Roman Hoplite ?

[Proximus]

Hello to everyone,

First of all, please apologise for my bad english and the fact that my introduction have been made long time ago. Sure nobody knows me here and I hope this thread is not at a bad place.

I did a research on this forum to have more information about what I want to know but I did not found anything, so I start this thread, hoping it could be usefull to someone else.

I learned in some literature roman armies have been part composed with hoplites between the 6th and 3th century bc, but the references are not verry clear about it and/or maybe not enough completed.

I will give you one of theses : Osprey publishing, witch can be verry serious or... completely wrong, depending the theme it studies.

The publication I mean is "Men At Arms 283 - Early Roman Armies", where we can see a roman hoplite from 508 bc with linen thorax, greaves, aspis, lance and sword, and an other roman hoplite with the same configuration but the bronze thorax, illustration says : 4th century bc.

I would like to initiate a discussion about this because I must admit it is verry difficult to find people with whom talking about this period and this particularities.

And more precisely, I wish to talk about :

1 : Is it confirmed romans used hoplites or is this again a bad interpretation of emphasis of our ancesters ?

2 : If so, do someone have informations, sources, references, pictures, draws... something about this ? Organisation of the army, name of the units ? (Heared they where already "Triarii" but I have no source for that)

3 : About the aspis, do you know what kind of illustrations could be on it ? Again, if you have archeological pieces (Let the dream come true... ), mosaïcs, paints, written repports... I will be verry greetfull.

4 : All you want to know or say about this.

Please have all my respects !

[Quintus Galerius]

Wow, it's a difficult question and now I have no time to tell everything, quite sure during the first period of Rome its exercitus was made with phalanx but I think that there are no imagines of it done in the same period of the phalanx, and I think that nothing was written in the same period of the roman phalanx about it, there's only the Lapis Niger, the first text in arcaic latin, sed nothing about phalanx, maybe Livius said something about it but I don't remember (I've lost my first book of Ab Urbe Condita...). I can tell you that it's very probable that romans used the phalanx, Etruscans (the main enemy of Rome) and Greeks both used it so it's quite sure that Rome adopted it in the first period, then changed into manipular formation, but it's impossible to tell WHEN this change was made, I told it's a very dark period, and even roman writers tell something that they just heard or read about happens of hundreds year before.
During the first period it was made of 3000 pedites and 300 equites, (1000 pedites and 100 equites for each tribe, Ramnes, Tities and Luceres), then it was the new ordo of Servio Tullio, who changed the division and introduced a division according to the richness of the men...but these are all reconstrucion and hypotesis, nothing sure.

[Matthew Amt]

Strictly speaking, "hoplite" is just a Greek word for an armed man, but of course we understand that you mean basically Classical Greek equipment. Sure, the early Romans had them, too! Obviously there is still a lot of debate about the accuracy of sources such as Livy, but it seems pretty clear that, particularly under the Etruscan kinds, the wealthiest infantry in the Roman army were armed as hoplites. Backing them up were units of men with less and less armor, and generally with more native Italian fashions of shield, helmet, etc. But Greek-style shields, swords, and armor have indeed been found in any number of tombs from that era, and there are plenty of depictions of hoplites in early Roman and Italian art.

It does seem to be true that we don't see any art showing us a phalanx in action, but that's actually pretty rare in Greek artwork, too. Usually what we see is one-on-one duels, or melees with no formations at all. We have to be a little careful in interpreting such scenes, of course.

As I understand it, the hoplite class of infantry mostly went away when the Etruscan rulers were expelled and the Republic founded, c. 500 BC. After that, you would naturally still see an army arrayed in lines and ranks like a phalanx, but the equipment would be mostly Italian in style, and the manipular formations would allow more flexibility and maneuver.

What's interesting is that Rome is giving up the phalanx at about the same time that we have the most information about phalanx fighting in Greece, i.e. the Persian and Peloponesian Wars. Obviously the Greeks were using the phalanx long before 500 BC, just like the Romans, but that earlier era usually doesn't get as much attention. In fact, earlier Greek hoplites had carried javelins along with their spears, but by 500 BC they had stopped using them--while the Romans were giving up hoplites and most of the spearmen, going to a mostly javelin-armed force! Interesting.

Valete,

Matthew

[Proximus]

Interesting, indeed !

Thank you, you two !

Your messages help me how direct my studies, because before them I was not sure I was looking for something existing !

I am quite new in antiquity (my first love is Medieval Times) so I do not have the key, could you give me some informations about where to find informations about archeological pieces ?

I am interested by information you give, Matthew, about the weapons found in Italy.

Oh, and one question : What kind of helmet you think could have been used at thoses times, in Italy ?

Again, thank you !

[Quintus Galerius]

it depends from the area, in the north-east were used Negau, in the south apulo-corinzi and greek-style helmets, Etruscans used something similar to Negau,with paragnatidi I've a pic on a book, it's about the VI b.C., and it was used also the crested Villanoviano, like this and other models, always similar to greeks but more opened

[Matthew Amt]

You're welcome! I'd recommend getting Peter Connolly's book, Greece and Rome at War. It's an excellent basic book, and he does nice work and reconstructions from that era. Mind you, other authors disagree with some of his conclusions, so don't treat him as perfect.

There were lots of different helmets in use back then! Connolly shows a bunch, some of which you can also find here:

http://www.freewebtown.com/italica/

http://www.freewebtown.com/italica/ital ... lmets.html

A lot of these are later than 500 BC, but a few earlier ones are around.

Vale,

Matthew

[Quintus Galerius]

Wow there are a lot of pieces from Nola...but they are scattered all aroud the world...damn...

[Proximus]

Again, (and again !), thank you for your help !

I will start my studies with what you gave to me, maybe to one day reenact those periods...

If I learn something interesting, I will report here.