Early Italian Warfare

[andrew881runner]

Hmm, mow I thought that the aspis was designed to transmit the push of othismos through the ranks, not its only use, if course. Having classes two to four equipped with scuta and expecting them to perform othismos  is very unlikely. The scuta armed troops are there to throw javelins and use their body shields as protection against missiles.
Roy

again, we are talking of typical hoplite armies, when skirmishers had a secondary role and were in battle in very small numbers, not in almost same number as hoplite class (counting the number of centuriae you would get this). An army half hoplites half skirmishers in 6th century?
and which kind of scuta they used? which are sources? Roman scuta were with central grip were invented later. Do you know for sure that they could not make othysmos with them?
Anyway from sources I get that only 5th class were skirmishers, eventually. My idea is that they were something to be used eventually with a secondary role, not with an active role as Greek peltasts.  Something like a reserve of main hoplite force. I would not doubt that at least in 6th century it was a hoplite style of fighting.

[Mark G]

Pat, can you try to offer some more to support your dismissal of my thought please.

1. please provide the other evidence you have that triarii were camp guards.  i have only seen that quote which has them guarding a camp during a rout - a reserve force role.  exactly what and when is there to show them staying in camp during a battle to guard it?

2. just because they have large shields and a spear does not make them hoplites, asy Roy has also said, is there any evidence of actual hoplite usage, or are you just reverting to the same old stereotype which this thread is challenging, that everyone early enough must have a hoplite model, if they ever had a large shield and a spear infantryman.

It is the usage which matters not the similarity of equipment - and hoplites do not act as reserves or deploy in multiple batle lines of fighting men, hoplite fighting was never based around prolonged battle, and hoplite troops thus do not seem to be at all applicale to the italian examples of fighting men which do have a spear and shield. 
there is however, a unique italian model which uses a spear and large shield - that of the roman triarii who are reported as acting as a local army reserveas part of a multi players battle model. 

the diffrences between dionysus and livy are clear - D reports the triarii acting as an army reserve - exactly as they act in the republic.  livy just assets they are a phananx (and he means a macedonian one, as you said yourself).  if you step back and look critically at the notoriously unreliable livy, it makes a lot moresense if you just accept livy is wrong on this.

so other than a 'game of snap' mentality over equipment exactly what is there to support the received wisdom of the 19th century historians that etruscans were hoplites?

[andrew881runner]

etruscans fought as hoplites, are you really arguing about this? I have never heard a debate on this, while I have heard debates about how Romans deployed in battle. I think that they are pretty confident about how etruscans fought. And remember that in southern Italy there were Greek city States to copy uses and traditions.

[Erpingham]

Can I atempt a summary to ensure I've got the basics right?

Patrick proposes that the 1st class are hoplites and form the main battleline.  They are supported by classes 2-4 either on the flanks or in a reserve line - these classes are melee troops but a different style of combat.  Class 5 are psiloi and fairly loosely throw things at the enemy but don't get stuck in.

Roy and Mark hold that the Romans from the beginning followed the Italian Way of War (sorry, couldn't resist) - multiple lines, a pair of heavy throwing or multi-purpose spears.  They may have imported or even made hoplite-style kit but they didn't fight in a hoplite phalanx.  Classes 1-4 are melee troops, the 5th class act as psiloi.  I am not clear if the 2-4th classes form behind or in front of 1st class.

Andrew is supportive of the traditional notion that the Etruscans (and hence the early Romans) adopted not just hoplite kit but phalanx fighting, perhaps from contact with Greek colonies.  Andrew has not, I think, given an opinion on how the army draws up.

[andrew881runner]

http://www.warfare.it/tattiche/genesi_manipolo.html
it is in Italian but I find this article really informative about etruscans warfare and birth of manipular tactic. A lot of primary sources are mentioned.
I don't know if you can translate well with Google translator but you could try.

In brief synthesis, the author explains why adoption of scutum and pilum are a different event from manipular tactic, which was adopted, according to the author, in the period between defeat of Allia against gauls and humiliation in  battle at Claudine Forks (sorry I have no idea how is the English word for it) . Scutum and pilum were used even During the period of hoplites by many people in Italy (he does not talk of etruscans but probably even them) who used hoplite tactic.
Probably etruscans used some ancient type of Pila too. For the Roman use of pilum, Plutarco. Cam. 40.4 talk about consul appius ordering to use the "heavy javelins" as Spears in a battle of 367 BC. And surely in 295 during the third war against samnites Pila were used to "Pierce the colorful Shields" (livius). Finally some decades later Pirrus was told to have been injured by a pilum.
So probably the key is the 4th century, when both the switch to pilum and scutum AND the switch to manipular tactic (an evolution of the fighting in a phalanx on more lines as in servian reform, so not a total change) happened.
Finally the author explains the error (you have already talked about before) of considering the samnites the population where Roman took scutum pilum and manipular tactic from. It was an error kept inside a Greek text. But, exactly as you pointed out before (not all academics are stupid) the samnites chosed always flat places for battle and used scutum, yes, but even round Shields indifferently, giving the idea of a "italic way" of doing hoplitic battle, which could be true for etruscans too. Something like absorbing the idea of close compact phalanx but with not exactly the typical Greek hoplite equipment (etruscans used open Nagau helms and small bronze plates not complete chest armor, and used particular types of warriors like the ones with double hand axe to cut enemy spears), and more classes of warriors, on more lines probably, since the etruscan society, as the Roman one, had a system of social classes very distinct one from the other. While Greek city States were democracies with this idea of "equality" totally unexistent in Italic populations (though the idea of "duty according your privilege" is inside the servian/etruscan reform of Roman society and military).
Finally the author points out that the key for adoption of manipular tactic was more than the pilum, the use of scutum shield, since that was more suited to fighting with sword since it was much more mobile than a Hoplon.
Manipular tactic, with the gaps between the small columns of men, as the author says, was invented first of all to deploy quicker and faster in any battlefield, since small columns could avoid obstacles in their path. And gaps could be used for the relief system too (maybe at first relief system, of one row to the other, was reacher making first row retreat and melting for a while with back row, as Patrick showed).
So in extreme synthesis I see 3 different models in Roman military until the adoption of manipular system: the first "heroic" one, used probably with the first 4 Latin kings, with a military system where the Chiefs of the gentes lead their clientes and relatives, the etruscan hoplite one, with the problems linked to make a uniform army from a differentiated society, and finally the slow swift to the use of swords as main weapons, to scuta, to Pila, and manipular system. A slow change which occurred in about a century and had many goes back, shown by the use of the same word "hastati" for first line of infantry and by the episode I told before, of the consul ordering to use Pila as Spears rather than javelins.

[Patrick Waterson]

Pat, can you try to offer some more to support your dismissal of my thought please.

1. please provide the other evidence you have that triarii were camp guards.  i have only seen that quote which has them guarding a camp during a rout - a reserve force role.  exactly what and when is there to show them staying in camp during a battle to guard it?

See Dionysius V.15.4; VIII.86.4 and IX.12.1.  See also Livy II.47.5 (480 BC) and IV.19.8 (437 BC).

2. just because they have large shields and a spear does not make them hoplites, asy Roy has also said, is there any evidence of actual hoplite usage, or are you just reverting to the same old stereotype which this thread is challenging, that everyone early enough must have a hoplite model, if they ever had a large shield and a spear infantryman.

Actually the picture we see in Greece is of two-spear shieldsmen becoming one-spear hoplites (with the Spartans leading the way) during the 7th-6th centuries BC, and then drifting away from hoplites towards peltasts and thureophoroi in the 4th century BC.

Given that Italy did not develop in isolation (see the paper quoted in 'Reply 14' in this thread), is there good reason to believe that the Etruscans did not follow a similar pattern of developing from warriors into hoplites and thereafter perhaps developing out of them again?

It is the usage which matters not the similarity of equipment - and hoplites do not act as reserves or deploy in multiple batle lines of fighting men,

Nor do Etruscans in Livy IX.32.

there is however, a unique italian model which uses a spear and large shield - that of the roman triarii who are reported as acting as a local army reserveas part of a multi players battle model.

Can we avoid this 'army reserve' terminology in connection with triarii?  They are nothing of the sort.  From 509 BC (or before) to 437  BC (or later) they are camp guards.  From 394 BC (or earlier) to 107 BC they are the final line of Roman deployment.  They are never used as 'army reserves', i.e. to commit where needed; this is the preserve of the rorarii (until c.314-309 BC).

the diffrences between dionysus and livy are clear - D reports the triarii acting as an army reserve - exactly as they act in the republic.  livy just assets they are a phananx (and he means a macedonian one, as you said yourself).  if you step back and look critically at the notoriously unreliable livy, it makes a lot moresense if you just accept livy is wrong on this.

If this refers to Livy I.43 (it is hard to tell without reference being made; please, please reference any such assertions in future) then he is not describing triarii; he is describing the Servian 1st class.  As noted earlier, Dionysius does not describe triarii 'acting as an army reserve'.  They are camp guards prior to 437 BC.

so other than a 'game of snap' mentality over equipment exactly what is there to support the received wisdom of the 19th century historians that etruscans were hoplites?

Battlefield behaviour.  However rather than adopt a simplistic view that the Etruscans either were hoplites or were not hoplites, it may be better to take a look at Etruscan actions in some detail and see how much hoplite-ness is involved.

As a further observation, although 6th century Rome owes much to Etruscan influence, would it not be wise to distinguish between Etruscan armies and the army of Servius Tullius and not confuse the two?

[Patrick Waterson]

Probably etruscans used some ancient type of Pila too. For the Roman use of pilum, Plutarco. Cam. 40.4 talk about consul appius ordering to use the "heavy javelins" as Spears in a battle of 367 BC.

For those who do might not recognise this reference, Camillus introduces revised equipment and tactics to deal with the Gauls:

"He had helmets forged for most of his men which were all iron and smooth of surface, that the enemy's swords might slip off from them or be shattered by them. He also had the long shields of his men rimmed round with bronze, since their wood could not of itself ward off the enemy's blows. The soldiers themselves he trained to use their long javelins [hussois makrois] like spears,—to thrust them under the enemy's swords and catch the downward strokes upon them."

We note that the 'long javelins' are 'hussois makrois' - long pila (the 6' - 2 metre - pilum) and that the technique is similar to that used in the battle against the Insubres described in Polybius II.33:

"The Romans are thought to have shown uncommon skill in this battle; the Tribunes instructing the troops how they were to conduct themselves both collectively and individually. They had learned from former engagements that Gallic tribes were always most formidable at the first onslaught, before their courage was at all damped by a check; and that the swords with which they were furnished, as I have mentioned before, could only give one downward cut with any effect, but that after this the edges got so turned and the blade so bent, that unless they had time to straighten them with their foot against the ground, they could not deliver a second blow. The Tribunes accordingly gave out the spears of the Triarii, who are the last of the three ranks, to the first ranks, or Hastati: and ordering the men to use their swords only, after their spears were done with, they charged the Celts full in front. When the Celts had rendered their swords useless by the first blows delivered on the spears, the Romans close with them, and rendered them quite helpless, by preventing them from raising their hands to strike with their swords, which is their peculiar and only stroke, because their blade has no point. The Romans, on the contrary, having excellent points to their swords, used them not to cut but to thrust: and by thus repeatedly hitting the breasts and faces of the enemy, they eventually killed the greater number of them. And this was due to the foresight of the Tribunes: for the Consul Flaminius is thought to have made a strategic mistake in his arrangements for this battle. By drawing up his men along the very brink of the river, he rendered impossible a manœuvre characteristic of Roman tactics, because he left the lines no room for their deliberate retrograde movements; for if, in the course of the battle, the men had been forced ever so little from their ground, they would have been obliged by this blunder of their leader to throw themselves into the river."

Here we see the hastati using triarii spears to receive the first blows of Gallic swords.  When the Gauls have used their swords to strike the spears, but before they can get their sword arms up again, the Romans have drawn their gladii and pushed up against the Gauls, preventing them from using their swords.  This may have been the same kind of tactic Camillus taught his troops.

[aligern]

Really the passage in which Camillus has smooth helmets made for his men and that where the spears of the triarii are used t blunt Gallic swords look more nonsensical every time. Are we to believe that the Romans did not have helmets that could take a downward blow? Well Etruscan tombs contain machaira swords that would deliver as good a downward force as any Celtic sword. Are we to believe that the Celtic sword could not lop the head off a thrusting spear...no, I think not.  If one wanted to blunt or bend a sword a pilum head of metal would be the best tool for the job.
These passages are stories handed down in aristocratic families to glorify some ancestor from 500 years before Livy wrote! They are unbelievable.

What I do believe is that the earliest pila are found in Vulci, an Etruscan town and that no one here, despite Andrew's assertions and Patrick's tergiversations, has yet produced good evidence that Etruscans are spear armed , though some may be.
As to Southern Italian Greeks, the pictures of them that I remember show them with a combination of Greek and Samnite/Lucanian kit  which could well be javelins or dual purpose throwing/ thrusting spears.
Yes its possible that Etruscans had pila,then spears, then changed back to pila again, but much more likely that they stayed with the pilum(though there may have been some pure spear) whichever the combination it looks much more likely that they are an Italian military system than a Greek imitating hoplite phalanx....

Roy

[andrew881runner]

Really the passage in which Camillus has smooth helmets made for his men and that where the spears of the triarii are used t blunt Gallic swords look more nonsensical every time. Are we to believe that the Romans did not have helmets that could take a downward blow? Well Etruscan tombs contain machaira swords that would deliver as good a downward force as any Celtic sword. Are we to believe that the Celtic sword could not lop the head off a thrusting spear...no, I think not.  If one wanted to blunt or bend a sword a pilum head of metal would be the best tool for the job.
These passages are stories handed down in aristocratic families to glorify some ancestor from 500 years before Livy wrote! They are unbelievable.

What I do believe is that the earliest pila are found in Vulci, an Etruscan town and that no one here, despite Andrew's assertions and Patrick's tergiversations, has yet produced good evidence that Etruscans are spear armed , though some may be.
As to Southern Italian Greeks, the pictures of them that I remember show them with a combination of Greek and Samnite/Lucanian kit  which could well be javelins or dual purpose throwing/ thrusting spears.
Yes its possible that Etruscans had pila,then spears, then changed back to pila again, but much more likely that they stayed with the pilum(though there may have been some pure spear) whichever the combination it looks much more likely that they are an Italian military system than a Greek imitating hoplite phalanx....

Roy

Roy "despite Andrew's assertions"? well if you have read my last post I have said exactly this, that  the pilum was used by etruscans together with a phalanx system, inspired to Greek one but adapted to peculiar ancient italic tradition. We should make a distinction between adoption of pilum and manipular system, that was my point. Even samnites used javelins and some scuta Shields but they fought in phalanx.
Etruscans first of all show a very complex melting pot of cultures and traditions from Egyptian, Phoenician, to Greek one, don't forget that they were traders and travellers of the sea. Even their ethnic origin is way discussed as their language is, but most recent theories concern that they were not eastern immigrants, as Erodotus told and people thought watching the "eastern type" in some painting. Probably there were many contacts with East in that time and many melting as today happens. If you go into Volterra or other etruscan born towns (I did many times) you will see western looking people with some black hair minority and many of the blonde type/ blue eyes, more than in other places, whom I suppose are the real etruscan descendents, since there has not been any celtic presence in Tuscany or long term German invasion (Longboards were few) to explain this. Bones of etruscans 2 mt tall have been found. And in a picture I have seen time ago there was an etruscan noble woman with blond hair, blue eyes and pale skin. So I suspect that there was an upper class of Northern origin and a lower class of pre italic origin with maybe some eastern melting.
Going back to topic, There was not one "italic warfare" but many types of it, many populations each with its own peculiarity, until Roman one prevailed and took the best of each one.

[aligern]

I have been to Volterra, it has a lovely square and a wonderful view from the ramparts. There is also a good museum with a lot of aetruscan artifacts. i wonder if the make up of the present daybpopulation really reflects the physiognomy of the Etruscans from 2,500 years ago. We would need a DNA analysis for that.

As to the Etruscan phalanx and the Samnite phalanx that you mention , if you want to call any formation of men that is say eight deep and 1000 men wide a phalanx then I suppose that the Etruscans can be that, though the most likely logic is. that they may have a continuous front line, but being aitalian, are divided nto smaller, more flexible units. I thoght the consensus on Samnites was that they operated in cohorts? 
what would be unteresting would be to see any evidence that indicates the fighting style of either.
Someone mentioned that the Etruscans put their best men on the left. That, if true, would be different from the Greek pratctice where the best are on the right o prevent rightward drift as each man tries to get cover from his neighbour. on the right. Ofcourse, if you are using two throwing spears then fighting with the sword then the formation is looser. Do we have any evidence of Etruscans or. Samnites close packed?
Roy

[RobertGargan]

Many of the Etruscan vases and artefacts, from the 6th to the 4th century BC, show armoured warriors with the "Argive" shield, the concave shape reducing the danger of asphyxiation when close ranks push forward.  The shield lends itself to dense formations with the soldier raising his spear to strike at the vulnerable throat of his opponent.  I would presume the use of this aspis by some Etruscan warriors would imply the use of the long spear, and therefore hoplite tactics on the battlefield – albeit one part of the battle line – by a Hellenised elite.
Robert

[andrew881runner]

for samnites I have found this. Differently than usual way of showing samnites with scuta, they are using oplon. https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/ahala_rome/5096771638/
Other good pictures of samnites and etruscan warriors and their Villanova ancestors. http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?130804-Ancient-armies-of-Italy/page2
Notice how etruscans of 6th and that century used mainly oplon and Greek style equipment, while first etruscans used more typical Villanova helmets and chest armors. Some etruscans use scutum while others oplon. Since single warrior could chose his equipment, probably we could have seen big variety between different town and between soldiers of same town, according wealth, social status, role in battle and personal preference, with "fashion" going anyway towards the Greek style (I can imagine some rich aristocrat buying a new fashion armor and equipment while some other more common guy using his grandfather's armor with negau helmet to save money). In Italy there has never been the idea of uniformity and equality which came from Greece and gave birth to those standardised phalanxes (brought to the extreme among omoioi spartans).

[aligern]

Thanks for the link Andrew. I am pleased to see that it shows 'Dorian Hoplites duelling' ...with throwing spears.
Robert, what younsay about the aspis is true. It is well designed for othismos pushing. However, that does not mean that it has to be used in a phalanx armed with thrusting spears. Early Carthaginians may well have had aspis shields, but were probably using longche throwing sprars. Greeks with a pair of javelins are shown with an aspis as are Etruscans that I provided a link to earlier. The aspis is not a guide to the useage of Greek tactics!
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

http://www.warfare.it/tattiche/genesi_manipolo.html
it is in Italian but I find this article really informative about etruscans warfare and birth of manipular tactic. A lot of primary sources are mentioned.
I don't know if you can translate well with Google translator but you could try.

Here is a link to a Google Translate page.

I give the text below, as translated by Google.  The result seems sufficient to give English speakers an idea of Nicola Zotti's thoughts and conclusions.  I have adjusted Google's 'manipulate' to read 'manipular' and 'handpieces' to read 'maniples'.

The genesis of manipular tactics

Nicola Zotti


I do not ever take the "crisis blank sheet of paper" when I write about Roman military history. If anything, on the contrary, it is the anxiety of where to start.

This is the case now, when I am going to talk about the genesis of manipular tactics , tactics on which for centuries Rome has built its success: in particular the first, the most critical to its dominance of the Italic peoples and the basin of the Mediterranean.

Start of principle, which is always the best thing - as well as the most natural - means remembering that Rome was a small village, created by the merger of two independent Latin settlements on the Palatine Hill and Capitoline hills.

Rome was thus born from the very beginning as open and inclusive community, capable of aggregating naturally elite from the surrounding areas: first, Etruria and Sabina, and of course the other tribes Latinas.

In its first two and a half centuries of Roman military life, the system evolves from the heroic to the hoplite that the Etruscans had first assimilated probably in 600. C. by the Greeks of southern Italy, which had introduced a few decades in their military use.

We can imagine an initial acquisition of new weapons, especially the hoplite shield, from the more affluent elements of society, followed by an equally slow and problematic introduction of Greek tactics themselves.

It thus comes as an armed force in which a tribal chief in war driving their family and clients, expression of a society where we can distinguish layers, a pattern typical of a society opposed to the much more homogeneous, if not equal, as was that "democratic" Greek.

It is a transition somehow unnatural, because the Etruscan was highly stratified social structure, as was also the Roman one.

Livy describes this step to combat falangitico as a complex reform initiative introduced by conceived by King Servius Tullius (578-534), although it is probably earlier.

Servius Tullius first census of the incomes of their subjects and then based on this to the organization of its military strength, as the institutional structure of the kingdom.

To him we owe then a radical revolution in the conception of citizenship, under which corresponded to more rights and more responsibilities, which will become the heritage of the Roman Republic with the equality of all citizens, regardless of wealth, frronte of the laws of the Republic.

The Roman legion takes the field in three tribal formations commanded by a tribune, each of 1,000 men taken from three tribes: Tities, Ramnes, Luceres. Each tribe gives 10 curies of infantry and one of cavalry, whose men are selected according to the census and assigned to the Cavalry and 5 main classes for the phalanx (with roles and armaments spending decreasing depending on income), and some other less sensitive to support activities or exempt from service because nots.

At this point the legion "falangitica" Roman formed by successive lines of men of different census is already structurally poised to become legion "manipular": how, why and when this happened is a matter of conjecture.

It's worth repeating: all of these are conjectures : when you read format Roman tactics, including maniples, know that it is a hypothesis, some shared by most scholars and most motivated, but no less "hypothetical" than others who benefit from lower consents or less compelling arguments.

An initial screening of the assumptions must be made stating that the causal reasoning are deceptive: in this case there is no necessary causal links between the introduction of pilum and scutum and tactics to manipulate. So many people were warriors armed with missile weapons, including heavy javelins, and did not fight in maniples, but in unit formation and even falangitiche. In turn, the scutum is widespread in Italy during the period "hoplite" and numerous archaeological evidence that there was much greater differentiation of weapons between the hoplites Italic than among the Greeks.

The reasoning "by analogy" are as hazardous as "causal" analogies to the danger of anachronism, those cause / effect because the same causes often result in different effects.

That being said what we "know"?

a) The handles have been introduced in the Roman army between the fourth and third centuries: squeezing a little this time limit we are talking about a period that goes from the period after the defeat sull'Allia (390 or 388) to the next Caudine Forks (321). We can be reasonably certain that when we hear from Livy that in 311 the Romans were able to field two armies consular legions 4 (2 + 2 Roman Latin), they were a fairly recent invention, and were probably already focused on maniples.

b) In the same period the Roman army went from being constituted by a legion of 6,000 men, to (maybe) 2 from 366 in 3000, when you return to the system of two consuls, to, as mentioned above, in 311 4.

c) In 338, in fact, Rome, having defeated the Latins, inextricably bound them to himself by introducing citizenship without sufffragio and doubling from one day to the other based on their enrollment.

d) Also in this long and intense period, the Romans adopt the scutum and the pilum, a partial replacement dell'hasta, but do not know how this happened.

e) The major change in the methods of fighting the Romans, not the adoption of the pilum, but rather that of scutum because its mobility (greater than dell'oplon) is preferred for those who wish to entrust the fate of a battle to fight with swords.

f) And this is the final focus of the whole process: the Romans decided to adopt the tactic to manipulate, because the most suited to close combat with the sword, bloodiest and, therefore, more decisive than the hoplite spear.

What are the advantages of tactics to manipulate? the first and most significant (and here we are tempted into a dangerous reasoning by analogy with the French revolutionaries battalions) which is advancing in small columns spaced allows you to side with more speed than a phalanx.

The small nuclei can support each other, they can move left and right to avoid natural obstacles, they can expand and shrink. The depth of the grid allows you to keep a tighter front and acquire reserves.

The concepts of "reserve" and gradual effort correct the other weaknesses of the phalanx and can be designed by the Romans because of their social segmentation (which eventually becomes generational segmentation), supported by the principle of citizenship: young people Hastati (which also tend to have an income less) before the fight Principes (older) and triarii (even older) because they have already fought in previous years.

In the years of the Republic, the introduction of the salary for the milites and "public horse", for riders, institutionalized collective responsibility in the defense of the state.

From the military point of view, the equilibrium between the lines is guaranteed by the compensation effect between youth and experience, where a less experienced, the greater the force.

In relation to the width of the front, it should be noted that the armies in this era, and generally in ancient warfare, they tended to side not only parallel, but also on the same extension: the attacks on the flanks were difficult to achieve (intentionally) to the objective difficulties in maneuvering troops.

More important is to devise programmatic use of reserves and the graduation of the effort on multiple lines, which, as we have seen, the Romans already could conceive and consider natural since the Servian reform.

The hoplite spears break against the rugged scutum, leaving the hoplite in serious trouble: his opponent has not only a shield most of his cabinet, but is trained to use it effectively in combination with the sword.

Necessary at this point to clear the field from the assumption of cause / effect made by some on the basis of which the Romans have borrowed scutum, pilum and tactics to manipulate by the Samnites.

This hypothesis is supported by '"Ineditum Vaticanum" a greek text of the fourth century, which states explicitly that the Romans had learned the use of the rectangular scutum and the pilum by the Samnites.

In fact, the text is not reliable: the Samnites used the scutum but also shields round either, and it seems that they used the pilum nor that manipulate the tactics to adopt, especially as the battles they fought against the Romans took place in locations all flat, perfect for hoplite battles.

More likely the Etruscan origin of the pilum. Some archaeological evidence of Etruscan stack, for example, or famous frescoes of the "Tomb Giglioli" in Tarquinia, suggest that these people knew the use of a weapon and heavy draft, at least to consider the inventors of the maniples , we can assume used these weapons in a formation substantially falangitica.

The first reference to a Roman pilum dates back to 295, during the Third Samnite War, when Livy (X, 39,12) reported the words of the consul Lucius Papirius recalling that "for picta atque aurata scuta transire Romanum pilum," or that the Roman pilum passes shields colored and gilded. In 279, during the Battle of Ascoli, Plutarch tells us that Pirro was wounded by a pilum, and if one swallow does not make a summer, maybe two, yes.

But even before these dates, we know that Camillus dictator in 367, ordered his men to use their "heavy javelins" like spears from impact to counter the attacks of the Gauls (Plutarco. Cam. 40.4). A statement that, apart from the reliability, it is puzzling, why use the pilum as if it were a spear Hoplite seems a step back to tactics that should have esserestate abandoned. Unless it is a concession in respect of little aduse troops in new tactics.

The introduction of new combat tactics, tactics before battle, would lead, at least theoretically, an adaptation of the materials. Some are obvious, others less so if you enter combat a greater emphasis in the use of the sword, it is obvious that new types will be found useful by the sword. But the "Swordsmen" they also need other types of shields, other types of armor, other types of helmets.

In practice, however, this is only partially true, because the adaptations of tactics can not always be followed by adjustments of materials: for conservatism, for ascertainable economic and productive for personal preferences.

Another question is what we might call the "good enough" if we say that a swordsman benefits from a Maggire visibility with respect to a hoplite, and then an open helmet, say something that seems logical. Yet there are hoplites with open helmets and helmets with swordsmen substantially closed.

What conclusions can we get there?

We can conclude that there is no necessary connection between the adoption of the scutum and the pilum and the transition to manipular tactics by the Romans. And we may add that it was their peculiar invention.

Most likely it was two concurrent transitions that took place over a period of decades and perhaps more than a century of trial, error, second thoughts, of which we can read the names of contradictory signals in Hastati and Principes, and the persistence of "Haste "in the hands of triarii.

The increase in the size of the army formed a pattern of acceleration of this process: having to train twice as many recruits from almost a year to the next, it was probably easier to teach them how to fight with swords in a formation other than hoplite.

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks for the link Andrew. I am pleased to see that it shows 'Dorian Hoplites duelling' ...with throwing spears.
Robert, what younsay about the aspis is true. It is well designed for othismos pushing. However, that does not mean that it has to be used in a phalanx armed with thrusting spears. Early Carthaginians may well have had aspis shields, but were probably using longche throwing sprars. Greeks with a pair of javelins are shown with an aspis as are Etruscans that I provided a link to earlier. The aspis is not a guide to the useage of Greek tactics!
Roy

We should perhaps remember that Psammetichus of Egypt secured the services of Carians and Ionians to help him gain the Double Crown (Herodotus II.152), and that subsequent pharaohs kept such troops on permanent establishment.  The reason seems to be their superior melee capability, even though this was still the two-spear era.  Would it be fair to call them hoplites?  Would there be a reason for not considering them to be hoplites?  At what point do 'Greek tactics' become non-Greek tactics?

To bring matters back into perspective, is the question we are trying to resolve 1) did Servius Tullius' army, and particularly the 1st class, use hoplite techniques or 2) did Etruscans generally use hoplite techniques for at least part of their history?  My impression was that we started off with 1) but it would be nice to be sure.