For classics twitter consideration (@BretDevereaux @ProfPaul_J ) (without rendering my own opinion, which is worth little).https://www.academia.edu/45455304/The_battle_mechanics_of_the_Hoplite_Phalanx?fbclid=IwAR0qEj5KHMEj2JGOyzy8-1bgwKNdiQqS2CvlzKYp4qrZLIPCAi-aJIKrjNs …
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'Their kit was expensive' provided here isn't quite enough to make the analogy work. A lot of urban militias, *in the middle ages* had expensive kits. What made knights different was the possession of skills linked to a specific, skill-heavy style of combat.
At the very least, it ought to come with a proviso that the 'hoplite class' seems to have been far more extensive than the knightly class ever was. The Second Estate was c. 1.5% of pre-revolutionary France, for instance. Even the Spartiates are a bigger slice of the population.
