The terms tend to stay the ame over time, but the type of troop they refer to often morph/mutate - for example the original Peltats had no close-combat weapon and was expected to stay away from better-armed troops, while later ones were expected to mix it up with other light or even medium infantry.
In Glorantha/Greg's writing, these tend to be the meanings of the terms:
Hoplite: A spearman with a large (~3 foot/1 meter diameter) shield, usually with helmet, cuirass and greaves, who fights in a phalanx. (Note that hoplite armor could range from "nothing but a helmet" to full panoply).
Heavy Infantry/Foot: a guy in mostly letal armor wielding any weapon and/or shield
Peltast: a non-armored (maybe a helmet) guy with a light shield and javelins. Greg usually uses the later peltast, who had some close combat capability (a sword or axe) rather than the earlier form which only had javelins and a shield.
Line Infantry/Medium infantry - lighter armor than a heavy infantryman, but otherwise similarly armed.
> Or am I just thick for not knowing this stuff? :-)
Obviously you just don't play enough wargames :-)
A nice book that explains a good deal of classical greek/roman/persian/etc warfare is _Warfare in the Classical World_, John Warry. Salamander Books LTD. ISBN 0-8061-2794-5 (for the US trade paperback edition). It has nice illos and maps, explains what the various troop types are and how they were used, and details a number of battles. It has a glossary in the back so you can look up those wierd words :-).
Osprey publishes a large number of books on various aspects of warriors - some focus on the army of a particualr time/place/general (Armies of the X), some on a particualr type of warrior (Germanic Warrior, Roman Cavalryman), some on particualr battles or campaigns (Battle of Hastings), etc. Be warned, they are ~$20US per book, and you can go broke getting all of them, even if just for a particular period. The history can be dodgy (depends on the author), but each one has a central section (usually eight pages) of color paintings, which are wonderful to show your players "you see a guy like *this*". The paintings have notes in the back from the artist explaining what you are looking at, and where he got his details from, which is useful to know!
Of course, Glorantha doesn't have just Classical roots, so you'll still run into wierd military terminaology ("Dragoon" doesn't appear until the 17th century, frex), but it is a start.
RR
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