Thyreophoroi

However, it has been suggested that the thureos was brought to Greece after Pyrrhus of Epirus' campaigns in Italy, as his Oscan allies and Roman enemies used the scutum.

According to Plutarch, they could fight as skirmishers and then fall back, assume spears and tighten the ranks, forming a phalanx.

Plutarch describes Achaean citizens equipped with the thureos as skirmishing at a distance like peltasts but also as having spears for hand-to-hand combat.

The Achaean League under Philopoemen abandoned the thyreos around 208–207 BC in favor of the heavier Macedonian phalanx,[3][4] although the citizens of Megalopolis, an Achaean city, had adopted the Macedonian style in 222 BC after Antigonus III Doson gave the city bronze shields to form a contingent of epilektoi armed as chalkaspides ('Bronze-Shields').

By the end of the 3rd century BC the thyreophoros was no longer the dominant troop type in the smaller Greek states, having been replaced by the Macedonian-style phalanx.