Thread by @HNIJohnMiller

1) You know what, fuck the impeachment hearings. Fuck watching them. No one ACTUALLY gives a fuck about the Democrats' latest sperg out. They're going to run themselves into the ground, starve their own primaries of attention, it'll be a hot fucking mess.

I have a better idea.

2) Today, I'm going to tell you all some fucking stories.

Yeah. That's right. Bourbon story time.

The topic of the bourbon story time?

Hoplites. Fuckmothering Greek Hoplites.

3) First off, did you know, that the way we think its pronounced (Hop-lights) is actually incorrect? No, there's a more accurate and far fucking cooler way to say it.

Hop-lee-tays.

Just pronounce hoplites in your heads as hop-lee-tays, and you'll be like 10x cooler than before.

4) Alright, so now that we have the pronunciation down, let's talk about the hoplites.

Let's look at the hoplites you're all actually familiar with: Spartans from 300.

5) "But fuuuuuudge, those aren't all Spartans, there's those other greek dudes there too."

You're right. And I'll get to them. Because they're a real and important part of the Greek army. But first, I want to say this: 300 did not do the Spartans justice.

6) See, the Spartans, and really all the Greeks, they WERE that ripped. They had gymnasiums where they would work out constantly. It was their hobby, their way of passing the time. Working the fuck out and getting ripped.

Those statues from Greece? The physiques called unreal?

7) That was their fucking BASELINE.

See, the Spartans in 300, they weren't done justice, because they and all Greek hoplites back during the Greek-Persian wars from before 500 bc and all the way up to Alexander the Great's invasion wore heavy ass bronze armor. 60 lbs.

8) This is on top of a bronze shield weighing in at around 30 pounds, and spears made of ash wood 8-10 feet in length and weighing in at 15-20 pounds.

That was what they fought in.

60-100 pounds is the total combined weight of our modern US soldiers' kit just marching around.

9) Getting past the sheer weight of their equipment that they marched AND fought with, it's worth pointing out that the Greeks DID look chiseled and ripped as fuck, and they didn't want to give that up when they wore armor, so they molded their armor to keep looking chiseled AF.

10) So, 300 didn't do the Spartans justice, no. See, when you're facing down a Greek hoplite phalanx, you're not facing down a bunch of shirtless dudes with big ass shields and swords. YOU might be some shirtless barbarian because you're a poor dirt farmer conscripted into a mob.

11) But what you're facing?

These guys were literally muscled bronze gods. Having a Greek hoplite bearing down on you was like having a statue of bronze about to drop a world of hurt on your scrawny barbarian just got yanked out of your shitfarm fields a month ago ass.

12) And that brings me to a second bit that I need to clarify.

Our media, movies tv shows all that shit, its done us a huge disservice by completely skewing our vision of how battles actually functioned back then.

For example did you know casualties were actually LOW in fights?

13) Most of the time, unless some truly disastrous event happened, for a battle in the field it would be a contest of who's army would rout first, not who could crush and destroy the other army. They'd line up, the lines would meet, and then one side would break and run.

14) The Greek Hoplites weren't about masses of men slamming into each other with blocks of spears and shields, skewering a half dozen poor assholes on each spear, then dancing around with sword fu and slicing the last of your opponents to pieces.

15) No. The walls of spears and shields were meant for the hoplites to keep themselves save and their opponents at a safe distance, perforating any asshole that tried to dive in past the forest of spear points.

16) This unassailable formation would make the opponents at the front start backing up as the Greek hoplite phalanx advanced, pushing the guys behind them which were in turn trying to push the guys in front forwards.

17) Then they'd hear the screams of the first rank of guys getting stabbed by spears. They'd get up on their tiptoes and peer over the lines, and see a wall of Greeks 4-8 deep (depending on how far the Greek line was stretched, I'll get into that later) advancing relentlessly.

18) Then, they'd say, "OH FUCK THIS SHIT," tell their buddies who would say "OH FUCK THAT SHIT," and then they'd start running, resulting in a panicked stampede of people trying to GTFO.

Facing an army of bronze muscle gods with a wall of spears that you can't kill? Fuck. THAT.

19) I'mma leave you all to chew on that for a bit and take a quick break. Gotta feed this hot dripping knowledge in digestible chunks after all.

/end