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
Battle of Delium made use of planned tactical warfare for one of the first times in recorded history. In the previous centuries, battles between Greek city states were relatively simple encounters between massed formations of hoplites, where cavalry played no important role and all depended on the unity and force of the massed ranks of the infantry, straining against the opponent. At Delium, Pagondas made use of deeper ranks, reserves, cavalry interventions, light-armed skirmishers (peltasts) and gradual changes in tactics during the battle. These novelties were to be later exploited in more famous Theban victories in the following century, led by Epaminondas in