 Late Bronze Age Greece was divided into a series of warrior kingdoms , the most important being centered in Mycenae , to which the culture of this era owes its name , Tiryns , Pylos and Thebes . From the 15th century BC , Mycenaean power began expanding towards the Aegean , the Anatolian coast and Cyprus . Mycenaean armies shared several common features with other contemporary Late Bronze Age powers : they were initially based on heavy infantry , with spears , large shields and in some occasions armor . In the 13th century BC , Mycenaean units underwent a transformation in tactics and weaponry and became more uniform and flexible and their weapons became smaller and lighter . Some representative types of Mycenaean armor / weapons were the boar 's tusk helmet and the " Figure @-@ of @-@ eight " shield . Moreover , most features of the later hoplite panoply of Classical Greece were already known at this time . 
