cryptography

Whitening Shields and Panels

a colour photo of a painted terracotta model of a Greek shield with the head of a god crowned with rays of light — Model shield from the ‘Tomb of the Erotes’ on Eretria (c. 350-250 BCE, not from a documented excavation). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession number 97.322

Xenophon once uses the verb λευκόω “to whiten” to describe how anti-Spartan Athenians made shields to fight the pro-Spartan oligarchs:

The Thirty thereupon retired to Eleusis; and the Ten, with the aid of the cavalry commanders, took care of the men in the city, who were in a state of great disquiet and distrust of one another. In fact, even the cavalry did guard duty by night, being quartered in the Odeum and keeping with them both their horses and their shields; and such was the suspicion that prevailed, that they patrolled along the walls from evening onwards with their shields, and toward dawn with their horses, fearing continually that they might be attacked by parties of men from Piraeus. [25] The latter, who were now numerous and included all sorts of people, were engaged in making shields, some of wood, others of wicker-work, and in whitening them (ἐλευκοῦντο).
Xen. Hell. 2.4.24-25

As I was studying Aeneas Tacticus before the conference on Stadtbelagerungen zwischen Ost und West (Innsbruck, 12-13. October 2023) I found a passage which helps interpret this one!