86 Conquest
was, as Euripides contended, “a slave to the military equipment that he bore
[doûlos... tōn hóplōn] .”^51
When, however, men equipped with the aspís were deployed in close order
in ranks and files on suitable ground, this peculiar shield made each hoplite
warrior a defender of the hoplite to his left—for, as Thucydides explains, it
covered that man’s right side. It is this fact that explains the logic underpin-
ning a statement attributed to the Spartan king Demaratus to the effect that
Figure 3. Hoplite poised for assault, figurine, formerly part of a bronze vessel,
ca. 510–500, found at Dodona (Photograph: bkp Berlin/ Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz/Johannes Laurentius/Art Resource, NY).