![]() The porpax consisted of bronze and was used to reinforce the shield in the centre, where it was very thin. An Etruscan shield of this type, currently in the Museo Gregoriano (Vatican), still had traces of leather lining on the inside (Connolly 1998, p. Some modern authors suggest the outside could also be protected by leather (such as ox hide), but there’s no ancient evidence for this (e.g. Sometimes, the entire outer surface was covered by a thin sheet of bronze. The rim was flat and generally reinforced with bronze. The Argive shield was made from planks (presumably mostly oak). Some modern commentators have argued that this type of shield never really existed, but I beg to differ. The scene from the black-figure vase that’s used as this article’s featured image, for example, features a so-called “Boeotian” shield: it’s similar to the Argive one, but often (not always!) oblong in shape and, characteristically, has two scallops cut from the side. There was at least one major variant of this type of shield. This shield type is associated with the ancient Greek hoplite, but it was emphatically not primarily known as a hoplon, nor did the hoplite derive his name from this shield. ![]() Often, there was another antilabe on the opposite edge, which perhaps served as a spare. It was convex (“hollow”, as the ancient sources would have it), and featured a central arm grap ( porpax) through which the left arm was put, while the hand grabbed a handle ( antilabe) near the shield’s edge. The Argive shield was round, about a metre or more in diameter. It’s often referred to as an “Argive” shield. Towards the end of the eighth century BC, the ancient Greeks invented a large, round shield ( aspis) that was to dominate Greek warfare from that point onwards down the Hellenistic era. This article was originally published on the defunct Ancient World Magazine website and is now re-published here.
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