Quote Originally Posted by sharrukin
I have read this article and the product of the reforms WERE hoplites able to function in the peltast role as well. The reforms were not adopted in greece proper until later c.250 BC. Iphikrates reformed the marines and peltasts who were equipped in a hoplite role as well as poorer hoplites. This is clearly stated in the article.
From the article itself

One reason people have continually referred to Iphikrates' troops as 'peltasts' like Diodoros does is that there is plenty of evidence that hoplites continued to be equipped in the traditional manner, both during Iphikrates' lifetime and long after, right until the demise of the Greek polities as independent states. Accordingly, it is normally assumed that Diodoros and Nepos are both mistaken in stating it was hoplites that were reequipped, despite their accounts seeming to derive from two different original sources (the difference in details such as the length of the weapons would indicate that their accounts do not derive from a common intermediate source, but are independent).
Point one: Not the hoplites were reequiped.

Who was then?

who were these 'hoplites' that Iphikrates reformed? I believe the answer lies in Xenophon. Upon his return from Persia, he records that Iphikrates was appointed general by the Athenians to replace the lackadaisical Timotheos (Hellenica, 6.2.13-14). Xenophon records that as "soon as he was made general, Iphikrates went to work vigorously on manning the ships and saw to it that the captains did this work too".6 In other words, Iphikrates was reforming the naval arm. Athens, like other Greek states, made use of hoplites as marines, and indeed, such marines were the only hoplites Athens had at the time that saw regular service, since the bulk of the city's hoplites were a militia force called up only when needed, whereas the Athenian navy was constantly patrolling the seas that linked Athens' scattered territorial possesions.7
meaning...

I would contend that the hoplites Nepos and Diodoros refer to are the Athenian marines
Now that we have cleared up this point, let's proceed...

general who did not want to burden himself with citizen levies, yet wanted to be able to fight field battles required another source of hoplites, and Iphikrates solved this problem by rearming his peltasts once his experiment with his marines had proved a success.

If the vast majority of Iphikratean 'peltasts' as recorded by Diodoros were actually originally peltasts, this might provide an alternative explanation of why Diodoros calls them peltasts despite using equipment that would normally be described as a hoplite's. Perhaps Diodoros had one source (the one that Nepos also used?) that said hoplites were (initially) converted, and another that (later) they were peltasts. It would be only natural for him to assume that his hoplites would then be called peltasts because they each had a pelta.17 However, it may be that originally they really were called hoplites, and that their name was changed sometime afterwards. Certainly Xenophon refers to Iphikrates' men after he manned his expedition to Korkyr as both hoplites and peltasts
Peltasts and hoplites, then. Be it.

So, assuming we are reading the same article, where excactly does it contradict with my statement? Where does it concede with strategy's statement that Ifikrates changed the hoplite warfare generally and not only his own band of mercenaries?