#Simple hoplite shield designs series

ItвЂ™s only a single line, composed of six words in Greek, lifted by a medieval Greek lexicographer out-of-context from an unknown comedy written by a fifth-century BCE Athenian playwright. This is it-the sole surviving piece of evidence that supports all those lambdas you see in every single modern representation of the ancient Spartans. вЂњFor he was terrified when he saw the flashing lambdas.вЂќ This means, in my own English translation: It reads as follows in the original Attic Greek: 810 вЂ“ 893 CE) in the entry for the letter lambda in his LexiconВ (p. This fragment has survived solely through quotation by the medieval Greek patriarch, scholar, and lexicographer Photios I of Constantinople (lived c. It seems to be mocking a cowardly man who fled from battle at the sight of Spartan shields. It is numbered in the Loeb Classical Library edition of EupolisвЂ™s fragments as Fragment 394. The only piece of evidence that exists for the Spartans bearing the letter lambda on their shields is one extremely brief, out-of-context fragment from a lost comedy written by the Athenian comic playwright Eupolis (lived c. The evidence for Spartans using shields with the letter lambda 640 BCE, depicting Greek hoplites with shields decorated with a variety of symbols and patterns (As I discuss in this article I wrote in October 2020, the ancient Greeks widely used MedousaвЂ™s face as an apotropaic symbol to frighten away malevolent supernatural forces, so it only makes sense that a soldier would paint this symbol on his shield.)ДЄBOVE: Detail of the Chigi Vase, a Proto-Corinthian olpe dated to between c. The soldier on the end has the face of the Gorgon Medousa, which is evidently meant to strike fear into the enemy hoplites. One hoplite has the head of a bull on his. The shield designs of the army on the right are clearly visible.ДЄ couple hoplites have images of birds on their shields. The vase depicts two armies of hoplites lined up to fight each other. 640 BCE that was discovered in an Etruscan tomb in 1881. Below, for instance, is the famous Chigi Vase, a Proto-Corinthian olpe dated to between c. Surviving ancient Greek depictions of hoplitesвЂ™ shields reveal the sheer diversity of the decorations they used. Greek hoplites regularly decorated their own shields with a wide array of diverse personal symbols, geometric designs, and images. Consequently, a hopliteвЂ™s shield was his personal property, not property issued to him by the state, and shields were not at all uniform. In historical reality, Greek hoplites in all poleis, including Sparta, were expected to provide their own equipment. In that article, I briefly address the inaccuracy of the Spartans all having identical shields, but I donвЂ™t talk about the use of the letter lambda specifically and whether it is accurate.ДЄBOVE: Screenshot of the current revision of the Wikipedia article вЂњSparta,вЂќВ showing the shield with the letter lambda in the infobox IвЂ™ve already written an entire article aboutВ how the film 300В is a wildly historically inaccurate piece of propaganda that deliberately distorts history to promote a right-wing extremist message that can be described as borderline fascist at best.

#Simple hoplite shield designs series

Notably, in the 2006 fantasy action film 300, directed by Zack Snyder and based on the 1998 limited comic book series 300В by Frank Miller, all the Spartans are portrayed using perfectly uniform, unpainted, iron shields embossed with the letter lambda. The misconception that all Spartan hoplites always carried shields bearing the letter lambda is absolutely ubiquitous in popular culture. Although there is evidence to suggest that a few Spartans probably did choose to decorate their shields with the letter lambda, the vast majority seem to have decorated their shields with other symbols, geometric designs, and images. In historical reality, Greek hoplites, including Spartan hoplites, were expected to provide their own equipment and they could decorate their shields however they wished. This letter, of course, stands for О›О±ОєОµОґО±ОЇОјП‰ОЅ ( LakedaГmЕЌn), which was the most common name in antiquity for the Greek polis (i.e., вЂњcity-stateвЂќ) that included that settlement of Sparta. In popular culture, ancient Spartan hoplites are virtually always portrayed as fighting with shields decorated with the Greek letter lambda (О›).