"Hoplons on horseback" Topic

I've noticed a number of manufacturers have Greek cavalry with the large round hoplon or aspis shields cast on. This seems odd to me. is it historically accurate?

Certainly if riding Dolphins!

…and Centaurs..

I personally think that the Hoplites on horseback are really mounted infantry. Though its like Anglo-Saxons 'cavalry'. No one can be completely sure…unless someone knows better?

There are a lot of illustrations of armoured horsemen with the Argive shield ("hoplon") in 7th-6th century vase-painting and sculpture. They are sometimes accompanied by an unarmoured "squire", and are usually identified as mounted infantry. The key text is still P Greenhalgh's "Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages" (1973 with various reprints) which includes scenes of such men dismounting, and hoplites duelling on foot while their attendants hold their horses.

To complicate things, when Hellenistic Greek cavalry do take to carrying shields on horseback in the 3rd century, one of the shield types illustrated is the Argive shield (or at least something indistinguishable from it in small-scale art). See for instance link – one of the Tarantine javelin cavalry who probably started the fashion. Other shield types are probably more popular, though.

Who makes dolphin-riding hoplites in 28mm?

Who makes dolphin-riding hoplites in 28mm?

Oh, I WISH!

Wouldn't know what to use them for, though, possibly boarding actions? LOL!

Maybe one should be asking who makes smaller dolphins that mounted Greeks would fit on!

Wouldn't know what to use them for, though, possibly boarding actions?

They'd be right at home in Man O' War, methinks.

Would this be Hoplon Cassidias?

Major, that's terrible!

Of course it is, if it wasn't why bother..