Hoplite

I've been playing(unreasonably obsessed with) Rome: Total War over the past few days, and I am utterly fascinated by the Hoplite unit, pictured here in phalanx formation.

"We only want some of your delicious ice creams!!!!"

Do you see this? This titan of the battlefield, a wall of hard steel and man.

Hmm.



Try charging into this pincushion head on and your unit will resemble the alibi you spit out when your girlfriend finds out that you've been sleeping around with her mom: Full of holes.

That analogy is incredibly bad, but I chuckled when I thought of it so shut up k.

It's probably the one unit I had the most trouble handling. It will pretty much rout(cause a unit of soldiers to pussy out/run) anything that tries to attack it. Head on. Obviously. However, and this is the big drawback, because everything that is mindboggling awesome has a big drawback, the unit has little to no defense against anything that attacks it from any side long, sharp, blood stained spears are not protruding from. So holding it in place with a fodder unit and then charging it's flank with another unit, preferably a calvary unit, will break the phalanx and cause the Hoplites to rout. Thus, ending the facade of invincibility and setting in the reality that anything can be broken with tactics, even you.

I haven't done any extensive research on the history of the Hoplite, but they were a big part of Greek culture. Apparently, most of the influential figures in the history of the Greeks where at one point or another a part of the Hoplites. Interesting. Was Socrates a Hoplite?

He is Greek, right?

300, a bastion of historical accuracy. Also more phalanx.

For some reason, I've been inspired to write about this Hoplites. It'll probably be something fictional, my own personal butchering of history. It's what writers do. I'll probably post some of it here when I get around to it. So yeah. Hoplites. Undercurrents of homosexuality. This is what it's all about. Wait.