‘Traditionalist’ scholars of historical Greek warfare assert that hoplites formed a close-order formation that moved slowly and deliberately to overwhelm its enemies. Opposing them the ‘revisionists’, claim that hoplites fought in an ‘open-order’ formation resembling Homeric combat well into the Archaic and even early Classical periods. Existing studies of the physical remains of Greek arms and armour, iconographic representations of hoplites in combat, and literary descriptions of Greek warfare are not decisive. Combat archaeology, i.e. the reconstruction and testing of arms and armour, remains a largely untapped source of evidence. This article presents the results of an experimental archaeological reconstruction of the kopis, a curved sword used in Greek combat from the mid-sixth to fourth centuries BC. A more complete understanding of the use of the kopis sheds light on the realities of hoplite combat and offers strong support for the traditionalist position.

历史希腊战争的“传统”学者断言，重装步兵形成了近距离编队，缓慢而有意识地移动以压倒敌人。反对他们的“修正主义者”，声称重装步兵以“开放秩序”的形式进行战斗，类似于荷马时代的战斗，很好地进入了古代甚至早期的古典时期。对希腊武器和盔甲的物理残存，战斗中重骑兵的肖像表示以及对希腊战争的文学描述的现有研究并不是决定性的。战斗考古学，即武器和盔甲的重建和测试，仍然是很大程度上未开发的证据来源。本文介绍了Kopis的实验性考古重建结果，这是一把弯曲的剑，用于公元前六世纪中叶至第四世纪的希腊战争。对kopis用法的更全面了解为重装步兵作战的现实提供了线索，并为传统主义者的立场提供了有力的支持。