In this blog we take a look at the equipment of the early-classical hoplite Zeno from the Greek city of Thespiae in 480 BC. He fights in the Battle of Thermopylae against the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which threatens to conquer Greece. However, the Persian army is much larger than the Greeks had expected and after two days of fighting, a large portion of the Greek army flees. Zeno is one of the 700 Thespian hoplietes who remain to defend the pass at Thermopylae, together with the famous Spartans of King Leonidas.
The hoplite and the polis
The Greek hoplite emerged in the Archaic period as a product of the Greek polis (the Greek city-state). These soldiers, who made up the most important part of Greek armies, were heavily armed citizen soldiers who fought to defend the city in which they lived and worked.
In ancient Greece, the polis (and citizenship of it) was central to society. Male citizens of these poleis had special rights in addition to economic privileges. For example, they were allowed to participate in exclusive religious rituals and could have a say at various levels in the political sphere of their city-state. The position of citizenship in the polis can be compared to the warrior class of other Indo-European societies. Like these related peoples, Greek society was hierarchical and divided into classes, with no distinction made between the warrior class and the religious class. Citizenship of a polis was therefore not only a privilege, but also brought obligations with it. The greatest of these was a form of military conscription for male citizens: if you were a member of the city community, you also had to be able to defend it. This connection between political rights and military duties also worked the other way: for example, Athenian democracy emerged from the fact that the rowers of the Athenian fleet, because they were given authority by the statesmen Solon and Cleisthenes, precisely because they fought for their city.
Hoplietes were citizen soldiers who in their daily lives were farmers or craftsmen with legal standing, who had to gather their own weapon equipment and were called up in times of war to fight for their polis. This was not always the case: for example, Spartan hoplietes were an exception because they also spent most of their time during periods of peace engaged in politics, training and the art of war. All other work in Spartan society was performed by the Perioikoi and the Helots, underclasses of non-citizens. Because of their strong culture of small-scale autonomy, competition and self-determination, the Greeks were fiercely opposed to any form of external domination; they saw this as a form of slavery compared to Greek 'freedom'. This freedom that the lower (working) class did not have; they belonged to the land and had no legal standing.
City-states like Athens and Sparta had their own forms of government and urban identity, but shared a common Greek culture of mutual competition. These cities ruled the surrounding land and constantly came into conflict with each other over power and territory. Every summer was a 'war season', in which cities fought out these conflicts with each other. This was done in pitched battles where the shield walls (phalanx) of both sides clashed and pushed against each other until one of the two lines was broken. The way hoplietes fought in these pitched battles ensured that their shared identity was strengthened: they fulfilled their social duty together with friends, family members and acquaintances and were protected by the shield of the soldiers (and fellow citizens) next to them. Through this strong urban war culture, not only individual heroism was valued by the Greeks, but also a kind of collective heroism for the honor of the city community.
The Greco-Persian Wars: the Greeks united
During the Archaic period, small-scale military conflicts took place between the city-states. Warfare was then mainly centered on individual heroism and cattle rustling. Heroic deeds were celebrated as described in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. This era came to an end with a great war, which united the mutually quarreling poleis against enormous armies that tried to conquer the entire Greek mainland. In the early fifth century BC, the Greeks would come into conflict with the Persian Achaemenid Empire under the kings Darius I and Xerxes I.
This conflict began when the Greek cities of Athens and Eretria in 498 BC supported the Ionian Revolt against Persian rule and even helped burn the city of Sardis to the ground. Persian King Darius I was furious and when the revolt had been suppressed, he sent ambassadors in 491 to all Greek city-states to force them to surrender to his power. However, the ambassadors were executed by Athens and Sparta; with this recklessness they called down the vengeance of Darius upon the entire Greek peninsula.
The following year, the Persian fleet attacked at the village of Marathon, but was defeated by the Athenian military force. This victory inspired not only Sparta and Athens but also the other Greek city-states to resist the Persians. Together they formed the Hellenic Alliance, a military alliance that was supposed to stop a next Persian invasion.
This invasion came 10 years later in 480 under King Xerxes, the successor to Darius. He sent an enormous military force of around 200,000 men and a fleet of 1200 ships to bring the entire Greek peninsula under his control. The Greeks awaited them at the pass of Thermopylae, which they managed to defend for two days with the help of old fortifications. On the third day, the Persians managed to outflank them via a mountain pass (according to Herodotus by means of a Greek traitor).
The Greek army had no chance and Spartan King Leonidas I ordered the allied troops to retreat. He himself remained to defend the rear of the fleeing Greek army with his personal bodyguard (the famous 300). The Spartans were not the only ones who wanted to win heroism and honor for their city. Although they are often depicted in popular media as the only ones who sacrificed themselves, according to Herodotus the group that remained with Leonidas consisted of approximately 2000 men, including the 700 Thespians under Demophiles (and with them our fictional hoplite Zeno).
The Battle of Thermopylae has perhaps become the most famous of the entire classical antiquity because of this heroic sacrifice of the Greek rearguard. Although the enormous Persian army won the pitched battle and shortly after destroyed Athens, the Hellenic Alliance managed to turn the tide with the battles at Salamis and later Plataea. After that, the Greeks and Persians continued to wage war with each other for 30 years, but Persian kings did not attempt again to take control of the Greek peninsula.
Clothing
Zeno wears a tunic, a belt and a pair of simple leather sandals under his weapon equipment. When it rains or when he is cold, he wears his thick woolen cloak.
Chiton (tunic)
Greek tunics were made of linen, sometimes also of wool. The tunic that Zeno wears under his weapon equipment is made of thick fabric and has short sleeves, but in the warmer months Greeks often wore light garments that left their arms and shoulders uncovered. Classical Greeks wore no trousers under their tunic, as they considered them barbaric.
Sandaloi (sandals)
Because of the warm, temperate climate, sandals (sandaloi) like these were worn in classical Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean. Although Zeno wears simple military sandals that are less open to better protect his feet, there were constantly new fashion trends for sandals in antiquity that were set by fashionable Athens.
In addition to sandals, from the fifth century BC onwards, people also wore a kind of laced boots (such as endromis and embades) and in winter socks made of felt (piloi) to keep their feet warm.
Belt / strap
To shape the tunic, both simple leather straps and fabric belts were used.
Chlamys (cloak)
The chlamys was a woolen cloak worn in classical Greece. It kept clothing clean and offered the wearer protection against weather and wind.
However, the cloak that Zeno wears is not only meant to keep him warm, but also forms part of his weapon equipment. On the battlefield, he wraps the cloak around his weapon arm to protect it against spears, swords and arrows.
The cloak was fastened with a fibula, a metal clothing pin that was often decorated.
Armor (panoplia)
The weapon equipment (also called panoplia in Ancient Greek) of Zeno is representative of the average Greek hoplite from the Persian Wars. He carries a large bronze shield, a 'Corinthian' bronze helmet, linen linothorax and bronze greaves to protect his body. He uses a long spear, the doru, to fight in formation and a short sword, the xiphos, as a secondary weapon. As a citizen soldier, Zeno would have had to pay for this equipment himself.
Aspis (shield)
The large bronze shield (aspis or hoplon) was the most important part of the hoplite's equipment; the name 'hoplite' is even derived from it. This heavy shield was designed to fight in a tight shield wall formation (phalanx), in which a hoplite was partially covered by the shield of the others next to him.
The hoplon was often decorated with bronze work or paint. These decorations were applied for various
