The sword has already been mentioned. Ridgeway, in spite of the almost invariable mention of bronze as the material of the Homeric weapons, believes that it was generally of iron, but, while the presence of iron in the Homeric age is admitted in the case of implements, it is generally held that weapons were all of bronze. Except for one arrow-head (Iliad, iv. 123), and the mace of Areithoüs, mentioned as a unique example by Nestor (Iliad, vii. 141), no reference to an iron weapon proper occurs in the Homeric poems. But the sword was used only when the favourite spear or javelin had failed to decide the contest.
It must be admitted that the problem of pre-Homeric armour and Homeric armour must always be largely a matter of inference, based on a comparative study of the evidence literary and archaeological. Unless we are prepared to adopt the theory that the Homeric poems consist of a mosaic of interpolation informed by an archaizing editor, we must assume that they describe a single period of transition intermediate between the Mycenaean prime and the dawn of history proper. In this case we shall believe that the Homeric warrior has so far adapted to changing conditions the simple appliances of the Mycenaean that he has evolved a feeble corslet with minor pieces of body armour, while retaining the big double-bellied shield as a protection against the arrows which are still the chief weapon of the rank and file and are even used on occasion by the chiefs. If we further believe that the iron at his disposal was similar to that used by the Celts of Polybius, it is natural to believe also that he preferred the harder bronze for his weapons, though iron was common for domestic and other implements.
On early Greek arms in general see, besides Reichel and Ridgeway op. cit.: A. Lang, Homer and his Age (London, 1906; and criticisms in Classical Review, February 1907); G.G.A. Murray, The Rise of the Greek Epic (Oxford, 1907), chap. vi; R.M. Burrows, Discoveries in Crete (2nd ed., London, 1907); Leaf and Bayfield, Iliad, i.-xii. Appendix A (follows Reichel); W. Helbig, Homerische Epos (1884 and 1899), and La Question mycénienne (1896); C. Robert, Studien zur Ilias (Berlin, 1901); Chr. Tsountas and J.I. Manatt, The Mycenaean Age (1897); V. Bérard, Les Phéniciens et l’Odyssée (Paris, 1902); Cauer, Grundfrager d. Homerkritik (Leipzig, 1895); much valuable discussion will be found in articles in Journ. Hell, Stud., Classical Rev. and Journ. of Anthropol. Instit.; see also editions of Iliad and Odyssey (espec. D.B. Monro), and works quoted under [Aegean Civilization]; [Homer]; [Mycenae].
4. Greek, Historical.—The equipment does not differ generically from that described in the Homeric poems, except when we come to the reforms of the Macedonians. The hoplites, who formed the main army, wore helmet, body armour, greaves and shield, and fought with pike and sword. The helmets were (1) the Corinthian, which covered the face to the chin, with slits for the eyes, and often had no plume or crest; (2) the Athenian, which did not cover the face (though sometimes it had cheek-plates which could be turned up if necessary), had crests, sometimes triple, with plumes of feathers, horsehair or leather; (3) a steel cap (πῖλος) without crest, plumes or cheek-plates. The last seems to have been most common in the Spartan army. The body armour consisted of breast and back plates fastened together by thongs or straps and buckles; sometimes poverty compelled a man to be content with a leather jerkin (σπολάς) partly strengthened by metal plates, or even a quilted linen or stuffed shirt. Greaves were of pliant bronze fastened at the back above the ankle and below the knee. Shields were of the small round or oval type, adapted to the new conditions in which the bow and arrow had given place to hand-to-hand fighting. They were held by means of two handles (ὄχανα), the left hand being thrust through the first and grasping the second. In the 5th and 4th centuries the shield bore a device or initial representing the state and also the individual’s own crest. The hoplite’s pike, about 8 ft. long, unlike the Homeric weapon, was hardly ever thrown. In the Macedonian phalanx a pike (σάρισσα), certainly 18 ft., and perhaps later in the 3rd and and 2nd centuries even 24 ft. long, was introduced. The sword was straight, sharp-pointed, short, sometimes less than 20 in., and rarely more than 2 ft. long. It was double-edged and used for both cut and thrust. A less common type was the μάχαιρα or curved sabre used by the Spartans, with one sharp edge. The hoplite had no other offensive weapons.
The cavalry were heavy-armed like the hoplites except that they carried a smaller shield, or, more usually, none at all. They were armed with a lance which they wielded freely (i.e. not “in rest”) and occasionally threw. The Macedonian cavalry had a σάρισσα. The light-armed (γυμνῆτες, ψιλοί) were (1) ἀκοντισταί, armed with a javelin (3 to 5 ft. long) and a small shield; (2) τοξόται, archers; and (3) σφενδονῆται, slingers, whose missiles were balls of lead, stones and hardened clay pellets. Between the heavy and the light armed were the peltasts. The pelta, from which they took the name, was a light shield or target, made of skin or leather on a wooden or wickerwork frame. The Athenian Iphicrates armed them with linen corslet and a larger spear and sword than those of the hoplites; he also invented a new footgear (called after him iphicratides) to replace the older greaves.
5. Roman.—The equipment of the Roman soldier, like the organization of the army (see [Roman Army]), passed through a great number of changes, and it is quite impossible to summarize it as a single subject. In the period of the kings the legion was the old Greek phalanx with Greek armour; the front ranks wore the Greek panoply and fought with long spears and the circular Argolic shield. The early Roman sword, like that of the Greeks, Egyptians and Etruscans, was of bronze. We have no direct statement as to its form, but in all probability it was of the ordinary leaf-shape. We gather from the monuments that, in the 1st century B.C., the Roman sword was short, worn on the right side (except by officers, who carried no shield), suspended from a shoulder-belt (balteus) or a waist-belt (cingulum), and reaching from the hollow of the back to the middle of the thigh, thus representing a length of from 22 in. to 2 ft. The blade was straight, double-edged, obtusely-pointed. On the Trajan column (A.D. 114) it is considerably longer, and under the Flavian emperors the long, single-edged spatha appears frequently along with the short sword.
The second period ending with the Punic wars witnessed a change. The hastati and the principes are both heavily armed, but the round shield has given way to the oblong (scutum), except for one-third of the hastati who bore only the spear and the light javelin (gaesa). The third period—that described by Polybius—is characterized by greater complexity of armour, due no doubt in part to the experience gained in conflicts with a wider range of peoples, and in part to the assimilation of the methods peculiar to the new Italian allies. Thus we find the skirmishers (velites) armed with a light javelin 3 ft. long and ¾ in. thick, with an iron point 9 in. long; this point was so fragile that it was rendered useless by the first cast. For defence they wore a hide-covered headpiece and a round buckler 3 ft. in diameter. The heavy-armed carried a scutum formed of two boards glued together, covered with canvas and skin, and incurved into the shape of a half-cylinder; its upper and lower edges were strengthened with iron rims and its centre with a boss (umbo). A greave was worn on the right leg, and the helmet was of bronze with a crest of three feathers. The wealthier soldiers wore the full cuirass of chain armour (lorica), the poorer a brass plate 9 in. square. For offence they carried a sword and two javelins. The former was the Spanish weapon, straight, double-edged and pointed, for both thrust and cut, in place of the old Greek sword.
The characteristic weapon, however, was the pilum (Gr. ὑσσός). The form of this weapon and the mode of using it have been minutely described by Polybius (vi. 23), but his description has been much misunderstood in consequence of the rarity of representations or remains of the pilum. It is shown on a monument of St Rémy in Provence, assigned to the age of the first emperors, and in a bas-relief at Mainz, on the grave-stone of Quintus Petilius Secundus, a soldier of the 15th legion. A specimen of the actual weapon is in the museum at Wiesbaden. It is a javelin with a stout iron head (7 in.), carried on an iron rod, about 20 in. in length, which terminates in a tang for insertion in the wooden shaft. As represented on the monuments, the iron part of the weapon is about one-third of its entire length (6¾ ft.). It was used primarily as a missile. When the point pierced the shield the weight of the stave pulled the shield downwards and rendered it useless. At close quarters it answered all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of the modern bayonet when “fixed.” Vegetius, in his Rei militaris instituta, describes it in a modified form as used in the armies of the lower empire, and in a still more modified form it reappears as the “argon” of the Franks. This equipment was characteristic of hastati, principes and triarii (save that the latter used the hasta instead of the pilum). We thus see how great is the change from the time when the hastati were the light-armed (from hasta) of the Greek phalanx.
The cavalry, which had originally been protected only by a light ox-hide shield and the most fragile spears, adopted, about Polybius’s time, the full Greek equipment of buckler, strong spear and breastplate.
In the last period of the republic the pilum became the universal weapon of the heavy-armed, while the auxiliaries (all foreigners, the velites having disappeared) used the hasta and the long single-edged sword (spatha). Under the empire the heavy-armed, according to Josephus, had helmet, cuirass, a long sword worn on the left side, and a dagger on the right, pilum and scutum. The special detachment detailed to attend the commander had a round shield (clipeus) and a long spear. The cavalry wore armour like that of the infantry, with a broadsword, a buckler slung from the horse’s side, a long pole for thrusting, and several javelins, almost as large as spears, in a sheath or quiver. Arrian, writing of a period some fifty years later, gives further particulars from which we gather that of the cavalry some were bowmen, some polemen, while others wielded lances and axes.