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weapons and armour of the greek marine
#1
well i'm pretty familiar with what hoplites of the army used but now I'd like to turn my focus on the marine corps of the classical era greeks
wbisites and source info would be nice and pictures and concept drawings would rock



thanks
semper fi
Valour is the strength, not of arms and legs,but of the heart and soul
-Lee
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#2
I misspelled weapons lol
Valour is the strength, not of arms and legs,but of the heart and soul
-Lee
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#3
Dear friend your answer is here:
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic. ... ght=marine
kind regards
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#4
Thank you for the link, Stefanos, I had missed the linked thread. Very interesting. Smile

But at this innocent place :wink: : we had the discussion about the barefoot warriors, I know your arguments against and perhaps you know my arguments in favour of it. Not necessary to discuss it again.

But one question I have not asked yet: What is the reason that so many but not all Greek warriors were shown barefoot in pictures? A convention? Why? Why were the barefoot soldiers in hellenistic pictures shown much less frequently (although some were), if it was a convention? I would be interested in your thoughts about it.
Wolfgang Zeiler
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#5
The planks of the trireme are not unkind to bare feet.

A number of statues had been found to have painted foot ware.
The state of many scratched pottery images leaves a lot to interpretation.
Red paint from hematite has disappeared almost without traces from much pottery images.

Ancient shoes are from perishable material and almost none survived

Many Balkan farmers went barefoot from their village to the dirt roads leading to their fields untill 1960 but they wore boots when going hunting!

Kind regards
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#6
If one goes barefoot as a matter of course, the foot makes its own shoe. Back in the 70s, when I was one of the subculture called hippy, I went an entire Texas summer with no shoes. By September, I could walk on hot pavement, crush out cigarettes with my bare heel, and the callous was about 1/4" (nearly 1cm) thick. Didn't feel sharp rocks, didn't notice grass burrs, etc., in the calloused parts, anyway.

Once I began to wear shoes again, the callous disappeared in a couple of months. Many cultures in various continents wore/wear no shoes, and it works out for them just fine. So I can see it as possible that warriors from some ancient ages may have worn no shoes. You certainly have better grip on the ground than with smooth leather soles, especially when the ground or rocks are wet.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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#7
I concur with you, David. As a bureaucrat and couch potato I never achieved such untouchable soles but even I'm able to walk 15 to 20 km barefoot (except on some gravel paths with a special kind of sharp and big stones); the biggest problem are the other people who look at you as to a children eating monster from Mars. :lol:

But back to the ancient sources. Stefanos, you are surely right that many statues had painted sandals and boots and perhaps more vase paintings would show shod warriors if only complete. But not nearly all. A lot of pictures exists which cannot be misinterpreted.

And actually the fact that many people were also shown with shoes is an argument for me that those shown without shoes were normally meant to be so. Except we could think of a convention, similar to that of heroic/erotic nudity for warriors. I doubt it but it may be possible.
Wolfgang Zeiler
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#8
Ok,thanks Demetrios,I had once used the example of my grand parents and my father who used to play football in rocky terrain barefoot,when he was a boy,but I was not convincing.But no one could doubt you and you're living "civilised" proof that going barefoot is not unthinkable in all kinds of terrain.
Also think that most battle took place in cultivated farms.I tried it and even though I'm not used to going barefoot,my problem was not the terrain itself so much,as the heat of summer.
Stefane,in your painted sculpture shoes,you forget to say that most of them had indeed painted stripes,but the sole was sculpted and is still ery well visible!
Some vases have lost red paint,but you can see that in most of those where the red baldric and red shield ropes are visible,the sandals are non existant.
Heroic nudity is not convincing,as in all those where the hoplites are fully armes,shoes are nowhere.And in many vases,some soldiers are barefeet and others have shoes,no matter who is wearing arnour and who is "heroicly" nude.
Khaire
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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#9
BTW my thought is that many classical hoplites and other warriors, being from a rural background and used to go barefoot (even the wealthier ones) and fighting pitched battles mostly on flat terrain, went also without shoes in war. So many hoplites were depicted barefoot.

In the hellenistic times the wars became more diverse and far spread, mercenaries and professional soldiers took over greater parts of the fighting and boots were more frequently used by those (weaklings :lol: ). Unfortunately we have less pictorial evidence from this time, but what we have show more warriors with boots and sandals than in classical pictures.
Wolfgang Zeiler
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#10
Agreed.Also,Xenophon mentions shoes in his Anabasis.He said his soldiers made shoes from stripes of leather because their original ones were destroyed for long.But again,these shoes are mentioned when they were crossing snowy mountains.And he is writing about 400 bc,when shoes and bootes are already more frequent,the war has changed and notice that their shoes did not last even some months.
Khaire
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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#11
Perhaps a bit more back to topic: what do you think about the hypothesis that the Iphicratian reform (if it ever took place what I doubt) was first a reform of marine soldiers?
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson ... ates1.html
I mean it's not bad. Some further conclusions are a bit bold however for my taste.
Wolfgang Zeiler
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#12
Hi Wolfgang !
I rather like Luke's hypothesis - it does explain plausibly why we never seem to hear of this 12' dory in use elswhere - and I know from personal experience that even an 8' dory is difficult to wield one-handed.
Which conclusions do you find un-convincing ?
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
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#13
It is mainly the chapter about the peltasts who were later equipped by Iphicrates with spears and oval peltes. Do we have any evidence for this? It would mean the introduction of a kind of thureos 100 years before the celts had great impact on Greece. I interprete "summetrous" as round, compared to the crescent shaped Thracian pelte. With these round, perhaps wooden peltes hoplites were equipped, not peltasts.
Later in part 2 I'm not sure about every thought; that the Macedonian phalangites were also trained with javelins, that the peltasts = mercenaries did not use javelins for a long time and that the thureophoroi did not use javelins (I think they were all-round soldiers with javelins and spear). Only minor critique however, the articles are imaginitive and I like them very much. It's a luck to have such in the Inet.
Wolfgang Zeiler
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#14
Symmetrous can also mean proportional.

The fisrt contact that Greeks had with rectangular shields was at the 7th century B.C. at the western colonies
See the Dark age armies thread where I have a link that shows that they knew rectangular shields from the 8th century!

Probably Dark Age even Archaic period marines used a "special long spear" the NAYMACHON DORI. More details when I go home near my sources for that.

Kind regards
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#15
A special marine weapon was the "dorydrepanon" (δορυδρέπανον) that is a sickle-spear.It was a spear with the regular point and with a sickle like blade in the side.It could be used to grab the enemy ship,but with the risk of stucking there.This fanction may mean that it was longer than usual.
Plato indicated this would not be used by everyone but only by hoplomachoi and he gives the example of one such person,but his weapon was not very efective.
Khairete
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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