The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[MeinPanzer]

Lets be clear, there are three possibilities: 1) the ochane supports the arm holding the sarissa as Connelly suggests, 2) the ochane is simply holds the pelta when not being used actively, 3) ochane bears the weight of the shield, but it is tied to the left wrist/forearm to allow it to be moved around to a limited extent.

1) allows for limited range of motion of the left arm, but supports extended use of the sarissa. 2) allows complete freedom of movement for the arms, but then requires the shield to be taken up before sword fighting. The fellow on the left of Johnny's painting has simply slung the shield over his shoulder like this. If the shield must be taken up anew, there is not reason to pass the wrist through the antilabe rather than simply grip it because you no longer have a sarissa to hold. You are simply holding it like an old style aspis at this point. I have no problem with the notion of simply having the pelta slung for later use, except it does not conform to the notion that the shields were brought forward for battle. 3) This is the worst of both worlds. You have a limited range of motion before you start to choke yourself with the ochane- as Johnny's central figure shows. Also, attemtping to move the shield around from just a wrist strap at the edge is very difficult and the strap actually makes this worse.

For example, if you raise the shield and the ochane shortens in front, you may then have a problem lowering your arm again! Trust me, you have to try this. Just take a 60cm stick and a rope and you can see the problems with how the strap acts. Since as you move the shield, the strap is not helping to support it all that much, and a 60cm pelta is not all that heavy, you'd be better off simply strapping it to your forearm and forgetting the strap entirely.

Firstly, how much range of motion of the slung-forward shield would have been necessary with any orientation of grips, porpakes, or straps when just using the sarissa? Not much, I think. But regardless of how the phalangite's shield was wielded, if it was employed with a telamon and the left arm was attached to it in any manner, the soldier will have limited movement because the strap will only allow so much slack, so that even with the porpax in use, like in Johnny's illustration, as you point out, it would choke the bearer. But, again, I am discussing Argive shields in use as a stop-gap measure, not peltae.

Did Cretan archers wear their shields in this manner? I have seen that often in depictions, but I don't know if it is accurate.

The stele of Thersagoras from Demetrias which shows a Cretan archer with a shield slung across his back unfortunately has not preserved any detail which could have illuminated the mode of suspension. The only other piece of evidence which could help in this matter, the stele of a Mysian thureophoros which shows the deceased departing for war with a thureos on his back, preserves no such detail either.

I never said it was. I brought it up because you suggested that a shield of this type was "modified" for use with sarissa. Clearly there is no way that man's wrist can go through the antilabe without his elbow also going through the porpax like one of those bizarre Russian shield-gauntlets.

That wasn't directed at you, but just so that we can dismiss it from this discussion (since it always seems to come up, anyway, one way or another).

Replacing the porpax with a piece of wood and 4 nails or two straps that are brought together in the middle to form a grip is about as cheap as it gets. You'd make money on the sale of the bronze from your old porpax! But probably cultural influence caused the double grip to be maintained.

I understood you, I just don't see anything in that statement that implies the porpax was removed, simply that the onus is now on the ochane to support the shield.

There are two options: either they didn't remove their porpakes, and went into battle being inconvenienced by them but not making use of them, or they did and thus were better able to make use of the inner curvature of the shield to defend themselves. The latter seems more likely to me.

The discussion seemed to have broadened to Macedonian shields as well, but once again, chopping down an aspis or simply remaking the core and scavanging the bronze face probably takes not much more time and surely less cost than coming up with many thousands of sarissas. The Spartans had ample time and resources (wood and helot labor, since you already have more bronze than you need) to make proper peltae in this instance.

Sarissae have nothing to do with the discussion, though. Sarissae were necessary to equip a Macedonian phalanx; there was no way a general could skimp on them. If Cleomenes had to equip his newly-enfranchised Spartiates on a budget (and the Spartan kings were always operating on a budget in the Hellenistic period), he had to pay for sarissae, but he didn't necessarily have to pay for peltae, whether new or carved out of old aspides. Equipping a Macedonian phalanx was always going to be expensive in the Hellenistic period, between the manpower, the armament, and the training, which is why so many minor states never fielded one. If, however, some skimping could be made in order to cut back on the initial cost of creating one, then the king would be all the more likely to get his reforms off the ground (and the importance of expediency in such matters was clear from the failure of Agis IV's reforms). Cleomenes III did not have ample resources, which is one of the reasons why it was felt that this reform was so necessary (in order to boost Sparta's military strength without the king having to resort to campaigning to muster money to hire mercenaries), and it's not like bronze could have easily been reworked. That all required time, money, and dozens, if not hundreds, of skilled smiths. It would have been much easier simply to pop off the porpakes (or keep them, but I find that less likely), and modify the shields by attaching simple telamones and lengthened antilabae. After all, leather was cheap and plentiful.