Hoplite : Behind the Shield in Ancient Greece, 500-333 BC

The Hoplites are the heavy infantry phenomenon that helped power the city states of Ancient Greece to a crescendo of military prowess when its young democracies first came under threat from Persia. In this new study, archaeologist Iain Soden traces their part in civil wars when, at their height, Athens and Sparta traded blows across the Aegean as opposing ideas of good government fought for supremacy. The book then follows their footsteps across the region as first Sparta, then Thebes and finally Macedonia held sway.

From nebulous origins in late Geometric Greece through their fifth- and early-fourth-century BC heyday, through their decline, to their eventual assimilation into Alexander the Great’s Macedonian phalanx, Hoplites will address the major battles, the influence of individual commanders and the foot-soldiers’ lives in the service of Greek city-states across unforgiving terrain in hard-fought campaigns, some of them indulgent and misguided, some against existential threat, from Sicily to Baghdad.