The Boiotian Shield

[Paullus Scipio]

Paul, you need to chill out a bit. This isn't a courtroom.

...fear not! I'm pretty cool, nor do I take myself too seriously, hence my light-hearted reference to 'kindred spirits' in Athens to Kineas......and similar remarks. :wink: :wink:

Nevertheless, a line of argument that boils down to "you can't prove it didn't exist, therefore it did" is just not persuasive at the end of the day. For now at least, we should side with the weight of evidence, which strongly suggests that such shields were not in common use in warfare in 500 BC. Nor does the weight of evidence suggest that the Phalanx was in a state of flux at this time, but rather that the Argive aspis and accompanying tactics had been accepted, and had emerged some 1-200 years earlier, and had simply continued to evolve since then........

For instance, if reconstructions were to tend to demonstrate that the argive shield is superior to a Boeotian in single combat, we would have a very valuable additional datapoint on which to further discuss the theories. Similarly, we could do more than theorize about is impractability in closer formations.

.....one doesn't need to 'build one' to know that any "tests", which are only going to be subjective anyway, are not going to prove anything one way or another. Nor does it take a reproduction to show that such a shield is incompatible with phalanx tactics.....but hey, don't let that spoil your fun! Do it anyway !

Have fun !
Paul Mac