Greek Dory Spear – Steel Head and Brass Sauroter Cap – Deepeeka

This Greek Dory Spear has a spearhead of high carbon steel which is mounted and pinned to a robust haft of polished hardwood. It is completed with a brass Sauroter butt cap.

The primary weapon of the Greek Hoplite, the Dory spear was a formidable weapons system when combined with the large shield and used in disciplined units of warriors. The Dory strikes at a distance and hits harder than is commonly realized due to the mass of the haft powering the spear forward with substantial momentum when thrust toward the foe. All that force concentrates onto a single point to impart substantial penetrative power to a target.

Although its primary function is to be a counterbalance to the spearhead, the Sauroter butt cap on this spear can function as a spiked spearhead in its own right should a speartip be broken or damaged in battle. Sauroter means lizard killer – a reference perhaps to soldiers on guard duty spearing a wayward reptile. The Sauroter may have also functioned as a method for dispatching wounded foes on the ground. In the tight confines of a compressed phalanx it may have been impossible or inadvisable to turn a spear around to strike a foe on the ground, but the spiked sauroter would have done the job quite well, particularly with the full mass of the spear behind it in a powerful downward blow.