Editing Light infantry (section)

===Ancient history===
[[File:Agrianian3.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Agrianes|Agrianian]] [[peltast]], {{circa|4th century BC}}]]
The concept of a skirmishing screen is a very old one and was already well-established in [[Ancient Greece]] and [[Roman Republic|Roman]] times in the form, for example, of the Greek [[peltast]] and [[psiloi]], and the Roman ''[[velites]]''. As with the so-called "light infantry" of later periods, the term more adequately describes the role of such infantry rather than the actual weight of their equipment. Peltast equipment, for example, grew steadily heavier at the same time as [[hoplite]] equipment grew lighter. It was the fact that peltasts fought in open order as skirmishers that made them light infantry and that hoplites fought in the battle line in a [[phalanx formation]] that made them heavy infantry.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}