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The kopis sword was a one-handed weapon. Early examples had a blade length of up to 65 cm (25.6 inches), making it almost equal in size to the spatha.Later examples of the kopis from Macedonia tended to be shorter with a blade length of about 48 cm (18.9 inches).
Hoplites mounted on horseback likely used a heavier, curved sword known as the kopis, meaning "chopper" in the Greek language. [2] [9] Light infantry known as peltasts would carry a number of javelins used to pepper enemy formations, avoiding close combat whenever possible. The job of the peltast was not to engage in formation combat, therefore ...
Most troops would have carried a type of sword as a secondary weapon. The straight-bladed shortsword known as the xiphos (ξίφος) is depicted in works of art, and two types of single-edged cutting swords, the kopis and machaira, are shown in images and are mentioned in texts.
According to Plutarch when a Spartan was asked why his sword was so short he replied, "So that we may get close to the enemy." [45] In another, a Spartan complained to his mother that the sword was short, to which she simply told him to step closer to the enemy. As an alternative to the xiphos, some Spartans selected the kopis as their ...
Sumerian phalanx-like formation c. 2400 BC, from detail of the victory stele of King Eannatum of Lagash over Umma, called the Stele of the Vultures. The phalanx (pl.: phalanxes or phalanges) [1] was a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar polearms tightly packed together.
Unlike the xiphos, which is a thrusting weapon, the kopis was a hacking weapon in the form of a thick, curved single edged iron sword. In Athenian art, Spartan hoplites were often depicted using a kopis instead of the xiphos, as the kopis was seen as a quintessential "villain" weapon in Greek eyes. [47]
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A heavy cavalryman of Alexander the Great's army, possibly a Thessalian, though the Companion cavalry would have been almost identical (the shape of the cloak of the latter was more rounded). He wears a cuirass (probably a linothorax) and a Boeotian helmet, and is equipped with a scabbarded xiphos straight-bladed sword. Alexander Sarcophagus.