This reminds me of pictures of ancient war chariots in children’s history books, with blades poking out of the wheel hubs.   Here it is the warriors that are flailing blades, an image rendering soldiers as engines of killing.

See also the bestellar reviews, complete with rich quote-mosaics, of Adam Nicolson’s magnificent Why Homer Matters and Logue’s War Music, a muscular rendition of several books of the Iliad. 

‘The piston-kneed, blade-flailing Greeks pour

Like a gigantic fan with razored vanes.’

Source: Christopher Logue, War Music, London: Faber and Faber, 2001, p. 176

Photo credit: Little Visuals, stocksnap.io