Longer Hoplite Spear

[PMBardunias]

Connolly, using maximum 'tapered shaft, small head, large butt' technology showed that the balance/pivot point was always ahead of the leading hand - around 350 mm-480mm ( 14 inches- 19 inches) depending on the size of the head.....

I'm not sure that I understand this, because you decide where your foregrip is, not the spear. Your grip can be behind the balance point, but the balance point can never be "beyond" your hand- you can always move it up if need be. But as I said, the 2 handed grip allows one to hold it back before the balance point, though the spear is always more mobile if it pivots on its balance point.

I didn't say they were restricted to counter the cavalry 'kamax', merely that with its introduction, a cavalryman could outreach an ordinary 'doru', and that the introduction of the tapered infantry spear was, as you suggest, part of an 'arms race' . We know from the iconography that it did not replace the normal 'doru', and as to how widespread its use, we cannot tell......

Its hard to truly "know" anything from iconography about how common weapons were. It has been a mistake of some to simply assume that the % appearance in images correlates to actual percentages in use, as Mathews did recently. The first image above is one of the most detailed hoplite images we have. It surely "weighs" more in terms of evidence of use than many lesser painter's work. Because smaller, "grip" and sauroter-less spears are easier to fit into the frames of scenes and require less attention to detail, we have a logical reason to expect them to be more common that the type of detailed image seen above. The one arguement against this is that the long dory above might be artistically foreshortened. If so then all bets are off in terms of taper.

[Archelaos]

dual-purpose spears - larger heads, generally no butts, c, 5-7 ft long, often carried in pairs, the dual throwing/thrusting weapon; also the typical 'hunting spear' as well as a weapon of war (e.g Gk:longche Lat: lancea)

We know from Xenophon that boar spears were wielded in a two handed grip, and were probably thicker that the usual Longche. The existence of a two handed spear that all Greeks would have been familiar with is often overlooked when the "invention" of two handed sarissa occurs. Its not the grip, but the length that neccesitated it that is novel.

Boar spears were actually quite different from normal military spears. Although such weapons, called by Xenophon probola had shaft diameter similar to military dory they had characteristic "winged" spearhead, just like medieval boar/bear spears. They appear commonly in the hands of Meleanger in scenes connected with Kalidonian Boar hunt.
It seems that Macedonians had not used this weapon, as in hunting scenes different one appears. It has thick, rough shaft and large spearhead without "wings". Spearheads almost identical to one portrayed on Tomb II from Vergina were found in some graves in ancient Macedonia.

If you are interested, there is my article concerning this subject in Fasciculi Archeologie Historicae, vol XXII, 2009 (it is a journal of Polish Academy of Sciences, article is in English)

[Paullus Scipio]

Paul B. wrote:

Its hard to truly "know" anything from iconography about how common weapons were.

We are in agreement on this as my comment, "we cannot tell" signifies. To be clear, perhaps I should have said that both the tapered 'kamax' and old-style 'doru' continue to be shown in the iconography, and we cannot say anything about how many of each were in use at any time......

[immortal]

I think you are reading too much into the vase paintings, without taking artistic licence and stylization into account. Would you also suggest, based on these paintings that some ancient Greeks had heads the size of their torsos? And some hoplites appeared to be dwarves?
I think using vase paintings for any kind of scale or exact appearance of armour is dangerous territory.