Greaves

Greaves are leg-armor — bronze plates strapped over the shins. They appear once in scripture, on the legs of the Philistine champion Goliath.

Goliath's Armor

The narrator describes Goliath's equipment piece by piece as he comes out of the Philistine camp. After the bronze helmet and the coat of mail weighing five thousand shekels, the catalogue continues: "And he had greaves of bronze on his legs, and a javelin of bronze between his shoulders" (1Sam 17:6). The greaves stand alongside the helmet, mail, javelin, and spear (1Sam 17:5-7) as part of the heavy bronze panoply that distinguishes the Philistine champion from any soldier on the Israelite side. The detail is part of the chapter's slow, accumulating measurement of Goliath — six cubits and a span tall, his spear-head alone weighing six hundred shekels of iron — against which David's later refusal of armor and choice of stones will set its contrast.