Ancient Greek military personal equipment event of a broken spear, or if close melee combat was necessary. Hoplites mounted on horseback likely used a heavier, curved sword known as the "kopis", meaning "chopper" in the Greek language. Hand-to-hand, light support troops such as the "psiloi" were often armed with ranged weapons. Popular ranged weapons were the bow ("toxa"), javelin ("akontia") and sling ("sfendonai"). While the bow was a relatively uncommon weapon (the wooden stave bow used had a limited range), some troops treated their arrows by thrusting them into rotting corpses, thus creating a crude form of biological weapon. Peltast troops commonly used javelins, and
Greek units of measurement Greek units of measurement A number of units of measurement were used in Greece to measure length, mass, area, and capacity. In Greece, the metric system has been used since 1836 and was made compulsory in 1922. One "piki" varied from 0.640 m to 0.670 m. 1 "pic" was equal to 1 piki. The "small piki" of Constantinople (also known as the "endeze") was equal to 0.648 m The "large piki" of Constantinople (also known as the "arsin") was equal to 0.669 m A masonry "piki" (also known as the "meimar zire") was equal to 0.750 m. Two types of