Monday, October 25, 2010

Sword use in Othismos

In an earlier post, I wrote that hoplites in the crowd of othismos could strike with short swords over their shields into the necks of their foes in a truly brutal manner. I happened to find an image that shows what this strike would have looked like and where it would have been delivered. Obviously the artist is not depicting othismos, but the arm position of the hoplite and the insertion point, along side the neck into the chest cavity(but on the left), are similar.

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