The Greek phalanx was probably created in the 8th or 7th century BC. It was a combat formation of heavy-armed infantry, formed by hoplites who lined up to fight in ranks, the number of which during the Greco-Persian Wars (500/499-449 BC) ranged from 8 to 16. The phalanx was a closed area in which soldiers covered each other with shields. It primarily assumed the use of melee weapons (a spear or a sword) and marginalized, especially at the beginning, the use of a throwing weapon. In the 5th century BC, the hoplite was armed with a wooden bronze shield (Greek hoplon, hence the name of a soldier fighting in a phalanx); on his head was a bronze helmet (often of the Corinthian type); and the so-called athlete's armor was also made of bronze. However, there was also canvas armor. Back then, hoplite legs were almost always protected with greaves. The offensive armament was mainly a spear and a short single-edged sword (Greek: machaira) or double-edged sword (Greek: xiphos). The phalanx provided the Greek polis with a huge military advantage over the troops of the Persian Empire during the wars of 500/499–449 BCE and was also used later, e.g., during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), when, however, it began to undergo an evolution as a result of, for example, Iphicrates' reforms in Athens. It is commonly assumed that in the 5th century BC, Sparta had the best army among the Greek polis, whose hoplites moved to the battlefield most often with the Greek letter lambda painted on the hoplon—from Lakedemon, another name for their homeland. Based on the foundations of the Greek phalanx in the 4th century BC, Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great introduced the Macedonian phalanx to the battlefields.