Ancient Greek warfare and slingers ("sfendonitai") while archers ("toxotai") were rare, mainly from Crete, or mercenary non-Greek tribes (as at the crucial battle of Plataea 479 B.C.) Greek armies gradually downgraded the armor of the hoplites (to linen padded thorax and open helmets) to make the phalanx more flexible and upgraded the javelineers to lightly armored general purpose infantry ("thorakitai" and "thyreophoroi") with javelins and sometimes spears. Eventually, these types effectively complemented the Macedonian style phalanx which prevailed throughout Greece after Alexander the Great. Cavalry had always existed in Greek armies of the classical era but the cost of horses made it far
Thracian language the gospel all met in the church of the Greeks, where they celebrated the essential part of the sacrifice in Greek, and communicated all together..."" Thracian language The Thracian language () is an extinct Indo-European language, spoken in ancient times in South-east Europe by the Thracians. The Thracian language either belonged to the satem group of Indo-European languages, or was a centum language that had been strongly influenced by satem languages. A contemporary, neighboring language, Dacian is usually regarded as closely related to Thracian. However, there is insufficient evidence, regarding both languages, to enable the nature of this relationship to