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
Thracian warfare (plus the onset of winter) meant that this army only held together for about six weeks and any Thracian conquests were ephemeral. The Sapaeans ruled Thrace after the Odrysians until its incorporation to the Roman Empire as a province. Thrace became a Client state of Rome at 11 BC and was annexed at 46 AD. Thrace had the potential to muster a huge number of troops though this rarely occurred. By tradition, Thracians honored warriors and, according to Herodotus, despised all other occupations. The Thracians fought as peltasts using javelins and crescent or round wicker shields called "peltes". Missile weapons