Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Barry H." <nebarry AT verizon.net>]

On 4/18/2013 7:14 PM, Will Parsons wrote:
> > Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding that only a little of
> > Greek literature from before Homer survives, and even in Homer the picture
> > is of citizen soldiers, not a professional or even semi-professional class
> > of elite soldiers as existing then. Therefore any argument that the
> > term οπλιτης/hoplite didn’t exist before about 500 BC is an argument from
> > silence, not evidence.
>
> You're right about Greek literature before Homer, but the point is
> that to the best of my knowledge Homer doesn't use the term
> ὁπλῖται/hoplites, and although he does use the word ὅπλον/hoplon, it's
> with the sense "tools" or "tackle", not in the sense "shield" or
> "armour" that gave rise to the form _hoplites_.
>
> Furthermore, the term _hoplites_ is a specialized term for a certain
> type of warrior that fought in a very specialized type of formation
> (the "phalanx") that required a high degree of training, quite unlike
> the bronze-age "heroic" warfare depicted in the Iliad.
>
> You say this is an argument from silence, but I say, why assume a
> specialized term for a type of warrior existed in Homeric times when
> there's no evidence that either the word or the type of warfare
> associated with it existed in Homer's time (let alone the still
> earlier time of the action of the Iliad.  I have to agree to what
> George wrote in an earlier reply, this is a matter of possibility
> vs. probability, and the probability seems quite slim, not enough to
> warrent equating חפלתי with ὁπλίτης.
>
> Well, at this point I'm going to drop the matter, since it seems to be
> getting somewhat tangential to Biblical Hebrew.

In Plato's Laches, one of the starting points for the discussion on 
courage and moral virtue is the new style of warfare involving hopla. 
hoplites is originally an adjective meaning "wearing armor" but by 
classical times comes to be understood in the technical sense you 
discuss above. The earliest attested use seems to be in Herodotus.

--
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
The American Academy
http://www.americanacademy.net
The North American Reformed Seminary
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Bible Translation Magazine
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