1211 velite reforms

[Patrick Waterson]

That makes sense.  Changing status during a campaign is not something I have found evidence for, but doing so between campaigns is quite logical.  Have better property, will upgrade. 

[oldbob]

The Romans started using the Pila both heavy and light some time after the Samnite Wars. The first troop types to receive these weapons were the Hastati, was because they were lightly armored,I'm not sure? but they have a troop type who skirmishs and fight close in now,what I think to be some of skirmish/light infantry killers. When exactly did they start using true skirmisher  and gave them smaller shields I not sure and who did the skirmishing before the Hastati,once again I find this be confusing!

[Patrick Waterson]

Rodger Williams and yours truly looked into this question last year, with results that should be appearing in a forthcoming Slingshot.  The Romans apparently started to use pila much earlier than expected - not after the Samnite Wars of the 4th-3rd century BC, but after or even during the Sabine War of 505-503 BC!!!

Principes and hastati both used this weaponry from 503 BC-ish, judging by obiter dictu comments and described fighting styles in both Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus; triarii, who were originally camp guards and do not appear on the battlefield prior to 394 BC, seem always to have used the dora-type long(-ish) spear.  Skirmishers seem to have originally been the Servian 'Class V' types with sling and/or javelin, although they are not really covered by our sources and we have to guess that they hung around as a thin screen from c.550 BC; by 340 BC they were equipped with javelins and a spear and attached to maniples of heavy infantry hastati.

At some point between 340 BC and the First Punic War (when Polybius starts referring to 'grosphomachoi', his term for velites), probably c.311 BC during the Second Samnite War, which saw the Romans in trouble a few times, the legion changed, with a greatly increased establishment of skirmishers (velites).  These seem (although conclusive proof remains elusive) to have been equipped with javelins, sword and shield from the start - Polybius notably does not refer to any armament changes when describing them although he does detail such for the Roman cavalry.

Velites seem to have used the 3' parma throughout their existence from the putative c.311 BC date to their apparent disappearance when the 'Marian' legion became the norm in the years following 107 BC, and the smaller (2') shield seems unique to the double-mounted light infantry accompanying the cavalry at Capua in 211 BC - at least, it is not as far as I know mentioned elsewhere.

[oldbob]

Patrick; thank's for that reply. I look forward to your article in Slingshot, anything that help clear up some of my confusion on this issue will be greatly appreciated!

[Mark G]

I look forward to it also Pat, but warn against announcing 'forthcoming unpublished radical new research interpretations'.

you cited this one over a year ago on this forum without any follow up then either - till its in print, its not safe to report, as you well know.

not that I doubt you or Rodge, but for passing viewers, they have nothing to go on.

[Patrick Waterson]

It was actually due to appear in Slingshot 285 or 286 but then someone sent in a series evaluating the 'WMWW' theory which displaced it from the schedule. 

I can throw in a bit of material here and now: the first mention of pila in any shape or form seems to be Dionysius of Halicaranssus describing a portent on the night before the final battle against the Sabines in 503 BC:

"It was as follows: From the javelins [hussos] that were fixed in the ground beside their tents (these javelins [hussos] are Roman weapons which they hurl and having pointed iron heads, not less than three feet in length, projecting straight forward from one end, and with the iron they are as long as spears of moderate length) — from these javelins [hussos] flames issued forth round the tips of the heads and the glare extended through the whole camp like that of torches and lasted a great part of the night." (Dionysius V.46.2)

Dionysius not only explicitly uses the Greek specialist pilum-word 'hussos' three times but also gives a description of the weapon.  From the length of the weapon and mention of the distinctive long iron shank it is pretty obvious what kind of weapon Dionysius is referring to.

Trying to establish whether these were the weapons of a minority or of the whole army was a bit harder (not to mention settling the question of whether Dionysius was simply anachronising), but to cut a long story short the character of engagements of the 5th century BC in both Livy and Dionysius is of missile exchanges preceding close combat and piecemeal reinforcement of wavering parts of the battle line from a reserve line, i.e. not hoplite warfare (by contrast, the first battle fought by the Roman republic - in 509 BC, against the Tarquins - had some of the key characteristics of a hoplite battle, so it looks as if a few things changed quite rapidly in the first few years of the early republic).  Anyway, we should get the chance to read all about it in an issue or two.

[Duncan Head]

Velites seem to have used the 3' parma throughout their existence from the putative c.311 BC date to their apparent disappearance when the 'Marian' legion became the norm in the years following 107 BC...

Though that depends partly on how you interpret Festus on replacing parmae with Bruttianae, of course.

[Patrick Waterson]

Hence "apparent".    One wonders if this would have been when the 'ferentarii' acquired their nomenclature.

Rodger's and my Slingshot piece largely avoids treatment of light infantry (sorry, OldBob!) so it might be an idea to discuss a few points here.

Good information on the subject prior to 340 BC seems to be as abundant as hens' teeth, but after that at some unspecified but presumably 4th century date we have the shift from the Livian to the Polybian model (a modest 300 shieldless leves are replaced with 1,200 velites) which, given Polybius' lack of mention in Book VI (where he describes Roman equipment in some detail) of any change in velite armament whereas he does mention an earlier change in the armament of Roman cavalry, probably means the velites were configured in the familiar shield+sword+javelins format right from the start of this particular type of legion.

The impetus for and occasion of the change in legion format may be the Second Samnite War, as after that we cease to get references to piecemeal reinforcement during a battle - which is less helpful than it sounds, because we get few useful details of engagements until Polybius starts up with the First Punic War, so we do not know exactly what we are missing.  My current conjecture is that the impetus for the change to the 'Polybian' legion came in 314 BC when the consul Poetelius, commanding the Roman left at the battle of Tarracina, did things differently to the 'book':

"The troops on the left, besides being drawn up in closer order [confertiores], had received an accession to their strength from a plan conceived on the spur of the moment by Poetelius. For those subsidiary cohorts [subsidarias cohortes] which were wont to be kept fresh in reserve, to meet the chance needs of a long engagement, he sent immediately into the fighting line; and by using all his strength at once, he forced the enemy back at the first assault." - Livy IX.27.9-10

The advantages of starting with the 'reserves' as part of the first troops into combat may have been sufficiently apparent to begin melding them into the front-line formations, and in the new legion the rorarii disappear while the 'heavy' hastati increase from 900 to 1,200.  At the same time the 300 leves become history and are replaced by 1,200 velites, which suggests that it was found to be beneficial to have a much larger skirmish-capable contingent in the legion, perhaps as a consequence of being thrashed at Lautulae in 315 BC.  Combining these lessons would have resulted in the new type of legion being fielded within a few years - exactly when is conjectural, but it is tempting to associate it with either the consulship of Lucius Papirius Cursor and Gaius Iunius Bubulcus Brutus in 313 BC or the dictatorship of Lucius Papirius Cursor in 309 BC.

All of this - if correctly deduced - suggests a transition from the sedate multi-stage legion described by Livy (VIII.8 ) in 340 BC to the leaner and meaner Polybius version with its much higher skirmishing capacity somewhere in the 313-309 BC bracket as a result of Second Samnite War experiences.  This may also tell us something - indirectly - about Samnite organisation at this point in time, the inference being that the Romans adapted their own legion to reflect certain Samnite practices.  Henceforth the Roman legion would be rich in skirmishers (the velites), and these skirmishers would serve a dual role, for once they finished pre-battle skirmishing they would (following Connolly) form as the two rear ranks behind the six ranks of heavy hastati and principes and contribute moral support and perhaps a few left-over javelins to the efforts of these lines.

They would also form as the last two ranks behind the three ranks of triarii, giving a five-deep triarii formation for the comparatively few times when this arm actually engaged in combat.

Whether this is firm enough to start rewriting army lists is another matter.  It all seems to fit so far, at any rate.

[Duncan Head]

... while the 'heavy' hastati increase from 900 to 1,200.

Which reminds me: I recently came across an early statement of the idea that hastati were originally light infantry:

The names [of hastati, principes, etc] were first bestowed when the Roman army was disciplined according to the tactics of the Grecian phalanx. At that time the hastati were the skirmishers armed with a light javelin (the hasta velitaris), who were thrown forward in advance of the main body, and it is with reference to their ancient duty that Ennius in the eighth book of his annals uses an expression no longer applicable in his day.

                "Hastati spargunt hastas, fit ferreus imber."

"The hastati throw hastae, making an iron shower"

From Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Exercitus.html

This is the closest I have seen to a reasoned argument as to why the hastati should at some stage have been seen as light infantry; and when you remember that the pilum can be called a hasta ("pilum proprie est hasta Romana", Servius on the Aeneid 7,664) the Ennius quote need not mean anything more than that the hastati were throwing pila when Ennius wrote.

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks, Duncan.

There may have originally been some differentiation between the hasta and the pilum, e.g. Livy VII.23.8 (350 BC; Gauls attack uphill against Marcus Popilius Laenas' army):

"Besides their valour, they had an advantage from the elevation, for their javelins [pila] and spears [hastae], instead of falling without effect, as they mostly do when thrown on a level field, were steadied by their own weight and all struck home."

Here it is possible - this is admittedly my conjecture - that the 'hastae' in question may equate to the lighter and longer-ranged pilum type described by Polybius (VI.23.9):

"In addition to these they have two pila ... Some of the pila are thick, some fine. Of the thicker, some are round with the diameter of a palm's length, others are a palm square. The fine pila are like moderate sized hunting spears [sibunion], and they are carried along with the former sort. The wooden haft of them all is about three cubits long; and the iron head fixed to each half is barbed, and of the same length as the haft."

[Duncan Head]

Here it is possible - this is admittedly my conjecture - that the 'hastae' in question may equate to the lighter and longer-ranged pilum type described by Polybius (VI.23.9)...

There is a theory - I think I have seen it in one of Nick Sekunda's works, but I'm not sure if it is originally his or older - that "hasta velitaris" was originally a name for the socketed pilum. It would then have come to mean the spear of the light infantry because that spear looks like a miniature socketed pilum. Hence "pila and hastae" could perhaps have meant "the two types of pilum", as you suggest - though it could just as well have meant pila and conventional javelins, or pila and gaesa, for instance.

("The lighter and longer-ranged pilum type described by Polybius" - of course Polybios doesn't call it either lighter or longer-ranged, but simply "thin" or "slender". The only reconstruction evidence I am aware of is Connolly's experiments recorded in JRMES 11, which suggests that the long socketed pilum was actually heavier and shorter-ranged than the tanged "thick" types reconstructed.)

[Patrick Waterson]

("The lighter and longer-ranged pilum type described by Polybius" - of course Polybios doesn't call it either lighter or longer-ranged, but simply "thin" or "slender". The only reconstruction evidence I am aware of is Connolly's experiments recorded in JRMES 11, which suggests that the long socketed pilum was actually heavier and shorter-ranged than the tanged "thick" types reconstructed.)

True: if I have guessed incorrectly which one was for longer-range use that was my mistake.    Interestingly, Dionysius of Halicarnassus (VIII.84.1) has both sides 'use up their logkhas and saunia' before closing to melee - this in 484 or 483 BC when Coriolanus had re-patterned the Volsci Roman-style and both sides were using similar tactics and equipment.  The combination of light and heavy 'pilum'-equivalents, or at least shafted hurling weapon types, is suggestive, although Dionysius' variable terminology makes drawing conclusions tricky.

[Prufrock]

This will be an article to look out for