The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[Paralus]

Secondly, the Achaeans did adopt the Argive aspis, and not the Macedonian shield (Pausanias, 8.50.1). However, this does not indicate that they re-armed their hoplites with such shields. It simply means that the phalangites used Argive aspides. Contra Paul, it would not have been physically impossible to carry the Argive shield while bearing the sarissa. We know that when Cleomenes III equipped his men as phalangites, he issued shields to them and taught them "to wield the sarissa with both hands and to bear the shield with strap (ochane), not with porpax" (Plutarch, Life of Cleomenes, 9.2). Once it is accepted that the phalangite did not have to employ a porpax to carry his shield, the offset rim and size of the hoplite shield are no longer impediments to wielding the sarissa.

Indeed. Those, though, sticking to the old view, would still argue the point. In his impecunious state, one hardly imagines Kleomenes commissioning the construction of purpose-designed shields as well as sarisae. Baldrics added to existing shields though... now there's a notion - particularly for those helots who'd bought their right to die at Sellasia.