Thureophoros

[shaun holdsworth]

Would all Thurophoroi "type" infantry have an oval shield or could it vary eg hoplon or Macadonian pelta and if so would it be personal choice or by unit, just Montvert shows a Seleucid mercenary with a hoplon, so my question is when is Thurophoroi a thurophoroi and not a cheap Hoplite?

[Swampster]

AFAIK, thureophoros always seems to refer to the shield (since it means the bearer of a thureos) but OTOH if the word were to be used in a more general and looser way then we probably couldn't tell. Sekunda's figure is a reconstruction and he says a thureos could have been carried. The ancient writers often just call troops 'mercenaries' without further explanation of their equipment - their position and role in a battle is often the main clue.
The  I think there are instances which are sort of the other way round to what you have put, that 'hoplite' - as an armed man - is used to refer to troops who probably have a thureos rather than the traditional aspis. IIRC, it is used this way in one of the Pontic Wars histories.

[Andreas Johansson]

FWIW, Arrian mentions Greeks with thureoi as one type of hoplites.

[Swampster]

Would all Thurophoroi "type" infantry have an oval shield or could it vary eg hoplon or Macadonian pelta and if so would it be personal choice or by unit, just Montvert shows a Seleucid mercenary with a hoplon, so my question is when is Thurophoroi a thurophoroi and not a cheap Hoplite?

BTW, the summary of this paper https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-quarterly/article/abs/myth-of-the-hoplites-hoplon/51D93C1113EE1DF6DA84F0C0B3D6153D gives a good idea of the current view regarding the origin of the word 'hoplite' - named after the overall equipment 'ta hopla' rather than a shield.

[Duncan Head]

Would all Thurophoroi "type" infantry have an oval shield or could it vary eg hoplon or Macadonian pelta and if so would it be personal choice or by unit, just Montvert shows a Seleucid mercenary with a hoplon, so my question is when is Thurophoroi a thurophoroi and not a cheap Hoplite?

A thureophoros would always carry some sort of thureos, yes. I don't think there are any very good sources for the Montvert Seleucid mercenary with an Argive aspis, but generally it is quite hard to say how long the old equipment persisted.

But nobody would have called him a thureophoros.

[RichT]

Ancient terminology for troop types tended to be more vague than we might like.

As Peter says, 'hoplite' just means 'armed man' or 'equipped man', and tells us nothing about the precise equipment carried (other than that it is probably on the heavy side). 'Hoplite' is used to cover all sorts of heavy(ish) infantry, not just Greeks. There was also, very probably, no such thing as 'a hoplon' (a specific type of shield) as the article linked to points out. The familiar round Greek shield was just an 'aspis', 'shield', or if more precision was needed, sometimes 'an Argive aspis'.

'-phoros' type names though are slightly different - they do presumably refer to the particular equipment carried, whether that is shields (peltophoroi, pelta-carriers, thureophoroi, thureos-carriers) or weapons (sarissophoroi, sarissa-carriers, longchophoroi, longche-carriers). In these cases, the shield referred to is presumably more specific (pelta, a lighter, perhaps smaller shield than the Argive aspis, or thureos, a 'door', oval or rectangular relatively light long shield). This could still cover a range of different types of infantry - Roman legionaries could be called thureophoroi as scuta are thureoi.

In a Hellenistic context, it's a safe bet that those specified as thureophoroi did carry thureoi, though this doesn't necessarily precisely define their role (heavy, light, something in between). It also doesn't mean that other types of infantry called by some other name in other contexts (mercenaries, hoplites, euzonoi etc) might not also have carried thureoi, in some cases.

(cross posted)

[shaun holdsworth]

Looks like my late Ptolemaic will all begetting oval shields then, was worth a try I suppose

[Duncan Head]

Or rectangular ones, of course   

[Jim Webster]

Or rectangular ones, of course   

I wish I'd remembered that illustration before sending the article off to Justin