Macedonian Silver Shields

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

"Doryphoroi" is a general term to say "bodyguard" and is used by the greeks earlier than the macedonian reforms. So,a hypaspist could well have been called a "doryphoros". It may originate in tyrants' bodyguards(as well as clubmen) but I may be wrong.

[Paralus]

I was always under the impression it meant "spear-carrier" or "spear-bearer".

Have you access to a Greek version of Polyaenus?

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Yes,that's what it literally means. Today "satelite" in greek is "doryphoros" because it turns round something in the same way the "doryphoroi" were around the man they were protecting as bodyguards.
No,I don't have access to Polyaenus...
Khaire
Giannis

[Paralus]

Bugger!

[Paullus Scipio]

There are so may assumptions, jumps to conclusions, and out-and-out misinterpretations in the last few posts, I hardly know where to begin !

For starters, let us put Polyaenus into context - he was a second century A.D. lawyer ( a doff of the hat to a colleague!) in Rome, of Macedonian descent. He wrote a book of stratagems for the amusement of Marcus Aurelius which included such thing as 'the stratagems of women' and 'stratagems to obtain money from relatives'. It was never intended to be a serious military manual. He gives us 22 stratagems for Philip, some of them pretty fanciful. Here is another translation of the two he gives about Chaeronea (sorry, Mike, I don't have the Greek either - I could never afford the luxury of owning the entire Loeb library! ).

[color=blue]"Engaging the Athenians at Chaeronea, Philip made a sham retreat: when Stratocles, the Athenian general, ordered his men to push forwards, crying out, “We will pursue them to the heart of Macedon.â€

[Paullus Scipio]

Paralus said:-

As soon as the soldiers saw him they saluted him in their Macedonian dialect, and took up their shields, and striking them with their pikes,......Mind you, as with many things, it may all be in the translation.

How true! That is the rather old Dryden translation.Here are others."And when the soldiers saw him, they hailed him at once in their Macedonian speech, caught up their shields, beat upon them with their spears, and raised their battle-cry, challenging the enemy to fight in the assurance that their leader was at hand."

Brenadotte Perin, Loeb edition

..and another old translation...

" On the first sight of the general of their heart, the troops saluted him in the Macedonian language, clashed their arms, and with loud shouts challenged the enemy to advance, thinking themselves invincible while he was at their head."

Unfortunately I haven't been able to get hold of Plutarch's original greek, so we can't tell if he says 'dory' (spear)'longche'(often wrongly translated as pike) 'sarissa' or even some greek version of a Roman name(he was writing during the Principate period), nor do we know what he used for shield -'aspis' or 'pelte' or something else ...! But doubtless someone has it and will tellus all ? In the meantime, going by the weight of evidence so far, even if Plutarch does manage to score you a point, I'll be the rails bookie and take your bet.... :wink:

[Paullus Scipio]

Ruben wrote;-

Not all peltai were rimless; many just had smaller rims than most hopla but had rims nonetheless.

...that's interesting, on the face of it , any sort of rim would make using a sarissa difficult, if not impossible...... can you give more details ? What is the context? Is it certain these rimmed shields are associated with sarrissaphoroi ?

[PMBardunias]

Oplo in Greek means weapon and metaforicaly tool.
"Argolicon hoplon" means Argive weapon... Shield is Aspis. So "en meso ton oplon" would be "inside weapons" or "amongst weapons" ...The term hoplon for shield is erroneous.

The ancient meaning encompasses both arms and armor. It is used for shield by many ancient authors including Xenophon. It is also used for thorakes. In the passage of Diodorus on Iphicrates he mentions peltasts getting their name from the pelta, just as the hoplite get their name from thier aspis. The illogical construct here has led many to use the hopla as the shield and thus the source for hoplite, but this is incorrect. Hoplite referred to the full panalopy, weapons included, perhaps best translated as "Armed and armored man".

If you are curious, or want to see the examples of the many uses of hopla for shield and thorakes, I recommend Lazenby and Whitehead's 1996 paper "The Myth of the Hoplites Hoplon".

[Paullus Scipio]

...and if you are looking for a single word in English, think "panoply" =complete set of arms and armour
- and derived, unsurprisingly, from the greek! PAN= full,complete OPLY (from hopla ) = set of arms. D

[PMBardunias]

...and if you are looking for a single word in English, think "panoply"

LOL, that's what I meant when for some reason I spelled it panalopy- I think that's a girl I dated. I have a string of Poloponies for sale as well.

[PMBardunias]

...that's interesting, on the face of it , any sort of rim would make using a sarissa difficult, if not impossible...... can you give more details ? What is the context? Is it certain these rimmed shields are associated with sarrissaphoroi ?

There are a number of examples of an extremely convex, rimmed shield from the hellenistic period- see Markle's paper on shields. I don't believe we have enough evidence to know exactly how this was employed or by whom. It may be worth noting that the extreme concavity looks very much like what you would get if you conserved the depth of the aspis, but reduced the diameter to pelta standards.

By the way, its not the rim that is a problem, but the grip placement which if within the bowl of the shield will be limted by the rim's width. A minor point, but worth noting. A shield "too deep" would be more trouble for a sarissaphoroi.

[Paullus Scipio]

..... :lol: :lol: :lol: ....I hadn't even noticed the 'typo'...I just wanted to make the point that the correct english translation is actually derived from the greek original !

[hoplite14gr]

Ploutrarch's Greek passage can be found on Perseus but I do not know where is Polyainos.

As for Dryden's translation lauds to him for doing it but he liked "literalistic" expressions. Translating Herodotus he used the term buckler for hoplite shields. (Yeah am sure Persians would love that!!)

Kind regards

[Paullus Scipio]

"Unfortunately I haven't been able to get hold of Plutarch's original greek, so we can't tell if he says 'dory' (spear)'longche'(often wrongly translated as pike) 'sarissa' or even some greek version of a Roman name(he was writing during the Principate period), nor do we know what he used for shield -'aspis' or 'pelte' or something else ...! "

....while I can't get hold of the original Plutarch, I can get hold of Quintus Curtius version of the murder , and the latin is 'lancea', which in greek is 'longche'.......so now, not only were there no bodyguards/Hypaspists present, but the murder weapon wasn't a sarissa anyway......

The bookie is looking like taking yer dough, Mike !

[Paullus Scipio]

Stefanos said:-

Ploutrarch's Greek passage can be found on Perseus but I do not know where is Polyainos.

.....but we are looking for the original Greek, Stefanos.......


ah, found it..."δορυφόρων"= spear......so Plutarch too has 'spear'....

spear and longche then, are the only candidates !