For it was not cavalry – prancing, expensive, indelibly upper class – that had won Messenia for Sparta. Rather, the victory had gone to plodding foot-soldiers, citizens of farming stock, men who may not have had the resources to afford horses but who could still supply themselves with arms and armour; and in particular with hopla, circular shields of a radically new design, a metre high and wide, and faced with bronze across their wood.
