Greek Hoplite Spear Warrior 6th - 5th Century BC 1/32 Scale -Height 65mm- Unpainted Tin Figure Ancient Greece Handmade Collectible Miniature

A hypaspist (Greek: ?????????? "shield-bearer" or "shield covered") is a squire, man at arms, or "shield carrier". In Homer, Deiphobos advances "?????????" 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 horse in a particularly sticky situation.[4] A hypaspist would differ from a skeuophoros in most cases because the "shield-bearer" is a free warrior and the "baggage carrier" was probably usually a slave[citation needed]. The word may have had Homeric and heroic connotations that led Philip II of Macedon to use it for an elite military unit.