Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Ocreatus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

OCREA'TUS. Wearing greaves. The Greeks and Etruscans wore a pair, one on each leg, as frequently represented on their fictile vases, and exhibited by the annexed figure (Ocreatus/1.1), which forms an ornament to the front of the ridge piece in a bronze helmet found at Pompeii; the Samnites and the gladiators equipped like them, wore only one, and that upon the left leg (Liv. ix. 40. Juv. vi. 256.); and the heavy infantry of the Romans also wore a single greave, but on their right leg (Veg. Mil. i. 20.); for it was their system to come at once to close quarters, and decide the battle at the sword's point, the right leg being consequently in advance and unprotected  — a position exactly the reverse of the one adopted by those who use a spear, either for thrusting or hurling.

2. When applied to huntsmen, as by Hor. Sat. ii. 3. 234. poetically used for PERONATUS; which see.

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  Ocreatus/1.1