The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[PMBardunias]

Firstly, how much range of motion of the slung-forward shield would have been necessary with any orientation of grips, porpakes, or straps when just using the sarissa? Not much, I think. But regardless of how the phalangite's shield was wielded, if it was employed with a telamon and the left arm was attached to it in any manner, the soldier will have limited movement because the strap will only allow so much slack, so that even with the porpax in use, like in Johnny's illustration, as you point out, it would choke the bearer. But, again, I am discussing Argive shields in use as a stop-gap measure, not peltae.

This is a bear of a thread because there is so much being discussed at once that we keep crossing logic streams. My worry about mobility was for after the sarissa is lost. With a shield held solely by Telamon/Ochane (are they interchangable?) you can wield the sarissa as long as you don't use the strap to support the arm or move very much in the vertical plane. Once you have lost your sarissa, the sheild becomes useless and in fact a hinderence because of the way the strap will slip back and forth over your shoulde and bind up at all the wrong times if you try to move the shield any more than a horizontal sawing motion. Even lifting the left arm in order to deploy the sarissa could cause the strap to shorten on the front end, but at least here you would have time to jostle it back into position.

My point is that I don't think, even as a stop-gap, a shield that could not be used once the sarissa was lost/useless would be acceptable. One major force in warfare is making men feel protected, even when they are not. This would be a big morale problem. As I said, it is a worthy idea, but I think in the end the mechanics are against it. No shame here. I've been there many times myself :wink:

... thus were better able to make use of the inner curvature of the shield to defend themselves.

That's where you lose me. I'm not sure what you are envisioning here. If the elbow is to the right of the porpax, then you can do anything with the shield that you could do if it were not there. The only way it would be a problem is if you were somehow attempting to actually roll your back into the shield or if you extended your arm straight out it might hit your tricep. You can stand with your whole body in the shield as long as the porpax is to the left of the elbow.

It would have been much easier simply to pop off the porpakes (or keep them, but I find that less likely), and modify the shields by attaching simple telamones and lengthened antilabae. After all, leather was cheap and plentiful.

I think you overestimate the cost of making more suitable wooden shields and simply cutting the bronze to fit, but on that point we can simply disagree. In any case, the measure would have been unneeded after his invasion of Megalopololitan territory (Plut. Cleom. 12.2). You can build a lot of peltae for the cost of one Messenian theatre.