Hoplite Shield Designs

[Chris B]

Very nice. I am glad to see you got it painted nicely. Very beautiful shield.

[Phalanx300]

Very nice shield indeed ) .

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Piteas, the brother of Sofanes (Alberto from Zaragoza) sold me his shield, because he bought a new shield from Eduardo. The old painting my shield had was a big cock (please don't misinterpret me :lol: ) over a gold background.

It is made of fiberglass with a wood core

Nice shield, though for a minute the description of it's original design did
cause me to imagine something else.... hock: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

I really liked that cock shield. Fortunately you painted your shield very nicely! Congratulations. But now you're a Macedonian! Not because of the star but because of the rest of decoration that is purely macedonian.
You should show us your whole impression in the other thread once you've finished it.
Khaire
Giannis

[Kineas]

So... hoping for a little help here.

The following picture is an ARW plate of about 470 BC. Boardman thinks that this is the Nymph Thetis, mother of Achilles, and that the plate itself is a shield pattern. I'd like to do it on my Aspis, but I thought that I'd ask for some opinions first.

[Paullus Scipio]

Luke Ueda-Sarson's site here:

www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson/Greek_ ... rns_1.html

has many actual shield designs taken from depictions (though it is far from being all-inclusive)......significantly, no 'Human figure' type designs appear, nor can I find any on a quick flick through my library......unless someone knows of such a design, I'd suggest steer clear of it, and stick with something closer to an actual design........

[Kineas]

Really?

First, so you don't think that this and the other plates that have shield shaped rims and designs done this way aren't depictions of shields?

[hoplite14gr]

Human figure designs appear in hoplitotdromy shields. No tenough evidence that they were battle shileds because hoplitodromy shileds are describe in the Chalkotheke of Olympia and in fragments of a Chalkotheke list attributed to Kimon of Athens

Goddess Nike that appears on a shield from a pot in Hidelsheim Museum is probaly propaganda as the shield is on the side of a group of sad women who are told of a warriors death.

Alkibiades had the Cupid casting thunderbolts on his shield but it was a rare exception.

Christian the pottery rim appears on pottery of Ionic cities and it is probably related to Iones (under research)

Double dolphines are asociated with Megara and Delian League.

a triskelon made of dolphines with the Syracusan marines (under research)

Hope ti helps

Kind regards

[Paullus Scipio]

Stefanos wrote:

Human figure designs appear in hoplitodromy shields.

....these are clearly marked as such with a competitor, and probably indicate "official" weighed etc competition shields ( see examples below) for the Holitodromy race...... ( see examples below), and as Stefanos says, certainly not "battle" shields.

Alkibiades had the Cupid casting thunderbolts on his shield but it was a rare exception.

...this anecdote is recorded by Athenaeus and Plutarch, where Alcibiades shield is supposed to have been made of gold and ivory and decorated with a cupid wielding Zeus' thunderbolt, both writing in Roman times well over 500 years after Alcibiades, among dozens of other scurrilous stories of Alcibiades, and all but certainly untrue, or at least highly unlikely.......but just about possible (?)
I have found one picture at least of a 'human' like figure being used as shield decoration - what appears to be a 'faun' or 'Silenos' ....see below.

[hoplite14gr]

Yes Paul, game shields seem to have been conftonting to standards.

The seilinos head is asociated with the Megareans of Tripodiscos.

The running Seilinos with his "projecting member" is asociated with the Megakeidae clan in Athens. The most known example is from a grave stone in the Acroprolis Museum but there are others from pottery depicted in auction sites that I am not allowed to post here.

Megakles took voluntarily the blame for the Kyloneion Agos and split from the Alkmeonides. He was exiled hence his name on the grave stone in Acropolis was substituted with his nefew Glaukias. The clan disappears after the Persian Wars. Probably heavy casualties and the children probably re-inserted in to the Alkmeonides with the "rites of Apaturia Athena".


Philip II shield is made of gold and ivory so this shileds did exist. And Alkibides who had got himself through marriage the goldmines of Sigeion and being who he was I would n´t be surprised if he had made one!


As for getting mixed or dificult to recognize in battle:

The first hoplite from left is a Thespian
http://images.google.gr/imgres?imgurl=h ... l%26sa%3DX

and in the attched image you see the priest of Vravronia Artermis from Athens.

Imagine the Athenian shiled covered in dirt and blood and here is your explanation of what happened in Delion

Kind regards

[Kineas]

Right--Thanks to both of you. So I'll start with a nice simple bull's head 9as per the Boeotian Hoplite skewering a Mede illus. that you posted, Paul) and perhaps for my second Aspis, when I've done a great deal more research, I'll aim for something grander...

[hoplite14gr]

The hoplite might be wearing a pilos helmet but he is not Beotian.
He is a member of the hieratic Thavlonidae clan.
Kind regards

[Kineas]

Stefanos, pardon my ignorance--why do you think so?

[hoplite14gr]

Same bull head type except appearing in other pottery elements originating in the North-Eastern Attika appears on coins made in the "Nomsmatokopeion ton Eupatridon" = "Mint of the Nobles" just before closed down by Peisistratos. Until Kleisthenes standarised the "official Attik coinage" the nobility had the right to mint their own.

Kind regards

[Peter Raftos]

Getting back to Javier's lovely shield,
A sculptural block from the foundation of St Mark's in Venice is decorated with high relief representations of typically Macedonian arms, including a circular life-size shield decorated with a starburst symbol , a long spear, a pair of greaves and a kopis.

In 1998 Eugenio Polito, an Italian academic expert on Greek and Roman armaments, identified this relief as typical of the decoration of high status Macedonian tombs in a monograph entitled Fulgentibus Armis. Polito dated the sculpture to the late 3rd century BC. However, in 2004 Andrew Chugg published the hypothesis that the body identified as St Mark the Evangelist, which was shipped to Venice from Alexandria in the early ninth century, might actually be the remains of Alexander the Great.

All very interesting but you can see the stone relief here:
[url:2dn6y6ks]http://www.davecullen.com/forum/index.php?topic=26820.1740[/url]