Roman Pilum Throwing - Javelin & Shield Roman Army Style

[RichT]

I do worry, Richard, that you have decided that pika  are not bendy and are fitting the evidence around tgat belief...

Pika are bendy, yes, but sooo cute:




But now, back to pila. To be fair to me, as I try to be, I did say above that Caesar BG 1.25.4 taken in itself might be thought good enough evidence that pila were bendy. Also, until three days ago it was my firm belief that pila were bendy, as that's what I've always heard. It's just that since looking into it in the course of this thread, prompted by watching that video (thanks Dave) I don't think the evidence for bendiness is very strong.

I don't know what weapons Arrian is referring to - if he meant pila it would have helped us all so much if he had said so. I don't see how his formation works with the pila/spears/whatever he describes being thrown. and above all, I don't see the benefit of the pila/spears bending when they hit the enemy - what's the point? Is it a feature or a bug? As I said at the outset, I'm happy to be persuaded. (Have at it).

[Imperial Dave]

what have I started.....!

great debate though and like Rich I assumed the 'status quo' on pila bendiness until i watched the video. Its not by any means a slam dunk but it is a physical manifestation of the tools of the trade so to speak. Ancient written sources, like modern ones, are subject to a whole set of paradigms and influences not least of which is the writer himself. What modern reconstructive 'archaeology' can do is flesh the bones out of accounts and give us a mechanism for saying whether something is, on balance, likely or not 

[Erpingham]

So, what have we learned?  The bendy Roman pilum may have been overstated in modern writing.  While some pila seem to have bent, and some may have bent by cunning application of metallurgy, the real concensus is that the pilum is a good weapon against shields and armour because it penetrates and can't be easily removed.  You could, I'm sure, draw a developmental line from the strong pilum of Polybius to an observation that some pila recovered after battles had bent, to Marius trying to make that more certain with the wooden peg trick, to legionary armourers developing a weapon with a hard point and a slightly softer shank.  Or maybe the shank is just regular unhardened iron to which no fancy hardening process has been applied.

Richard's point at the beginning - that these weapons must have been reusable rather than disposable - sort of points me to the latter idea.  This would seem to fit with the one bit of metallurgy we have had reported.

[Imperial Dave]

agreed.....that point (ahem) alone regarding re-use pushes me more in the camp of non intentionally bendy pila (at least during part of their development and use)

[aligern]

Tempering is not a fancy process, it is the standard means of producing a hardened edge to a weapon. It would  be interesting to see if there is any evidence that hardening several inches of the pilum head creates a point where the hard metal meets the soft that liable  to bend?
As to re-use, it cuts both ways. You would wish to pick up pila  after the battle and recycle them, but during the fight it would  not  suit you to be receiving them back from enemy hands, so if they threw and bent it would be beneficial.

The history of the pilum commences with weapon that  has a much shorter metal section and progressed from there to having a longer iron and adding weight just in front of the hand grip.  The longer iron might be copying the function of a soliferreum , enhancing the penetrative power by increasing the pressure on the point as it struck. The bending of the iron  shaft or the  Marian idea of unequal pinning could well be ways to enhance another function from early times as a weapon that disabled the shield and rendered the enemy an easy victim. Proving that pila had one function does  not disprove the other.
Richard, you are missing Arrian's point. The front ranks stand solid to halt the advancing  cavalry. When these either halt  or attempt to push into the formation the back ranks have at them with pila, thrust or throw. If the pila hit and penetrate the armour, having them bend and hang in there rather than drop out inconveniences the rider or horse.
I really don't think that you can  make a conclusive case against the pilum as a weapon that disables itself whilst incommoding  its target, whether by bending or a pin breaking.
Roy

[Imperial Dave]

please excuse my ignorance on the 'development' timeline of the pila so treat my proposal with caution...! 

weapon and armour development is very much trial and error plus a healthy dose of 'arms race' elements so......

- early pila developed used as a heavy throwing weapon/thrusting weapon
- later development could include lengthening of pila iron shank when in turn could highlight some issues with bendiness when hitting targets
- observation that this disables or has positive impact on shields/armour of enemy
- however this is not efficient (for want of a better word) as it means recovery on the battlefield afterwards is time consuming and includes a lot of rework
- Roman engineering adapts to utilise this unforeseen benefit of the weapon in disabling enemy but cleverly introducing shear pins that allow both the benefit and retrieval/reuse of the weapon post battle.

again if I have the development aspects incorrect please correct me

[Erpingham]

As to re-use, it cuts both ways. You would wish to pick up pila  after the battle and recycle them, but during the fight it would  not  suit you to be receiving them back from enemy hands, so if they threw and bent it would be beneficial.

But this is, according the source survey above, only recorded of the grosphos, not the pilum.  It may not be significant, and it would certainly follow from Marius' experiments, but I think we are in the throws (that one is for Dave ) of  popular narrative which possibly stretches the evidence (bit of a Richard speciality).

[Imperial Dave]

returning fire is always a possibility on the battlefield although I am unsure as to the 'volume' achieved during melee. After all throwing pila (or any hand hurled weapon) is best done before impact/close melee so are we discussing stand off and/or charging throws or continual throws after full melee/contact is commenced? Just a question to add context to the discussion...thoughts welcome

[aligern]

https://opus.uleth.ca/bitstream/handle/10133/3499/Doberstein_William_MA_2014.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Interesting, but does not take the debate on the origins of the pilum far enough down into the specialised tactics that such a very specific item of equipment must involve.
Roy

[Erpingham]

returning fire is always a possibility on the battlefield although I am unsure as to the 'volume' achieved during melee. After all throwing pila (or any hand hurled weapon) is best done before impact/close melee so are we discussing stand off and/or charging throws or continual throws after full melee/contact is commenced? Just a question to add context to the discussion...thoughts welcome

Depends whether we are talking about pilum skirmishing or not   It is a reason why we might expect this to be recorded of the weapon of the skirmishers, though.

I don't know if this paper on the hasta velitaris is any help to us?

[RichT]

Richard, you are missing Arrian's point. The front ranks stand solid to halt the advancing  cavalry. When these either halt  or attempt to push into the formation the back ranks have at them with pila, thrust or throw. If the pila hit and penetrate the armour, having them bend and hang in there rather than drop out inconveniences the rider or horse.

Not quite - "the first rank will stab at them and their horses with their spears without pause" where "stab at" translates 'akontizein', javelin-ing.

Why is the rider or the horse more inconveienced by a bent pilum sticking into them than by a straight pilum sticking into them? I'd have thought both would have been pretty inconvenient. Why would the pilum bending make it less likely to drop out? And if a pilum thrown into an archery boss or the ground doesn't bend (usually), why would it when thrown into a man or a horse? I don't understand the physics of it.

I really don't think that you can  make a conclusive case against the pilum as a weapon that disables itself whilst incommoding  its target, whether by bending or a pin breaking.

I wouldn't try to make a case against the pilum incommoding its target - it's clear that that is its function. I would suggest: best outcome for pilum - penetrate shield, armour and man, and wound or kill; second best case - penetrate shield and cause shield to become unusable. I don't see how the iron bending helps in either case.

As for making a case against the pilum disabling itself - I don't want to, I'm just asking for some evidence that this was the intention (through having bendy iron), and so far haven't found any.

Anyone got Bishop's Osprey The Pilum? Bits of it are on Google Books and he has a blog entry here: https://ospreypublishing.com/blog/the_pilum/
His 'treading flat' suggestion is interesting, and the more general point he makes is also a good one: "one of the characteristics of written sources: they tend to favour the unusual over the mundane." This applies to a lot of things - we are doing history by anecdote, taking specific statements about a particular battle or some event or factor that was important (perhaps only in one person's opinion, in one case), and exrapolating freely from it - perhaps too freely.

[Imperial Dave]

Agreed Richard. We are inclined to both write about and call out (and when reading) the unusual rather than the usual or mundane

[Andreas Johansson]

Why would the pilum bending make it less likely to drop out?

If the pilum remains straight, the weight of the haft would tend to make the point rotate upwards, from which position it should relatively easily drop out. If the pilum bends, the point would tend to remain roughly horizontal, and gravity pulls laterally rather than outwards.

[Erpingham]

Agreed Richard. We are inclined to both write about and call out (and when reading) the unusual rather than the usual or mundane

Part of the issue is the way Romans did military history.  In order to distinguish battles, they focussed on the stratagems of the commanders, assuming everyone knew (or perhaps didn't need to know) what the standard drill was. 

[Erpingham]

BTW, the Klejnowski paper I mentioned above may have another bendy javelin reference

Lucan Pharsalia 7. 140

This revolves around how one translates "tunc omnis lancea saxo erigitur".  Klejnowski sees this as a reference to straightening with stones whereas the Loeb thinks it refers to sharpening on a stone.  Over to the latin speakers .....