Hoplite

Hoplites were ancient Greek Citizen soldiers.

Who were these guys

In your average ancient Greek City State (Polis), every citizen who could afford weapons was required to buy weapons and practice with them. Poor people either became rowers manning oars or Peltasts, light soldiers armed with slings, bows and Javelins to harass enemy formations or they were shunted to the rear of a formation leaving the richer and more well equipped soldiers to be up front and bear the brunt of the enemy attack. Rich people became light cavalry who scouted things out and chase down Peltasts and fleeing soldiers. Middle class people became Hoplites, the main force of the Army. When a war was declared or an enemy decided to attack some of these guys would gather up, vote in a leader and march off to war.

The main exceptions to this rule were the Spartan Spartiates and the Sacred band of Thebes, both being forces of professional full time Hoplites.

Greek Weapons and Tactics

Hoplites got their name from the Hoplon, a round wooden shield with a bronze covering about a meter in diameter. Their main weapons were a three meter long spear, a short sword, and a dagger. Hoplites usually wore bronze helmets and had breastplates made of leather, padded linen or bronze, as well as having grieves and bracers. Poorer hoplites had lower quality armor than their better off counterparts.

Hoplites fought in tight square formations called phalanxes, each man protecting the other two guys to his side while being highly resistant to the projectiles since the greeks did not have longbows or high powered crossbows that were man portable. Running into a phalanx meant running into a wall of spears held by well defended guys, and was generally considered suicide unless you were in a bigger Phalanx. In phalanx on phalanx fights, they would ram into each other until one side broke formation either through casualties or a few guys panicking and deciding to run away. If that happened the rest of them would very soon run away as quickly themselves as possible and they would have lost. That was how most battles ended and usually one side broke before more than 10% losses were inflicted. As such two most important qualities for hoplites are discipline and fortitude.

Macedonia Weapons and Tactics

However the masters of Phalanx warfare were the Macedonians under king Philip II and his son son Alexander the Great. Under Philip the Macedonia Phalanx did away with the Hoplon and instead doubled the size of the spear to six meters thus turning it into a pike, they also wore lighter armor for more speed. The Macedonia's were armed with a Kopis short sword if, somehow, the enemy got though the wall of pike heads to get to them. The difference were so great that the Macedonia's pikemen were not called Hoplites, but "Sarissaphoroi", named after there weapon the Sarissa, but most modern accounts just call them pikemen since that's what they are.

However critically, the Phalanx was not used as the only weapon and was part of a wider formation. Under Macedonia tactics the phalanx held the enemy in place while heavy cavalry in wedge formation would swing into the flank, break the formation and allow the Hypaspists (Elite infantry who armed like greek hoplites who were stationed to either side of the Phalanx to defend it's flanks) to charge forward and break the enemy once and for all. On the edges of the Hypaspists were lighter infantry to cover there flanks.

Additionally the Macedonia's were fast. The Macedonian pike men marched in a loose formation, then came together only when the enemy was near, they wore lighter armor and this was coupled with a minimal baggage train. This meant that the Macedonians could cover ground much faster then other army's and they often could make an enemy surrender simply by arriving to a battlefield days before they were expected.

This combined forces tactical approach would later be perfected after being abandoned for over 1500 years by the Spanish who combined pikemen with early handguns and used it to dominated European land warfare until cannons good enough to shred them were invented.

Problem with Hoplites

There are three, or rather four, issues with Hoplites. First is like any nonprofessional army there are some times of the year they just will not fight, namely fall when the citizens need to go home to harvest crops or starve. The second issue with Hoplites is that the Phalanx has trouble keeping formation over rough ground, and without the formation a Hoplite is almost completely out matched by most other infantry types since the other guy can just get within the spears reach and use his axe to split a Hoplite in half. The third issue with the Phalanx is that it disintegrates if flanked, the spears become useless and the tightly packed formation means it's hard for the men to escape or readjust facing to combat the new threat. The fourth really big problem with the Hoplites, and their biggest issue, was nothing with the Hoplites themselves, and more their commanders. After Alexander the Great's 8 year whirlwind tour of the known world, the Macedonian combined arms approach to warfare was dropped in favor of just having big phalanxs, and since everyone was just using Phalanxes this was not a problem. But when the Roman infantry came around they were able to outflank the formation and break it apart.

Hoplites in Fantasy

• The Unsullied from A Song of Ice and Fire were armed like Hoplites and fought in a Hoplite manner, though instead of being citizen militia they are Eunuch slaves trained from childhood be unflinchingly loyal to their masters and disciplined. The Legions of New Ghis are closer to Hoplites, being armed in the same way but being citizen soldiers.
• The Phalanx Soldier is a Fighter Archetype from Pathfinder which tries to emulate real hoplites' style of combat by allowing the fighter to wield a two-handed spear or polearm one handed while using a shield. This makes the fighter very good at striking enemies before they even have a chance to attack him in close combat while staying very well defended.