at a single moment in time on the curve of an arch is exactly the same as the impact of a weapon at the moment of collision. To the arch or dome, all that matters is force X at time T- it does not matter that one is slow and heavy and one is fast and light.

Quote:Extrapolating from this to an 8 rank vs 8 rank clash could bring forces to bear well over 1,000 lbs. Far worse than being run over by a cart.
If that's the definition of othismos, then I have to join the "against" party. There's no way the members of any military system would voluntarily subject themselves to such a crush, with the assumption that the entire front rank--or more--would be squashed to death. Even banzai charges make more sense...

Not squashed to death if they possess the aspis and use it in the manner I describe. Being able to survive a tactic that your foes cannot seems like a recipe for success to me! Within the greeks themselves we would expect a ratcheting effect, where the othismos becomes more and more intense. Not suprisingly this is exactly what we see with the trend toward deeper ranks.

Huh? It sticks up to protect your face, while the bowl is resting on the shoulder!

Holding the shield in this manner derives from the circular arguement that the shield is heavy so it must be rested on the shoulder to support it- when so much of the weight occurs in the thickened section of the curved shoulder of the shield before the rim that rests on the shoulder and not the face of the shield. There are many shields of similar diameter, some much greater, that have single-central grips and do just fine. I find the notion that the rim of the aspis was the equivalent of the shoulder piece of a retarius unlikely at best.

Holding the shield tight on the shoulder in combat is suicidal, as is standing side-on, once inexplicably described by an author as "like a fencer" when the weapon is in the rear hand. To be of any use in spear fencing, the shield has to be moved dynamically. In spear fencing the shield was held up in front of the body, the body in a "natural" combat stance of 3/4 face on- right leg back. Only in the press of othismos did the shield collapse against the body.

Why is this keeping you awake at night?

Because the current depiction of hoplite combat and othismos is obviously wrong when you try to break down the mechanics- sadly no one notices this because both those writing and most of those reading are not well versed in physics and the behavior of crowds. It keeps me up at night because it is the ancient warfare equivent of a scene in a horror movie where you know something is obviously going wrong, but the people on the screen do not. It is frustrating for me because it is very difficult to make the system understandable to fellows like yourself and Paul whose knowledge and opinions I respect. I can tell with both of you that understanding exactly how this could have occurred, when so much of it is counterintuitive to our normal understanding of things like pushing or even moving, is elusive. It surely may not have happened I the way I describe, they may not have pushed in groups in any way after all, but undertsanding that it could have happened in this way, that this scheme should be compared with the old orthodoxy so we can see which is superior is important.