What is the point of 16 ranks in a pike phalanx?

[Patrick Waterson]

We live in hope. 

Probably for a different thread, but if pila were ineffective against massed infantry standing in a confined space protected only by body armour, small round shields and a number of thin wooden poles, in what conceivable circumstances could they be effective? This is particularly puzzling given that most popular sets of wargame rules for this period seem to grant pilum throwing Romans a substantial advantage over pikemen in the first bound of melee.

Where one pikeman would easily be shot down by one pilum-using legionary, a formation of pikemen with an overhead forest of pike protection seems to have been immune.  A 3-4 lbs pilum touching a (say) 22 lbs pike will have the impetus taken right out of it, and with eleven ranks of pikemen on an 18" frontage covering the formation with sloping shafts there is not much of a way in for anything hurled in a trajectory that crosses the shafts rather than coming in directly down the 'grain'.

Polybius (who as an Achaean cavalry commander was no stranger to phalanx formations) reckoned that a legion had no chance frontally against a sarissa phalanx, which seems to be borne out by the opening stages of Cynoscephalae and Pydna.  I think the said wargame rules are simply wrong, a legacy of a long-standing misconception that legion and pike formations were somehow equal and opposite.  Reality was not like that.

Pila were quite effective against massed infantry who were not pikemen: see Caesar's campaigns in Gaul (Gallic War, especially I.25 against the Helvetii) and Hirtius' (Spanish War) account of Munda (I quote the relevant bit here):

"And so though both sides showed equal vigour in both [the war shout and the 'congressus' or approach] when the pila were thrown, great numbers of the enemy were hit and fell in heaps." - Spanish War 31

[andrew881runner]

We live in hope. 

Probably for a different thread, but if pila were ineffective against massed infantry standing in a confined space protected only by body armour, small round shields and a number of thin wooden poles, in what conceivable circumstances could they be effective? This is particularly puzzling given that most popular sets of wargame rules for this period seem to grant pilum throwing Romans a substantial advantage over pikemen in the first bound of melee.

Where one pikeman would easily be shot down by one pilum-using legionary, a formation of pikemen with an overhead forest of pike protection seems to have been immune.  A 3-4 lbs pilum touching a (say) 22 lbs pike will have the impetus taken right out of it, and with eleven ranks of pikemen on an 18" frontage covering the formation with sloping shafts there is not much of a way in for anything hurled in a trajectory that crosses the shafts rather than coming in directly down the 'grain'.

Polybius (who as an Achaean cavalry commander was no stranger to phalanx formations) reckoned that a legion had no chance frontally against a sarissa phalanx, which seems to be borne out by the opening stages of Cynoscephalae and Pydna.  I think the said wargame rules are simply wrong, a legacy of a long-standing misconception that legion and pike formations were somehow equal and opposite.  Reality was not like that.

Pila were quite effective against massed infantry who were not pikemen: see Caesar's campaigns in Gaul (Gallic War, especially I.25 against the Helvetii) and Hirtius' (Spanish War) account of Munda (I quote the relevant bit here):

"And so though both sides showed equal vigour in both [the war shout and the 'congressus' or approach] when the pila were thrown, great numbers of the enemy were hit and fell in heaps." - Spanish War 31

You should even take into account that Pila were designed to Pierce wooden Shields and pikemen had bronze or bronze covered Shields which prevented piercing from pilum, so the primary task of pilum was lost. The forest of pikes could complete the task intercepting and slowing some of the Pila. Anyway I would not feel so confident being in a phalanx against hundreds pilum thrown at me. My personal idea is that Pila were less eff3ctive than usual but still effective. If only 50% of Pila found a target different from a shield, a pike or a helmet (which were quite heavy to protect against missiles), and in a dense packed formation it could probably happen, it would cause quite some damage to the phalanx formation. Good thing was that each legionary carried only 2 Pila so this damage could be only during first stages of the battle. If phalanx held formation, it could fight on.

[Mark G]

We assume 2were carried into battle, but there us doubt.

I don't know of any artistic depictions, and there is the immense impracticality of carrying a second when fighting.

Adrian goldsworthy , i rexall rwading, suggested there may only be one taken, with a choice of long or short range, depending ( i.e. Why take a short range heavy pila to assault a wall).

We should be even more sceptical about "if only 50% hit" logic.
It pre supposes 100% throwable by calm trained men at effective range targets which do not get out of the way.
especially for a short range missile weapon designed for a swift follow up which is impossible against pikes.

[Erpingham]

We assume 2were carried into battle, but there us doubt.

I don't know of any artistic depictions, and there is the immense impracticality of carrying a second when fighting.

Although, given the tendency of other inhabitants to lug round multiple spears and javelins revealed in the Early Italian thread, one might suggest they did start with two pila.  Dropping to one might reveal the weapon becoming more difficult to handle (bulkier?) or a tactical shift, with less emphasis on throwing missiles, more on "chuck & charge".

a short range missile weapon designed for a swift follow up which is impossible against pikes.

Good point, possibly reflecting on the relative melee decisiveness of the pilum and the gladius or that it was the aggressive close-in tactics of the Romans that was the key factor, not the firepower.

[Patrick Waterson]

The essential conclusion seems to be that legionaries using the pilum (or pila) and gladius combination frontally against pikemen would make very little impression.  This seems to be the case whether or not the phalanx is moving.

If the phalanx was moving there might not even be time to throw a second pilum, assuming one was carried.

Do we all feel we can safely conclude that wargame rules which give pilum-throwing legionaries 'a substantial advantage against pikemen' in the first round of melee are incorrect?

[andrew881runner]

We assume 2were carried into battle, but there us doubt.

I don't know of any artistic depictions, and there is the immense impracticality of carrying a second when fighting.

Adrian goldsworthy , i rexall rwading, suggested there may only be one taken, with a choice of long or short range, depending ( i.e. Why take a short range heavy pila to assault a wall).

We should be even more sceptical about "if only 50% hit" logic.
It pre supposes 100% throwable by calm trained men at effective range targets which do not get out of the way.
especially for a short range missile weapon designed for a swift follow up which is impossible against pikes.

I have always known  and read everywhere that legionaries carried 2 Pila. I guess there are some sources for this even if I don't know which. Therr are a lot of both archeological and written sources usually about roman age so I guess this is the case. I never heard about a debate on this subject. I know that everything is debatable on history but I suppose that if 100% of books and historians have always agreed on something, maybe we should take into account that it could be true.
sometimes Wikipedia is enough: if you look for Pilum, you will find out the sources (Polybius, Caesar, Vegetius, Plutarch) and all informations. Usually legionary carried 2 Pila, a light one and a heavy one. There are several archeological remaining. Only thing I know it is still uncertain is where the pilum came from. Some think etruscans invented it to repell celtic invasions from north. First sure account of an usage of pilum is the battle of Allia in 380 BC anyway.

[Mark G]

Other multiple javelin carrying troops are not close combat swordsmen.

Try fdoing that with a weighted pole hooked inside your shield by thumb

[Erpingham]

Other multiple javelin carrying troops are not close combat swordsmen.

Try fdoing that with a weighted pole hooked inside your shield by thumb

I don't think anyone has suggested that when they came to swordplay, they were still carrying pila.  From the rather extensive quotes in various threads, the Romans either threw their pila at the enemy or, if there wasn't time, just dropped them.  If you needed them again after a bout of swordfighting, you could redistribute those from the back ranks or men could leave the ranks to scavenge them (as is explicitly mentioned in the soldiers oath).

[Duncan Head]

I have always known  and read everywhere that legionaries carried 2 Pila. I guess there are some sources for this even if I don't know which. Therr are a lot of both archeological and written sources usually about roman age so I guess this is the case. I never heard about a debate on this subject. I know that everything is debatable on history but I suppose that if 100% of books and historians have always agreed on something, maybe we should take into account that it could be true.
sometimes Wikipedia is enough: if you look for Pilum, you will find out the sources (Polybius, Caesar, Vegetius, Plutarch) and all informations. Usually legionary carried 2 Pila, a light one and a heavy one. There are several archeological remaining.

This is one of the cases where "everybody knows" something that isn't quite true.

Polybios in Book VI says that each hastatus had two pila (and by implication, so did the principes). He also says there are two types of pila, which he calls "thick" or "stout" and "thin" or "fine", respectively. But he does not actually say - and nor does anyone else - that each legionary carried one of each type. He does not call them "heavy" or "light". Reconstructions of Republican examples suggest, as far as I recall, that the two types actually weighed more or less the same: the difference between the two types of coonstruction may have no significance at all.

The idea that the legionary carried two pila into battle and threw the two in succession seems to be a modern interpretation. One problem that has been touched on in this discussion is, how do you hold the second pilum. With other types of shield-grip, it's a simple matter to hold one or more javelins in your shield-hand, holding the spearshaft along the same axis as the shield-grip. But with the Roman scutum being curved and having a horizontal shield-grip, you can't do that because the curvature of the shield prevents you carrying the spear horizontally (even ignoring the fact that it would get in the way of the men standing next to you). You'd have to hold a vertical spear and a horizontal shield-grip at the same time. Peter Connolly published a very influential idea suggesting that you could just grip the pilum shaft with your thumb and, if it was the "thick" tanged type, hook the tang-fitting over the top of the shield - like this. Various other people, including some who've tried it, don't think that it is practical to carry a pilum like this for any length of time.

There has therefore been a line of scholars going back to Hans Delbrueck who simply don't believe that legionaries actually carried both pila at once, but that the second must have been a "spare".

Of course there are other complications. The newer Zhmodikov-at-al theories of Roman combat stress the prolonged missile exchanges that some historical accounts imply happened at least some of the time; and this would surely imply access to more than one throwing-spear. On the oither hand, there seems to be no clear reference to carrying more than one pilum after Polybios - Caesar doesn't mention it, the vast majority of Imperial sculptures show only one pilum (until you start to get reliefs showing a pair of spears in the 3rd century, and then they're not pila). So it has occasionally been suggested that there was a tactical change in emphasis, with earlier Republican legionaries more inclined to shoot, professional Caesarian and Imperial legionaries stressing one-volley-and-charge so not needing a second spear. But all of these issues are more or less hypothetical.

[Patrick Waterson]

Josephus, writing in the first century AD, has each legionary carry a xyston (singular), suggesting that the thinner version was the current fashion in his time and that only one was carried.  Tacitus is not helpful on the subject.

Vegetius (I.19) suggests the use of 'light' and 'heavy' javelins, the latter being explicitly identified as 'pila' (despite the unfortunate 18th century Anglicisation of the term).  He also refers to barbarians using multiple pilum-equivalents, showing that it was possible despite modern reservations:

As to the missile weapons of the infantry, they were javelins headed with a triangular sharp iron, eleven inches or a foot long, and were called piles. When once fixed in the shield it was impossible to draw them out, and when thrown with force and skill, they penetrated the cuirass without difficulty. At present they are seldom used by us, but are the principal weapon of the barbarian heavy-armed foot. They are called bebrae, and every man carries two or three of them to battle.

It must be observed that when the soldiers engage with the javelin, the left foot should be advanced, for, by this attitude the force required to throw it is considerably increased. On the contrary, when they are close enough to use their piles and swords, the right foot should be advanced, so that the body may present less aim to the enemy, and the right arm be nearer and in a more advantageous position for striking.

[andrew881runner]

maybe one pilum was stuck into ground while legionary kept the other by hand? is this possible? I think to remember that roman pilum had a pointed but t. Why if it was only a javelin?
Anyway thinking heavy javelin could be thrown only at enemy 20 mts from you. The most practical thing on my opinion would be having another lighter  javelin to hit enemy charging both far (like 50 mts) and near, with double effect. This when Romans were defensive so they could have easily a javelin stuck into ground. We should remember that Romans after Mariah reform did not have velites so they had to fulfill the skirmisher role too, if auxiliary light infantry was lacking, as it is possible.  When Romans were offensive, I agree that throwing a single javelin then charge is more simple.

[Mark G]

Aagh,

Roy and i went to great lengths to dispose of thus ridiculous notion that the romans infantry (legionary, hastatii, principes etc) skirmished with javelins.

Andrew, were you a member last year or two years ago?

You have the final part in this months slingshot, but you may gave missed the earlier parts.

I think i speak for everyone when i say we do not want to have that debate again on this forum,

[Duncan Head]

We should remember that Romans after Mariah reform did not have velites so they had to fulfill the skirmisher role too, if auxiliary light infantry was lacking, as it is possible.

But the problem with this suggestion is that - as I said - the only real evidence for two pila is from before the "Marian reform", when velites were plentiful.

[Erpingham]

Aagh,

Roy and i went to great lengths to dispose of thus ridiculous notion that the romans infantry (legionary, hastatii, principes etc) skirmished with javelins.

Scarcely ridiculous when the view is held by some quite significant historians of the Roman army.  However, I don't want the debate again either.  It must be said, though, that one's stance on the subject may affect one's view as to whether legionaries carried one or two pila.

[andrew881runner]

Aagh,

Roy and i went to great lengths to dispose of thus ridiculous notion that the romans infantry (legionary, hastatii, principes etc) skirmished with javelins.

Andrew, were you a member last year or two years ago?

You have the final part in this months slingshot, but you may gave missed the earlier parts.

I think i speak for everyone when i say we do not want to have that debate again on this forum,

I was not e member, I am since about a month ago so I missed the debate.