Generally, each hoplite chose his own shield design. This was true even of the Spartans, at least initially. There is an anecdote which talks of a Spartan who had a life-sized fly for his emblem. Accused of cowardice (his enemies wouldn't be able to recognise him) he responds that the fly would be the size of a lion when he bore down on his enemy in battle. However, they changed this personal-preference policy into one of state control, whereby each man carried the same badge - in this case the letter lambda (for Lakedaimon, another name for Sparta). Such shields are attested by Xenophon in the early 4th century BC. He also mentions men from Sicyon carrying the letter sigma as a badge, and the Thebans, as well as their allies, using a club, although the Thebans had used individual shield designs only a few years previously as shown by Plutarch: the man who killed Lysander had a dragon as his emblem. While such state badges seem to have become more common as time went on - the Macedonian Hellenistic states seemed to have regular shield patterns, many states continued with allowing their men to chose whatever badge they desired. One philospher's was covered with quotes, another man's had the device of an anchor to demonstate his determination not to retreat. It is widely assumed that Sparta was the first state to introduce uniform shield patterns, but the evidence does not bear this out. The Mantineians may have adopted the trident of Posidon by the mid 5th century as there is a refrence in Bacchylides to it. My own theory is that Spartans first introduced the lambda not for Homoioi (full citizens), but for helots that were serving as hoplites, and its usage probably spread from there to the rest of the army. Shield blazons were an individual's perogative, but when helots were armed as hoplites, they would have been provided with their shields by the state, not have bought them individually. The shields in fact would have been state propetry, not theirs, and therefore are likely to have been embalzoned with an emblem of the state. This would emphasize that the bearers were not individual citizens, but servants of the state (although, like Brasidas' men, they could be manumitted later for good conduct as Neodamodeis). Since many of the works I consulted had black and white illustrations, colours are often my guesses only and besides, a red-figure vase is likely to show only red and black colours anyway (with a possibility of white and purple), since the technique of producing red-figure vases precluded other colours. Incidentally, I have used the terms 'Attic' and 'Athenian' interchangeably. One further point - a shield described as eg.
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