Hypaspists

Common card · No. 340461

A hypaspist (Greek: Ὑπασπιστής "shield bearer" or "shield covered") is a squire, man at arms, or "shield carrier". In Homer's Iliad, Deiphobos advances "ὑπασπίδια" (hypaspídia) or under cover of his shield. By the time of Herodotus (426 BC), the word had come to mean a high status soldier as is strongly suggested by Herodotus in one of the earliest known uses: Now the horse which Artybius rode was trained to fight with infantrymen by rearing up. Hearing this, Onesilus said to his hypaspist, a Carian of great renown in war and a valiant man ... A similar usage occurs in Euripides's play Rhesus and another in his Phoenissae. Xenophon was deserted by his hypaspist in a particularly sticky situation. A hypaspist would differ from a skeuophoros in most cases because the "shield bearer" is a free warrior and the "baggage carrier" was a servant.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Public domain