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 clothing and fawnskin boots called "embades" (Ancient Greek: Εμβάδες). Thracian clothing was sometimes decorated with intricate patterns. While patterned clothing was not unique to Thracians, the "zeira", "embades" and the "alopekis" probably originated from them. Clothing was made from hemp, flax or wool. The Dacians and the Getae wore pantaloons called bracae (Ancient Greek,""ἀναξυρίδες"" or ""θύλακοι"").These loose pants were described in Euripides work as “variegated bags” (Ancient Greek,""τοὺς θυλάκους τοὺς ποικίλους"") and may have appeared highly ridiculous to the Greeks, although Ovid mentions the adoption of them by the descendants of some of the Greek colonists on the Euxine.These trousers were