Weapons of 300

reconseed

reconseed

Joined
Sep 23, 2006
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After seeing the film, I was kinda interested in learning some more about the weapons of the Spartans and the Persians. I liked Leonidas' sword/knife/machete, whatever it was. I also thought the spears they had were very cool looking. Does anyone have a link that i can read more about the weapons of this time period on?
 
Check out the History channel. They usually have tie-ins to their shows, and they went into some (not enough!) detail on the Greek and Persian weapons.

Being an archer, I was interested in what they know of the equipment, which apparently isn't much. They mentioned that the bows employed by the Persian archers were rather inferior. Homer tells us that the bows of the Greeks were made of antelope or oryx horn, fastened end-to-end and bent into a recurve by heat.
Modern reproductions of such bows have proved to be powerful shooters.
 
well i was fascinated by the weapons from 300 as well, cold steel makes a sword very similar to the spartan short sword or "xiphos". from what i can remember it was a short sword used mostly by the spartans (normaly under 30cm in blade length). it was used in close combat after the primary weapon, the 8ft spear was broken, or rendered usless by range. another edged weapon of choice used by the spartans was the zyele, of which very little is known . basically it was carried by youths in the agoge, and was a small sickle like weapon. ive looked around for quality xyle's and xiphos swords but i havnt found anything but props....

close to a xiphos, and cheap to boot http://www.coldsteel.com/97kp18s.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiphos
 
Frank Miller came up with most of the designs and the movie guys made them reality. much of the weaponry is from Frank Miller's imagination.
 
i just got back from the show...

The swords i saw the spartans using werent THAT different from a Kopis; a little styleized sure, but not unrecongrisable. The spears, while cool, are nothing special or even very intricate.

The Persian Ninja..er...i mean...."Imortals"...seemed to use some kind of guardless Ninjato thingy...

O, and the arrows that the Persions had some very hokey fantasticaly shaped arrowheads.

Other than that, nothing else out of place in the weapons department.
 
How much so you wanna bet that Lynn Thompson saw a trailer for 300 a while ago and decided to make that Kopis Machete, knowing that after people saw the movie it would sell like mad.
 
reconseed said:
After seeing the film, I was kinda interested in learning some more about the weapons of the Spartans and the Persians. I liked Leonidas' sword/knife/machete, whatever it was. I also thought the spears they had were very cool looking. Does anyone have a link that i can read more about the weapons of this time period on?
Click to expand...

Start with Richard Burton's "The Book of The Sword" and move on from there.
 
Great thread, I was wondering the same, did those weapons come from Millers imagination, or were they real.
 
This is more of a Sword Discussion thread....
moving-van.jpg
 
Weapon: The Complete Visual History of Arms and Armor (Hardcover)
I just picked up this book at Barnes and Noble. Very cool stuff inside. It amazing how many designs I thought of as contemporary were actually developed a VERY long time ago. Its worth checking out.
Scott

From the description: For 4,000 years weapons, and the warriors who used them, have acted as the cutting edge of history, using ax, spear, bow, sword, gun, and cannon to determine the rise of kingdoms and the fall of empires.

http://www.amazon.com/Weapon-Complete-Visual-History-Armor/dp/0756622107
 
Thank you, Mr. Trooper. There never has been a Kopis with a clipped point, so far as I know and I have researched the subject of Ancient Greek weaponry pretty deeply. This is not a knock on the film, however. I have concluded that the film is a wholly different thing from an historical effort. It is a very impressionistic piece, almost a form of non-representational modern art, if you will.
 
FullerH said:
Thank you, Mr. Trooper. There never has been a Kopis with a clipped point, so far as I know and I have researched the subject of Ancient Greek weaponry pretty deeply. This is not a knock on the film, however. I have concluded that the film is a wholly different thing from an historical effort. It is a very impressionistic piece, almost a form of non-representational modern art, if you will.
Click to expand...

Is the Kpois not derived from the Egyptian Khopsh? If so check out Richard F Burton's "The Book of The Sword" 1987 reprint of the 1884 original. Burton wass a giant in every way except size and he was not too small there either.
 
Indeed, the kopis was directly influenced by the success of the khopesh (there's no doubt the Greeks even used the same name as best they could pronounce it). What's curious is that design didn't go too much further in that direct form in later cultures: the sword straightened its shape over time.

What's even more interesting than that, and I hope Hugh can comment on this, was how the khopesh -> kopis influenced the later designs of the falcatta and the kukhuri with its forward point of balance.
 
I am not all that certain where the macaira came from initially. Peter Connolly has illustrations of Bronze Age finds from the Italian Peninsula dating to around the 1000 BCE that show a blade with a pronounced weight bias toward the tip as in the macaira. The Kopish was a sickle-sword with the blade sharpened on the outside of the curve rather than the insode as on a sickle. It was used throughout the Bronze Age Middle East and in Egypt. There are Canaanite kopishes and Egyptian kopishes. But they bear little resemblance to the Ancient Greek xiphos of the hoplites The Greek kopis, rather than the xiphos, was also called the machaira and was carried by Greek mercenaries all around the Mediterranean Basin, even to the Iberian Peninsula where it became the feared falcata. Alexander's troops carried it to the Himalayas where what became the Nepalese evolved it into the khukri. But, given the Conolly illustrations, I am, perhaps, more inclined to think that the machaira/falcata grew out of the Italian the weapons than from the kopish of Egypt and Canaan.

The xiphos was a leaf-bladed weapon with a dual edge and was used only as a last ditch weapon by the hoplites. A hoplite phalanx was primarily a spearman's operation and he would have had more than one spear to expend before he had to turn to his sword. As swordsmen, the Greeks were nothing like the Roman legionaries who depended upon their abilities with their gladii for their effectiveness.
 
A. G. Russell said:
Is the Kpois not derived from the Egyptian Khopsh? If so check out Richard F Burton's "The Book of The Sword" 1987 reprint of the 1884 original. Burton wass a giant in every way except size and he was not too small there either.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Kopis is derived from the Kopesh. The kopesh was popular in northern Africa as well as the mid and near east for a good chunk of the bronze age, and many forms of it are known. None of them have a cliped or swedged point either.

Such a madification COULD make a better thrusing weapon, and perhaps a better all-around weapon, but would detract slightly from its choping abilities.
 
I wish that I could find an online copy of the Connolly illustrations. I suspect that they might well change some opinions on the origins of the Kopis. For those who have a copy, check out his Greece And Rome At War in the discussion of the early Romans.
 
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