Hoplite

Hoplites were ancient Greek Citizen soldiers.

The Basic Idea

In your average ancient Greek City State (Polis), every citizen who could afford weapons was required to buy weapons and practice with them. Poor people either became rowers manning oars or Peltasts, light soldiers armed with slings, bows and Javelins to harass enemy formations. Rich people became light cavalry who scouted things out and chase down Peltasts and fleeing soldiers. Middle class people became Hoplites, the main force of the Army. When a war was declared or an enemy decided to attack some of these guys would gather up, vote in a leader and march off to war.

The main exceptions to this rule were the Spartan Spartiates and the Sacred band of Thebes, both being forces of professional full time Hoplites.

Weapons and Tactics

Hoplites got their name from the Hoplon, a round wooden shield with a bronze covering about a meter in diameter. Their main weapons were a three meter long spear, a short sword, and a dagger. Hoplites usually wore bronze helmets and had breastplates made of leather, padded linen or bronze, as well as having grieves and bracers. Poorer hoplites had lower quality armor than their better off counterparts.

Hoplites fought in tight square formations called phalanxes, each man protecting the other two guys to his side while being nearly resistant to the projectiles. Running into one of them meant running into a wall of spears held by well defended guys, and was generally considered suicide. In phalanx on phalanx fights, they would ram into each other until one side broke formation either through casualties or a few guys panicking and deciding to run away. If that happened the rest of them would run away as quickly as possible and they would have lost. That was how most battles ended and usually one side broke before more than 10% losses were inflicted. As such two most important qualities for hoplites are discipline and fortitude.

Hoplites in Fantasy

• The Unsullied from A Song of Ice and Fire were armed like Hoplites and fought in a Hoplite manner, though instead of being citizen militia they are Eunuch slaves trained from childhood be unflinchingly loyal to their masters and disciplined. The Legions of New Ghis are closer to Hoplites, being armed in the same way but being citizen soldiers.

• The Phalanx Soldier is a Fighter Archetype from Pathfinder which tries to emulate real hoplites' style of combat by allowing the fighter to wield a two-handed spear or polearm one handed while using a shield. This makes the fighter very good at striking enemies before they even have a chance to attack him in close combat while staying very well defended.

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