What a Greek soldier needs for battle

A Greek soldier needs various pieces of armor to fully protect his body. His sword arm is fully protected by two pieces of armor, his chest is encased in a bronze cuirass, his abdominal area is protected by a piece of bronze, and his legs are both protected in the same manner as his sword arm, in two pieces of armor, with a space as a joint. Then, of course, he would have his weapon and shield.

This is a bronze cuirass. A cuirass is a piece of armor that protects your torso. There are many designs, ranging from very simple to extremely complex and elegant. The ancient Greek cuirass shown here is a very simple design, torso piece, shoulder plates, and a collar.

Shoulder plates

Torso piece

Collar

These are arm guards. Unlike the plain and simple cuirass, the guard in the upper right corner has been decorated with the face of Medusa to scare the enemy soldiers. The other three guards are just focused on functionality and defense. A Greek soldier would only protect his sword arm, the other arm was protected by his shield. Unfortunately, that meant that if he lost his shield, his arm would be exposed to all manner of weapons.

These are bronze plates used forprotecting the abdominal area. The plates can be lifesavers, for an arrow or stab to the bladder is a deadly wound. While abdominal plates can be plain, they can also be decorated. In the middle panel, you can see half of an abdominal plate and a drawing. The drawing depicts what was and is engraved on the plate. The top panel is an enlarged picture of an abdominal plate, and the bottom panel is a regular picture of two other abdominal plates. Both the top and bottom plates are simple and do not have any decoration.

The next thing a Greek soldier needs is a set of leg guards. In the two panels shown to the right, you will see sets of leg guards. Leg guards come in many different sizes and shapes, but the structure remains the same throughout the variations. Two pieces, a guard for the thigh and a guard for the shin. The joint is, once again, an open space between the two individual pieces.

These two panels depict the weaponry of the ancient Greeks.There were also swords but none were on exhibit.

Spearheads

Axe heads/Axes

Arrowheads

Spearhead

A Greek soldier’s shield was very often decorated with either something personal, or more likely, the face of Medusa. Medusa’s face was put on shields and armor to frighten the enemy soldiers in battle, giving the Greek soldiers a psychological advantage, or so they believed. The designs on the clear plastic circles in the side panels are designs that were on shields. The plastic circle shows the size of the shield compared to the design. In the left panel the white horse is a drawing of what the original horse would have looked like, the black horse is metal and an original.

Medusa

The panel above shows a drawing of the inside of a Greek shield. You slide your arm through the middle of the strap and then you grab the handle. The item on the left is a strap used on a shield as depicted in the drawing. The strap and handle system gives much more maneuverability then just a handle and quickly become the standard shield system.

There are many different types of Greek helmets, and they are so detailed and interesting, that the next few slides will just be pictures. I will stop and explain about particular helms when the need arises.

In this panel, there are two Persian helmets. If you look at a Greek helmet, you will notice that the top is not going to deflect a sword, axe, or bludgeoning weapon’s blow.The Persians came up with a solution to this problem. They put a dull spike on top of their helmets. This spike and the rounded downward slant of the Persian helmet, effectively deflected blows. However, they did not always deflect blows, as you can see from the helmet on the left.

Dent from aweapon

Dull spike

This is a very ornate helmet, decorated with lions and riders in silver. Notice the twin ridges on top of the helmet. These ridges are meant to hold a crest, so any helmet you see with twin ridges had a crest in the time of the Greeks.

Here is a Greek helmet and a Persian helmet. Both of them have inscriptions…let me show you

Greek Helmet

Persian Helmet

The inscription is the same for both helmets and reads, “Hieron the son of Deinomenea, and the Syracusans, to Zeus from Tyrrhenia at Cyme.” (It is an offering to Zeus)

These two helmets both belong to the victor of Marathon. The victor of Marathon brought back the Persian helm as a spoil of war, and his own helmet he brought back on his head. His helmet is the one on the left, but hopefully you could figure that out for yourself. Anyway, the victor of Marathon took his winning helmet and the Persian helmet, and gave them as an offering to Zeus. Later, when the temple was destroyed, his helmet was crushed in to a pancake. Thankfully, the archaeologists managed to mold it back almost in to it’s original shape. I’ll show you a front view.

THIS HAS BEEN A CARTER WILCOX PRODUCTION

Carter WilcoxCW