Hoplite Shield Grip Question

[Patrick Waterson]

Or rather one of these.

[Erpingham]

Or rather one of these.

A 19th century reconstruction?  Are you suggesting it is a fake?

[Patrick Waterson]

Are you suggesting it is a fake?

No, just that the 19th century reconstruction may be of the kind of shield Nicholas' relief depicts.  It seems a better fit than anything we have tried so far.

[PMBardunias]

I saw this the other day...
I was just wondering whether his left hand was holding a grip that was unusually close/on the rim?
Or is it perhaps just an abstraction of the more familiar and more detailed...

Three possibilities I see:

Do you know the date?  It looks very late to me. This may mean the artist took some liberties with a grip he had never really seen used.

It could reflect a realistic late aspis. A grip like this would make some sense of the huge "pelta" on the Pergamum relief- the only image of Sarissaphoroi in action that we have.  A grip there would allow the left hand to hold a sarissa shaft.

Are you sure he is holding a grip and not something else in his left hand?  Hoplites are often shown holding spears and other things in the left hand while holding the shields on the arm.

[Dangun]

Do you know the date?

Its labelled as c. 400 BC. Not sure if that makes it late or early?
Its the funerary stele of a hoplite from Kardia in Thrace, but who died in Cyprus.

[Duncan Head]

Its labelled as c. 400 BC. Not sure if that makes it late or early?
Its the funerary stele of a hoplite from Kardia in Thrace, but who died in Cyprus.

Or to be more precise, it is identified as c.400 BC with a 3rd-century inscription: so I suppose it may not originally have been Dionysios' monument, but have been re-used for him?

[PMBardunias]

Its labelled as c. 400 BC. Not sure if that makes it late or early?
Its the funerary stele of a hoplite from Kardia in Thrace, but who died in Cyprus.

Or to be more precise, it is identified as c.400 BC with a 3rd-century inscription: so I suppose it may not originally have been Dionysios' monument, but have been re-used for him?

A date of 400BC suprises me.  The grip is actually the least of the problems with the shield.  It has no porpax, and if it did, the porpax would have to be in the place that the antilabe usually is.  That helmet is odd as well for a 5thc hoplite. I would have guessed a date closer to the inscription date.