*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 29, 2024, 01:02:59 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 1686601
  • Total Topics: 118110
  • Online Today: 626
  • Online Ever: 2235
  • (October 29, 2023, 12:32:45 AM)
Users Online

Recent

Author Topic: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?  (Read 3947 times)

Offline Argonor

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 11336
  • Attic Attack: Mead and Dice!
    • Argonor's Wargames
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #15 on: June 17, 2018, 08:33:50 PM »
On the other side, let me remind you that the flute makes a piercing sound which can be heard from a distance and distinguished among other battle noises, don't forget that 16th-19th c infantry was using flutists alongside drummers on the field.

Just think of a sports match with thousands of spectators making noise...  lol
Ask at the LAF, and answer shall thy be given!


Cultist #84

Offline DintheDin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 6214
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #16 on: June 17, 2018, 08:49:52 PM »
Just think of a sports match with thousands of spectators making noise...  lol

...and remember the fearsome vouvouzela stadium horns, when South Africa was hosting the 2010 FIFA Cup!
They covered the noise of the spectators, the voice of the sportscasters and everything else!  lol
In any case, the flute was not meant to relay orders, but to give the step for marching. 
Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. – Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Offline Duncan Head

  • Student
  • Posts: 17
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #17 on: June 18, 2018, 08:52:03 AM »
Diodoros describes a signal-ribbon tied to a spear (at Leuctra in 371):

Diodoros XV.52.5: "Though Epameinondas astounded the cautious by his forthright answer, a second omen appeared more unfavourable than the previous one. For as the grammateus advanced with a spear and a ribbon attached to it and signalled the orders from headquarters, a breeze came up and, as it happened, the ribbon was torn from the spear and wrapped itself around a slab that stood over a grave, and there were buried in this spot some Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesians who had died in the expedition under Agesilaus."

There's a reconostruction in the background at https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9a/bd/ce/9abdce045eb25f80bdf2bca55dfb98a9.jpg

Proper standards seem to come in only with the Macedonians - see https://bookandsword.com/2014/06/01/the-bronze-battle-scene-from-pergamon/, at the extreme left of the illustration.

Offline Argonor

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 11336
  • Attic Attack: Mead and Dice!
    • Argonor's Wargames
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #18 on: June 18, 2018, 03:32:51 PM »
Diodoros describes a signal-ribbon tied to a spear (at Leuctra in 371):

Diodoros XV.52.5: "Though Epameinondas astounded the cautious by his forthright answer, a second omen appeared more unfavourable than the previous one. For as the grammateus advanced with a spear and a ribbon attached to it and signalled the orders from headquarters, a breeze came up and, as it happened, the ribbon was torn from the spear and wrapped itself around a slab that stood over a grave, and there were buried in this spot some Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesians who had died in the expedition under Agesilaus."

There's a reconostruction in the background at https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9a/bd/ce/9abdce045eb25f80bdf2bca55dfb98a9.jpg

Proper standards seem to come in only with the Macedonians - see https://bookandsword.com/2014/06/01/the-bronze-battle-scene-from-pergamon/, at the extreme left of the illustration.


I think I'll go with something like that, then!

Probably use a long wire spear and add some kind of strip to it.

Thank you!

Offline Melnibonean

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2067
  • Boiled Beans
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #19 on: June 20, 2018, 12:47:01 PM »
The double flute is called and aulos. It was played to accompany the paean. The paean was a battle song that the hoplites sang as they went into battle. It was to give them courage, set the marching step and scare the enemy (imagine 50,000+ men all singing it at once).

The general would set his battle plan before the battle and then lead the right most unit of the phalanx (the place of honor) from the front. Philip II and Alexander changed all this.
Below is a link to my blog. It's the place where I write uninteresting things about little toy soldiers. I do this because I refuse to grow up and behave like an adult.

http://this28mmlife.blogspot.com.au/

Offline Captain Harlock

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 709
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #20 on: June 20, 2018, 08:51:38 PM »
The Spartans used a ritual object called the Dokana


It symbolised the Dioskouroi, Kastor and Polydeukes (in latin Castor and Pollux) which were amoong the patron gods of Sparta. It is said that its depiction was also on the shields of the king's bodyguard.

Generaly they used flutes and loud voice. In archaic times the battle was very stylized. Just two phalanxes marching to each other in synaspismos (shield wall), then clash, push while spearing till one side gave way, the formation was broken, a small pursuit followed and the rest went home till next battle or warring season.
It was during the peloponnesian wars that new tactics was involved along with more complicated manouveurs. By that time more open type helmets were adopted, like the attic, thracian, boeotian or the plain spartan pylos.

The battle formations were usually just a main body and two wings. From Anabasis we see that they used messangers on horse to rely orders to the furthest parts of the formation. I guess this was the norm.

Offline Argonor

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 11336
  • Attic Attack: Mead and Dice!
    • Argonor's Wargames
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #21 on: June 20, 2018, 09:42:02 PM »
I really enjoy all this info!  8)

I am also going to use flute-players, but for a specific purpose (I am going to use the Greeks in a fantasy setting as well as in historical games) I need to make or buy some standard-bearers (and as they are only being used for fantasy purposes, I think I can get away with using some of the Successor models from Aventine).

Thanks again, everybody!

Offline Duncan Head

  • Student
  • Posts: 17
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #22 on: June 21, 2018, 07:57:59 AM »
Not sure what scale you're working in, but Baueda make a dokana in 15mm - http://www.baueda.com/15dokana.html It's a lot bigger than Cap'n Harlock's picture suggests, though.

There's an academic article about the dokana here.

Offline Argonor

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 11336
  • Attic Attack: Mead and Dice!
    • Argonor's Wargames
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #23 on: June 21, 2018, 03:21:30 PM »
I'm doing 28mm - I am aiming firstly for a warband for Broken Legions, secondly for some units to use in A Fantastic SAGA (mayhaps also SAGA Ancients, if Studio Tomahawk get their act together), and God of Battles (and probably also other games I haven't thought of, yet.

I decided to push the archers forward, as I can use some of them for Broken Legions (to support my Hoplites & Heroes), and 12 of them instantly gives me both one point of Levy for SAGA purposes, and a unit for God of Battles (the latter needs a standard, thus this thread).

Offline Captain Harlock

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 709
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #24 on: June 21, 2018, 04:27:33 PM »
You can make Dokana by yourself no big deal, its quite simple forms. A nice adition would be a lamb/goat sacrifice vignette.

Offline FierceKitty

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1718
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #25 on: June 22, 2018, 01:44:39 AM »
I improvised a number of philosophers for my Hellenic armies. They were quite fun to put together, and are a good way of checking if a new player was listening during the days of his or her education.

http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10744.0.html

I've subsequently added Plato, with a slave behind him holding up a wooden cutout showing a deformed rabbit, and a burning torch behind the slave to cast a shadow. Haven't got around to taking a photograph of that one.
The laws of probability do not apply to my dice in wargames or to my finesses in bridge.

Offline Captain Harlock

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 709
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #26 on: June 22, 2018, 11:09:10 AM »
I improvised a number of philosophers for my Hellenic armies. They were quite fun to put together, and are a good way of checking if a new player was listening during the days of his or her education.

http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10744.0.html

I've subsequently added Plato, with a slave behind him holding up a wooden cutout showing a deformed rabbit, and a burning torch behind the slave to cast a shadow. Haven't got around to taking a photograph of that one.
Unfortunatelly the photos dont seem to appear. But the description is very promising.
You could do Socrates too. In two versions, one as heroic hoplite carrying the wounded Alcibiades, and one posed as a philosopher with his nagging wife Xanthippe close by, shouting at him  ;D

Offline FierceKitty

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1718
Re: Ancient Greek Banners/Standards?
« Reply #27 on: June 22, 2018, 05:24:46 PM »
I have considered doing Socrates stretched out with an empty cup beside him. The ones I've got are Herakleitos checking up to his waist if you can cross the same river twice, Thales falling in, Archimedes shouting eureka! with a talk-bubble, Pythagoras holding a scroll with a triangle on it as he refuses to cross a beanfield, Diogenes in a barrel, and Epikuros researching whether pleasure is really the highest good with a pretty research assistant.