How did Ancient lancers use their lances?

[Imperial Dave]

couching could be a mechanism for carrying the lance in a battle ready stance during the last few moments before contact in a charge and not necessarily delivered that way? (I am speaking about classical cavalry here following the Alex threads)

[Erpingham]

If we consider a spear to be a shafted cavalry weapon wielded overarm, the xyston would huddle up next to the lance.

Not sure that would work - cavalry could use spears underarm.  I would suggest we maintain the distinction about impact and a weapon that relies more heavily on human muscle-power.

couching could be a mechanism for carrying the lance in a battle ready stance during the last few moments before contact in a charge and not necessarily delivered that way?

Except couching has a technical meaning.  It isn't just an underarm carry, its a bracing and aiming mechanism to focus as much of the combined impetus of horse and rider at a target point as possible.

[Imperial Dave]

although couched as a general term means 'horizontal'

theoretically then a spear held horizontally either under the armpit or with a straightened arm could be classed as couched?

[Erpingham]

although couched as a general term means 'horizontal'

theoretically then a spear held horizontally either under the armpit or with a straightened arm could be classed as couched?

True, but I'm not sure departing from the usual usage helps us clarify our definitions.

[RichT]

Alex is using the impetus provided by his horse, which brings us to our next discussion point.

Is he? Says who? I would want to see either/and/or:
- some (literary or artistic or archaeological, at any rate ancient) evidence that impetus is provided by the horse
- some word from a reenactor that it is possible to hold a spear at arms length in one hand at its point of balance, poke it into (and through) a body with the impetus of the horse, and not lose spear and probably arm in the process. Alvarez describes the force, actions (and pain) involved in doing this with a couched lance - on the face of it it would be vastly harder with a hand held spear. Markle has written about this - IIRC he advocates the 'windmill', but in that case there really isn't much horse impetus being transmitted.

This isn't to say that the horse's forward momentum wouldn't provide some increase in force, but it most certainly can't be as simple as "Alex is using the impetus provided by his horse". For the purpose of this discussion we seem broadly in agreement that the way horse/rider momentum is factored into an impact weapon is by couching. A hand held spear doesn't have the same effect (which is why couching was adopted). I don't suppose there's a hard line between the two - as with all things, there is some overlap, and a charging rider with a hand held spear would thrust harder than a stationary one - but (we seem agreed) impact/couched/lance is still a different thing from thrusting/handheld/spear.

'Into' as a translation makes no sense whatsoever in the context, otherwise I would have left well alone.  I think what Plutarch intended to convey, or at least express, is that the horse provides the force which gives the kontos its impact and penetration.

Then you are up to your old tricks again. You have a theory of kontos use (the horse provides the force). You find a passage in Plutarch that doesn't quite support your theory. So you silently change the translation to make it fit better and say that this is what Plutarch 'intended to convey'.

See, this is more like it, no agreement here.

I don't see any benefit either in overarm or horizontal as definitions of spear-ness, I think couched/impact v. handheld/thrusting does a better job. But with definitions of words like this, there are lots of ways to cut it, and no right or wrong.

For what it's worth, Arrian at least uses xyston and doru (spear) interchangeably for Macedonian cavalry (eg Arrian 1.15.5f., Granicus - the Macedonians "were fighting with cornel wood lances (xyston) against short javelins (palta). At this point in the melee Alexander's lance (doru) was broken in the battle... Aretas had also snapped his lance (doru) .. Demaratus of Corinth gave him his own lance (doru). Alexander grasped it and seeing Mithridates riding far ahead of the line ... charged out alone in advance of his own men and thrust his lance (doru) into Mithridates' face and hurled him to the ground. Then Rhoesaces rode at Alexander, and struck him on the head with his scimitar .. Alexander hurled him to to the ground, piercing with his lance (xyston) through the cuirass into his chest... The Persians were now being roughly handled from all quarters; they and their horses were struck in the face with lances (xyston); they were being pushed back (exotheo) by the cavalry".... oh wait, I'd better stop there...   Brunt translates as 'lance' throughout (presumably in the sense that a spear wielded by cavalry is a lance, which is fair enough).

[Imperial Dave]

transmission of 'power' through the spear is a good point to make Rich. Power/force is a function of speed and strength. A spear's power relies on both of these plus the resistance to backward motion. Therefore anything that braces a spear during the impact will aid the transmission of the force

[RichT]

Indeed. I don't have my notes on Markle to hand but here is Peter Connolly ('Experiments with the sarissa - the Macedonian pike and cavalry lance - a functional view', Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 11, 2000. (Note he calls the Macedonian cavalry spear a sarissa, and is arguing chiefly (and rather testily) about its length, but he did some practical experiments too:

"After many costly and fruitless experiments an example ten Athenian cubits (4.87m) long was constructed with a tapered cherry wood haft.... The cherry wood haft was fitted with Andronicos' large spearhead as a butt and the 0.235kg spearhead from Vergina as a point. The reconstruction has an overall weight of 3.610kg with a point of balance 1.47m from the butt ie 30% of the length.

"The reconstructed cavalry sarissa was tried out by John Duckham on two occasions in the summer of 2000. Duckham is a very accomplished horseman involved in historical re-enactment for English Heritage. Riding without a saddle he found it handled reasonably well when used under-arm but was more dificult to use over-arm because of its weight (this is a common experience for re-enactors trying out unfamiliar weapons). The lance shook violently at the trot but the amount of whip decreased when the horse broke into a canter.

"... The anticpated problems were:

"That the shaking of the spear would make it difficult to hit the dummy. In practice it proved easier to hit the target under-arm than over-arm.... Duckham was convinced that, given practice, he could achieve 100% success with either grip.

"That it would prove impossible to retrieve the spear by pulling it out as one rode past... In practice this proved to be no problem when using the lance over-arm... However, using the spear under-arm with the 'thumb-forward' grip proved more difficult as one had to change grip to retrieve the lance... Duckham found that if he allowed the lance to describe a horizontal rather than a perpendicular arc, with the butt passing round behind his back, retrieval could be achieved without changing grip. He did this successfully several times.

"... With regard to using the cavalry sarissa with both hands or couched: we concluded that, in the absence of a horned or high-backed saddle, the spear could not be used effectively either two handed or couched as the force of the impact would push the rider off the back of the horse."

My comments: this last observation goes against what Alvarez found, so treat with caution accordingly, but at any rate the experiment was with a form of blow (uncouched, one handed) in which there was not much force transmitted from the forward momentum of horse and rider - instead the spear was horizontally windmilled (swung round behind the rider) to retrieve it. How possible this would be in close formation is in some doubt, but the alternative is either a lost spear, or an unhorsed rider. This assumes that the rider ever did 'ride past' his target, which I doubt - that would seem to apply if spearing scattered infantry, or if jousting, but in the Granicus fighting Arrian described above (for example), I don't see any suggestion of riding past - rather, it is stop and thrust. But this gets us dangerously close to 'knife through butter' territory, so I'll leave it at that.

[Duncan Head]

I see you (Patrick) change Perrin's "the spear which the Parthians thrust into the horses" into "the spear which the Parthians thrust from the horses" - fair enough for sense perhaps, though the Greek is εἰς, into. But it's all a small matter.

'Into' as a translation makes no sense whatsoever in the context, otherwise I would have left well alone.  I think what Plutarch intended to convey, or at least express, is that the horse provides the force which gives the kontos its impact and penetration. 

It may equally be that it's "horses" that is the problem here. In 25.9 we specifically see the kontoi being used against horses, those of the Gallic cavalry. The problem is that by 27.2 the Parthians are attacking the legionaries, the Gauls having been beaten, so there shouldn't be any horses to thrust at. Perhaps it's the horses that have crept in erroneously being influenced by the previous passage, and originally the kontoi should have been thrust into bodies, or something?

[Patrick Waterson]

It may equally be that it's "horses" that is the problem here. In 25.9 we specifically see the kontoi being used against horses, those of the Gallic cavalry. The problem is that by 27.2 the Parthians are attacking the legionaries, the Gauls having been beaten, so there shouldn't be any horses to thrust at. Perhaps it's the horses that have crept in erroneously being influenced by the previous passage, and originally the kontoi should have been thrust into bodies, or something?

That would make good sense; either 'into' or 'horses' has to be wrong, and 'horses' could indeed be the problem.  If we take them out of the equation, we are still left with a weapon which has sufficient impact to penetrate two Roman infantry at a time, which brings us back to the original point of the kontos being an impact weapon used with a charge as opposed to a thrusting weapon employed from a standing start.

Very good suggestion, Duncan.

[Patrick Waterson]

Alex is using the impetus provided by his horse, which brings us to our next discussion point.

Is he? Says who? I would want to see either/and/or:
- some (literary or artistic or archaeological, at any rate ancient) evidence that impetus is provided by the horse

What else could provide it?

[Andreas Johansson]

What else could provide it?

Alex's arm.

And if you're going to say that he won't have been strong enough, I reply that history is full of stories about people being penetrated by spears and cut in two by swords that, regardless of what really happened, I see absolutely no problem in assuming it was reported he did it.

[Patrick Waterson]

And would the horse have been standing still, or is the idea that the movement of the horse plus the movement of the arm provided impact?  (I see no significant objection to the latter.)

[Andreas Johansson]

The horse is rearing, so presumably not stationary, but neither moving forward at any considerable speed.

[Duncan Head]

The horse is rearing, so presumably not stationary, but neither moving forward at any considerable speed.

Yes, but we're not seeing the moment of impact, since the lance has already gone in and through the poor Persian chap. So the horse would have been moving, and reined up on impact.

[Erpingham]

Though possibly the first impact thrust killed the horse (somebody must have) and the Persian is actual a second blow from a now rearing horse?  Certainly momentum has been lost by this point.