Greek Hoplite V sec. A.C.

planetFigure

Help Support planetFigure:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Piotrec

A Fixture
Joined
Jan 23, 2009
Messages
833
Location
Raytown , MO
Hi everyone,
I am going to paint the Oplita Greco from Masterclass. I would like to paint it historicaly correct, but I can not find anything diffrent than just a boxart.

Any suggestions?

Thank you.
 
This is a very nice hoplite figure, from accuracy point of view. All pieces of equipment fit together nicely for Persian wars - Ist half of 5th century BC period. One slight correction - you could try to make spearhead much slimmer.

Shield could be painted, stay in polished bronze or polished bronze with centre device and edge painted. It could be also have some images painted on the inside.

Helmet can be polished bronze or painted for ex red, black. It can also have edges finished in colour or even painted chequerboard pattern. It can also have animals or mythical creatures on the sides. The most expensive option, if you want very rich hoplite, is silvered decoration on bronze.

Crest should be in natural colour, check the colours of horses (crests were commonly made from horse tails).

Armour should have generally geometric designs, coloured edges etc. On shoulder pads common were: multi rayed stars (like on boxart) and Zeus's thunders (you can see half of it here, on famous Alexander's image, it was symmetrical)

Colours you should stay away from:
dark, blackish blue
dark, backish or purplish red
those two colours are approximations of tyrian purple (described as colour of clotted blood), generally too expensive for majority of hoplites (even those richer, like the one in figure you have). This dye was produced in Tyre, Phoenicia, and majority of production went to Persia.
On the other hand some purples, less saturated were more affordable.

deep yellow-orange - this is saffron, again very expensive dye produced in Persia

You may try to find inspiration in ancient Greek pottery, for example type names of famous heroes like Achilles, Hector in the picture search
or use some archive, like Beazley Database
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/xdb/ASP/testSearch.asp?searchBy=Subject
And especially:
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/xdb/ASP/testSearch.asp?searchBy=Subject&decorationHeading=Warriors&forceSearch=true&additionalSearch=Warriors

Here, you will find shield devices from pottery gathered in period groups
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson/Greek_shield_patterns_1.html

You can also try to find pictures of Greek coins and copy on the shield image from those.

Hope this helps, (y)
 
Thank you Maciek for you answer. It is very helpfull.
One more thing. Is the white armour only option or there can be some variations in colour?
 
White appears most often in reconstructions as it is supposed to be linen (this type of armour was, according to some theories made of glued linen). New theories suggest that this type of armour was actually commonly made of leather, though possibly faced with linen.

There are informations about white linen armours in ancient texts, so this colour is safe, though other (yellowish, leather coloured, etc) are also possible, there is even possibility that surface was completely painted in different colours (for example on a late IV-early III century tomb found near Saloniki there is a painting showing some elite soldiers in purple armour with gold applications, though this was only possible after Alexander the Great captured Persia and it's riches).

Generally, in art tube and yoke cuirass (as it is called) is shown in light colours, though it is relative, as most of the examples come from painted pottery, that used only two colours (black paint on red pot surface)
 
Thank you Maciek for you answer. It is very helpfull.
One more thing. Is the white armour only option or there can be some variations in colour?


The tube and yoke cuirass can actually be painted any colour you like. These are shown in Greek black-figure vases as white, but that doesn't necessarily mean they actually were always literally pure white. Colour representations show a variety of colours with various decorations on them. A great example is the Athenian hoplite Aristion who died in about 510 BC. His marble tombstone portrait retained traces of vivid colour where the paint had dyed the marble surface. He was wearing a tube and yoke cuirass coloured bright yellow. Below is a reconstruction [click the picture to open a higher-resolution image]:



That also gives some idea of the sort of decoration you can have.

Another example is Alexander (admittedly a bit later in time than your hoplite but from more or less the same culture and the same type of cuirass). Alexander's cuirass is white and grey-green decorated with red and bronze metal appliques:



A common colour scheme also appeared to be a white or yellow cuirass with shoulder flaps and midriff section in red. This scheme appears in Greek, Hellenistic and Etruscan art, so seems to have been popular for a long time.

Greek vases also show a wide variety of geometric and black and white checkerboard decoration on cuirasses. Some idea of the possible complexity of the decoration you could have can be seen on these exhibits from a recent exhibition of polychrome Greek sculpture:



Most hoplites would have purchased their armour privately, and even had it made bespoke. So you really have a great degree of freedom in choosing colour schemes and decoration.
 


Write your reply...
Back
Top