Abstract

Natasha BERSHADSKY Unbreakable Shield: A Difference between sakos and aspis in the Iliad

The study seeks to find a difference in the employment of the two most common epic words for “shield,” aspis and sakos, in the Iliad.

Past investigations concentrated on examination of formulaic epithets and expanded descriptions as indicators of the appearance and the material of the shields. On the basis of its epithets, the aspis was assumed to be round, while the sakos was interpreted as a memory of a Mycenaean ox-hide body-shield, oblong or figure-of-eight in shape. However, it was often observed that the proposed distinction between a round aspis and a large long sakos repeatedly gives way in the expanded descriptions; moreover, the formulaic epithets, used to infer conclusions about shield form, are by themselves discrepant. Nevertheless, sakos and aspis retain a certain difference in the epic: it was shown by Whallon (Yale Classical Studies 19 (1966): 7-36) that the choice between the words sakos and aspis is not dictated by the meter, and that the two words are kept apart in the descriptions of shields of the major figures.

While previous investigations were seeking a difference between objects to which the words sakos and aspis might relate, the present study examines the differences in the use of the words sakos and aspis. The hypothesis explored in the course of this study is that the choice of a particular word for “shield” is determined by the narrative context.

An observation, emerging from a consideration of all appearances of the words sakos and aspis in the Iliad, is that a warrior is never killed while armed with a sakos. This phenomenon cannot be connected with any physical quality of the sakos, since sometimes (rarely) the same shield can be called both sakos and aspis consecutively. A connected peculiarity is that in the Iliad, a warrior striking his opponent’s sakos always immediately dies or is defeated. In the fight between two warriors armed with the aspis and the sakos, the sakos-bearer always wins. In contrast, warriors who carry aspis are often (not always) killed; a blow to the aspis often results in the death of the aspis-bearer, but it may have no result, and sometimes the death of the attacker may follow. Thus, in the frame of the Iliad as a whole, in the pair sakos/ aspis, sakos is a marked element, carrying inherently the idea of invincibility, while the aspis is unmarked. Remarkably, this contextual observation finds a correspondence in the language of tragedy. Both Aeschylus (Suppliant Maidens 190) and Sophocles (Ajax 576) used expression arrêkton sakos &endash; “unbreakable shield.” The coincidence of an identical expression in the two authors hints to the formulaic nature of the word combination arrêkton sakos. While the functional distinction between sakos and aspis did not survived in the tragedy (the two words are used interchangeably), the vestige of the old differentiation was preserved in the description of the sakos as “unbreakable.”

On the basis of these results, it is possible to conclude that there is nothing intrinsic in a shield that makes it sakos or aspis. The power of denomination belongs to the epic. The choice between sakos or aspis as a word for “shield” appears to be a tool that allowed a fine shaping of the narrative expectation for a particular hero.