09-02-2009, 05:47 PM
Quote:Personally, as I have indicated on another thread, I think Connolly ( and others) have it right......such little artistic evidence as we have ( mainly the (Aemilius Paullus monument) shows a rimless shield with both porpax and antilabe.......
And yet not with any sort of telamon, so how are we supposed to take that? Even so, as Plutarch's comment on Cleomenes III's reform shows, even if a shield had a porpax, in order for the men to use their sarissai two-handed, they did not use them.
Quote:I don't know of any depiction (or any other evidence for that matter) which shows a sarissaphroi shield without a porpax and antilabe, so the existence of such a shield must remain pure speculation
And yet how many depictions of phalangite shields do we have which show the telamon? One, by my count, and in that depiction we only see the front of the shield.
Quote:as must a "large rimmed shield" for which there is almost no evidence either, other than the belt depiction which is artistically suspect anyway....
There is also the evidence that Philopoemen equipped his men with Argive shields, a statement which, when taken with the comment that Cleomenes instructed his men to not use the porpax but to use the ochane, shows that they could easily have been used with the sarissa. But even so, why is the belt depiction "artistically suspect"? The only thing which seems to be suspect about it is the awkward depiction of the stance of the phalangite, which has always been a difficulty for Greek artists. It's clear enough that the artist was careful to depict the details of the arms and armour we see (like the decoration of the shield and the konos helmets, for instance). In response, I would ask you how much direct, unequivocal evidence we have for the use of smaller, rimless shields among the phalanx? Not much, either. That's the nature of studying this topic, unfortunately.
Ruben
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
