Quote:III [10] As for myself, I have understood from my very childhood how to protect the spot where I thought I was likely to receive a blow; and if I had nothing else I put out my hands to hinder as well as I could the one who was trying to hit me. And this I did not from having been taught to do so, but even though I was beaten for that very act of putting out my hands. Furthermore, even when I was a little fellow I used to seize a sword wherever I saw one, although, I declare, I had never learned, except from instinct, even how to take hold of a sword. At any rate, I used to do this, even though they tried to keep me from it--and certainly they did not teach me so to do--just as I was impelled by nature to do certain other things which my father and mother tried to keep me away from. And, by Zeus, I used to hack with a sword everything that I could without being caught at it. For this was not only instinctive, like walking and running, but I thought it was fun in addition to its being natural.

Quote:It either was not spread at all,as those who could pay for it had the same views with those two gentlemen,or it was so spread that both of them needed to write against it,by ridiculing it and shoeing it pointless.

Quote:Can you gather 30 hoplites for Marathon next year?

Quote:The sail (histion) was often made up of pieces made separately and stitched together (whence the plural histia often means only a single sail). The only kind of sail known by the Greeks, according to Boeckh (Urk. 141), was the square sail. The velum triangulare of the Alexandrian corn ships was of later date. The sails were often strengthened, when made of separate pieces, by strips of leather sewn over the stitching. (Cf. bas-relief from Pompeii, Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul; Joseph. Ant. iv. 8, 37, para ton histon epi polu estêmen anablepontes arithmountes tôn bursôn tas epibolas.) The sail was fastened to the yard by the peritonion, which passed through eyelets (krikoi) made in the border of the sail (cf. parakrouein). At the lower extremities of the sail were the sheets (podes) and tacks (propodes). [p. 218]

Quote:... and we do it all the time, too, in 18th C.

Quote:Paul, I'll be in Athens and on Lesvos next April 15-May15th with my wife and daughter and at least one other hoplite reenactor is coming out to visit us. Any chance that's when you're in Greece?

Quote:[17] And once Cyrus invited a captain and his whole6 company to dinner, because he had noticed him drawing up one half of the men of his company against the other half for a sham battle. Both sides had breastplates and on their left arms their shields; in the hands of the one side he placed stout cudgels, while he told the other side that they would have to pick up clods to throw.

[18] Now when they had taken their stand thus equipped, he gave the order to begin battle. Then those on the one side threw their clods, and some struck the breastplates and shields, others also struck the thighs and greaves of their opponents. But when they came into close quarters, those who had the cudgels struck the others--some upon the thighs, others upon the arms, others upon the shins; and as still others stooped to pick up clods, the cudgels came down upon their necks and backs. And finally, when the cudgel-bearers had put their opponents to flight, they pursued them laying on the blows amid shouts of laughter and merriment. And then again, changing about, the other side took the cudgels with the same result to their oppononts, who in turn threw clods.

[19] In this Cyrus admired both the captain's cleverness and the men's obedience, and he was pleased to see that they were at the same time having their practice and enjoying themselves and also because that side was victorious which was armed after the fashion of the Persians. Pleased with this he invited them to dinner; and in his tent, observing some of them wearing bandages--one around his leg, another around his arm--he asked them what the matter was; and they answered that they had been hit with the clods. [20] And he inquired further, whether it had happened when they were close together or far apart. And they said it was when they were far apart. But when they came to close quarters, it was capital fun--so the cudgel-bearers said; but those who had been thoroughly drubbed with the cudgels cried out that it did not seem any fun to them to be beaten at close quarters, and at the same time they showed the marks of the cudgels on their arms and their necks and some also on their faces. And then, as was natural, they laughed at one another.