[split] Phalanx warfare: use of the spear

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Giannis K. Hoplite: as i said before,  you cant take art too literally, because artists are not soldiers. These are not photographs, but representations made who know how many years after the battles were fought.. and its not that uncommon for artist to "go with the flow" and make his work based on works of those before him. Artists have tendency to idealize everything, so it would be not that uncommon for them to copy some "heroic" posture from other vases they saw, and use them on their own work.. they definitely saw more art paintings than they saw actual battles...

i can tell you that for example, while i'm working on 17.century themed combat game, a lot of art pictures are showing complete nonsense against all laws of physics.. look at any portrait about naval battles.. you will see a lot of ships sinking, burning etc, yet sinking was something that just didn't happened that very often to wooden ships, and definitely not during battle.. yet all portraits are full of it..  its artistic license, picture painted by somebody who painted it but never actually saw a naval battle in his life (and yes, there were some exceptions.. as always) and why did they paint it? because they heard about ships were lost, yet usually only after battle, when damaged ships got into some bad weather and couldnt return back to ports.. yet, for artist who is painting a naval battle, that is not interesting.. he wants to have ships sinking, because his enemies lost so many ships etc etc...

or another example - just look how many battle paintings from 18-19.century show men killing each other with bayonets.. Yet, if you actually look for details from those battles, or any other, you will find interesting thing - bayonet attacks practically never happened in open terrain, because one side always just rout and ran away... yet, did that stopped artists from painting exactly that? NOPE

You are wrongly making parallels between dissimilar societies. Ancient greek artists, especially high artists like sculptors (vase painting was considered a lesser art, but still there were famous painters) would be respected citizens and thus would serve in their city's army, which in all city states was milita hoplites.
The painters and sculptors would have had a constant contact with the weapons they depicted, unlike most modern artists or artists of other periods.
Same is true for all those that admired the artwork. I have not seen actual war, I don't even know if movies show how war is fought nowadays, they can be as inaccurate as they like, only a small minority will object. Ancient Greece? Completely different!

It is also plain wrong that they "might" have created their artwork many years after battle occured. I'm sure you are familiar with archaic and greek history. It is interconnected with military history, their whole world was spinning around war and preparation for war. We could talk specifically if you want, but it's all in Herodotus and Xenophon. Go look what the Siphnians were doing when they built their treasure in Delphi, or what the Asia Minor cities were used to when the Nereid monument was built. The Nereid monument is also unique in depictling not only mythical scenes, but also real events of the time.

But yes, there is definitely stylization in art. All spears are exactly parallel, the proportions of the body are not always exact to nature, and SOME unusual practise might be shown once in a while.

I cannot call it stylization when it happens to THAT SCALE!

But the Greeks are constantly proving as accurate as ancient art ever has been all the time. They show a cross on the hilt of a sword on a vase painting, this is stylization. Then you see that real swords some times had iron bands crossing over the hilt and you understand. Two lines crossing is stylisation. Of a real event none the less.