Greek Hoplite Weapons

THE ANCIENT GREEK HOPLITE

WEAPONS 2/23/13

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SPEAR

       The spear (dory in Greek) was the main weapon of the hoplite, made of ash and seven or eight feet long. The head (aichme) was usually iron and was "leaf-shaped" and socketed. Some had midribs, part- or full-length, many did not. Sizes varied quite a bit, from about 5 inches to over 2 feet, but a common range seems to have run 7 to 10 inches. Socket diameters for those spearheads varied from about 3/4" to an inch, up to maybe 1-3/8" for the largest heads (those are unusual!).   On some spearheads there is a visible split or seam showing how the socket was formed by wrapping it around a conical mandrel. On other examples this has been closed up (presumably forge-welded) and is not immediately visible.

       At the bottom of the spear was a bronze buttspike (sauroter or "lizard sticker") c. 9 to 18 inches long, usually with a tubular socket and a tapered square-section spike. These were cast in such a way that they were hollow almost all the way to the point, so they were not very heavy. The buttspike was probably meant mostly for sticking the spear upright in the ground when camping, though it was definitely used as a weapon if the head broke off. There are a few iron examples of these as well, apparently made in two pieces since there is usually a bronze collar where the spike and socket meet.

       Generally the spearhead and the buttspike socket has one or two small holes near the opening, for a small nail or even a wooden peg to secure it to the shaft. (No screws, please!) The wood needs to be whittled or rasped to fit the socket as well as possible (and straight!), and glue can be used to assure a firm fit.

	Tom Kolb's spearhead is one of the best I've seen, from Manning Imperial. Just under 10" long, and the socket is about 7/8" diameter. Very light and nicely shaped.
	My spearhead is 11" long overall, and was hand-forged long ago by a fellow named Brock. (The 4 little circles are his maker's mark.)

My second spearhead is ground down from an old Museum Replicas "Large Spearhead", originally a triangular 19-inch monster. I lopped 3" off the socket and 4" off the blade, so now it's under a foot long and looking quite nice. I thinned the blade some, and reduced the ugly weld lump where the blade met the socket.

Reproduction spearheads are frequently too large, and shafts are often too thick. Ancient spears were thinner and lighter than many people realize! A shaft thickness of about an inch is fine. As impressive as a thick spear with a large head can be, a smaller and lighter one is much easier to carry and maneuver! Might fit in your car better, too, eh?

Kult of Athena offers a Small Spear Head which looks excellent, http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=1823092900
--Spearhead 1823092800 looks good, seems a bit large to me
--Arms and Armor Greek Javelin AA227, very nice, don't know if they offer the points without the shafts. The point would be fine as a small spearhead.

The late Mike Kasner has made buttspikes by soldering brass barstock to the narrow end of a brass firehose nozzle with the threaded end cut off (from a flea market), then grinding and cutting to shape. He also made spearheads from old socketed chisels.

My buttspike is based on the one in the Osprey book The Spartan Army, also made by Manning Imperial. A very lovely casting, but simply too heavy. It is 14-1/2" long, and the socket is 1-1/8" in diameter. At first the weight was 3 pounds, but I ground it down to 2 pounds.

However, Manning does MUCH better ones now! http://www.manningimperial.com/item.php?item_id=619&g_id=1&c_id=14

I had another go at my buttspike, cutting an inch and a half off the point and regrinding that, then fluting the faces. Also took a layer off the socket area, losing that nice fake seam line but also another half pound of weight.

The Olympia report shows a number of iron buttspikes identical in appearance to the cast bronze ones. They consist of a tapered square-section spike with a spiked *tang* which would have been set into a hole in the end of the wooden shaft. Surrounding wood at that point (to prevent splitting) is a tubular iron socket, which in some cases at least is clearly just a rectangle of iron sheet formed into a cylinder, with a visible open seam. Where socket meets spike is a bronze ring, with a large raised rib around the middle, exactly like the raised ring on the cast bronze buttspikes. And at the top of the iron socket is a flat bronze band or tube, again as seen on the all-bronze versions. Both bronze rings or bands keep the iron socket closed and in place. The obvious conclusion is that iron buttspikes developed *first*, and were then copied in cast bronze! As seen on my bronze sauroter, in its original form the middle socket part has a false seam, mimicking the seam on an iron socket. There is no other reason for the details on the cast bronze sauroter: they imitate an iron ancestor.

So here is my first attempt at an iron sauroter! The spike itself is narrower at the top than I wanted, but it was what I had on hand. The iron part of the socket is just scrap steel sheet wrapped into a tube. I am not sure that any nail was used on the originals, but in this case it goes through the brass band, the iron tube, and the tang of the spike itself, to hold everything firmly in place. The brass joint ring is soldered to the iron tube.

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Deepeeka's buttspike actually looks quite good! Probably still a little heavy. You may be able to buy it alone, though most places only offer it as a set with either their steel spearhead or a bronze one. The steel spearhead looks good in photos but is HUGE. Cut it down by at least a third, and lop a couple inches off the socket as well, and it might work. The shaft it comes with makes a great telephone pole. The bronze spearhead is actually reasonable in shape, if a bit angular, but would not have been common in the Iron Age.

As usual, Windlass/MRL has nothing usable.

http://www.torringtonbrushes.com/window-brush-handles.html --1" x 6-foot hardwood pole, cheap. Add point and buttspike and you'll have a nice 7-foot spear.

SWORD

       The blade of the hoplite's sword (xiphos or machaira) is described as "leaf-shaped", and was roughly two feet long. The blade often had ribs or fullers (grooves), but some were a plainer lenticular or flattened diamond cross-section. It's possible that blades without ribs are from after the Persian War era, but I don't know for certain.

       The tang was flat and matched the outline of the hilt, at least the guard and grip. This was sandwiched between two layers of wood, bone, or ivory, and typically covered with thin iron plates. Construction details are often vague, but it seems that the pommel could be a solid wooden piece wrapped in sheet iron, secured by a short rod tang projecting from the grip tang. It's possible that in later eras this construction was superseded by a simple rod tang, with the sandwich construction replaced by simpler blocks of wood. Some swords may have lacked the iron outer plates, as well. However, there is no evidence that I have seen for solid brass or bronze hilts.

       In other words, a sword with a solid brass hilt can be rehilted pretty easily by replacing each piece with a similar (but more historically-shaped!) piece of wood. Note that some replicas have curved guards--these should be straight.

       Note that much of our knowledge of hilt construction comes from Peter Connolly, whose books show only examples from *Italy*. It is possible that the sandwich construction with iron plates is an Italian fashion, while the Greeks themselves used mostly organic hilts. The swords in the Olympia catalog are poorly preserved, but none seem to have iron hilt plates.

       At some point, the Spartans began to use a much shorter sword. None have survived (or been published, at least), but illustrations show that its blade was only a foot or so long. Otherwise it was very similar in shape to the longer hoplite sword, though the blade may have had a simple diamond cross-section without fullers. By the Peloponnesian War the Spartan short sword was in common use in the rest of Greece as well. It is often referred to these days as the xiphos, but this was a general Greek term for "sword".

       There was also the curved weapon we refer to as the kopis or falcata, with a single cutting edge on the inside of the curve. It is very similar to the falcata used in Spain at the same general time, but there were regional differences. Unfortunately, this is something I have never done much research on! But here is an excellent discussion which should be chock-full of information: http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=2729

Scabbards were most likely thin wood covered with leather, with bronze throats and chapes. They hung at the left side from a shoulder strap or baldric which often had narrow rectangular sections cut out from the middle to form a "ladder" effect.

At right, my sword and scabbard. I made my sword from an old junk "medieval" blade, ground it into the shape of the Alfedena sword shown in Connolly (p. 103). It started with a flattened diamond cross-section, and I ground the faces to leave a midrib down the center. The scabbard is wood covered with leather, with brass chape and throat. Two strips of brass are wrapped around the throat and soldered in place, rather than any fancy embossing. If I had thought to taper the wood more, the chape would be smaller and much more graceful. The baldric is cut in the "ladder" pattern seen on many vase paintings, and the ends tied and nailed to the scabbard.
Here is George Marcinek's very nice sword and scabbard, made by Manning Imperial. Manning makes THE BEST GREEK SWORDS.
Deepeeka kopis owned by Jon Martin. I'm not sure if the small scabbard knife is a Greek feature or Iberian, but otherwise it seems to be a decently made piece.

Deepeeka offers two swords besides their kopis, Greek Xiphos Hoplite Sword AH4214 and Greek Brass Hilt Hoplite Sword AH4212. The first has a more accurate hilt (solid brass being incorrect); the blades appear to be identical and look rather fat and badly shaped, but a few minutes on the grinder might improve them greatly. Scabbards look okay.

I haven't seen any other commercially-made swords that look right, with the exception of the Del Tin falcata. Windlass/Museum Replicas fails utterly.

There is a discussion on the Sword Forum which has photographs of an original hoplite sword,
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=3f86dde7c68ed9e4603c257d718f392d&threadid=25289

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