Message To All Reenactors

Plataea 2022 is being run by Hoplologia in cooperation with the Government of Greece.  All reenactors attending need to read and understand the following.

1. No display of modern political slogans, songs, symbols or any other device will be tolerated.
2. No example of hate speech, verbal abuse, threat, or slur will be tolerated.  We expect to have both people of colour and women serving in many roles; if your group can’t tolerate that, you shouldn’t come.
3. All participants will do their best to wear authentic kit, to correctly represent their role, and to obey the orders of the officers appointed to run the event.

Any failure to follow these three simple rules will result in expulsion.  We want this event to be a place where reenactors experience immersion in the world of the past without concern for the modern world and its issues.

Also…

     The organisers have planned an event that will require a certain lever of fitness.  We will attempt to reenact a number of the marches that were so important in the battle; the movement of the Spartans from their second position to their third position, where the final battle developed; the movement of the Athenian phalanx from it’s position on the far left to contact with the Theban phalanx, and other marches are possible.  In Boeotia in July, these marches will be hot and hard.  We will cross fields full of vegetation that can slash unprotected legs and feet.  

Every reenactor should come with:

1. A correct straw hat 
2. A period canteen, water bottle, or water skin
3. Good strong sandals with leg wraps or felt boots under sandals with greaves

You might want to practice marching in kit, and experiment with methods co carrying your shield and helmet.  In 480 BC hoplites had slaves to do this… we won’t.

    Finally, we expect some very limited combat interactions and safety will be paramount.

Every reenactor intending to be in combat MUST have the following

1. A safe spear with either a rubber head or a ball-top steel spearhead and either a rubber sarauter or a no sarauter.
2. Eye protection that you can wear with your kit (sports goggles that fit under your helmet, for example.)
3. Archers are required to have bows no more powerful than 30# and to have safed arrows with blunt rubber tips.

There will be scheduled safety inspections before every immersive event.  No sharp spears or spears with sharp metal sarauters will be allowed in any immersive event, and all sharp swords, akinakes, daggers and axes will be required to stay in their sheathes in immersive events. Safety Officers will have the last word on what is safe.  Please don’t debate with them.