Weaponry on the Certosa Situla

[Duncan Head]

I am currently reading M C Bishop's Osprey Weapon series title The Pilum (2017). This is an excellent book; as I have said previously with regard to his Gladius and Spatha titles, it's a pleasure to read an acknowledged academic expert clearly setting out the current state of knowledge.

One thing puzzles me, though. Early in the book (p.9 and photo p.10), discussing the early history of the pilum and its ancestors, Dr Bishop cites the frieze of warriors on the Etruscan or Venetic Certosa Situla. Speaking specifically of the group of men with four-sided scuta, he says that they carry "pairs of spears, sometimes interpreted as pila".

Well, I can't see it. Previous interpretations of the Certosa situla (for example, the painting in Peter Connolly's Greece and Rome at War or the plate in Sekunda & Northwood's Osprey Early Roman Armies) interpret these men as carrying one spear each, and that's what it still looks like to me. The clearest photograph of this section of the frieze that I can find is the one found on this web-page (which is an online posting of an article Robert Heiligers published in Slingshot in 2010); if you double-click on the photo of the situla it zooms to a very detailed view. The weapons still look like one spear each, to me. The third figure of the four does seem to have a thicker spearshaft with a central groove that might be an indication that it's actually a pair of spears, but even he clearly has only one spearhead and one decorated butt. The others look even more clearly like a single spearshaft, though there is a crack along the length of each one.

What do you think? Am I missing anything obvious?

[Erpingham]

Struggling to see two spears there.  If you look at the men with the aspis following behind, they seem to be armed identically.  Several of them have the split running down the spear shaft with, again, a single broad spearhead.

[Jim Webster]

I confess I've always thought they had one spear, (So sure that it never even occurred to me they might have two.) and now the more closely I look at it, the more convinced I am that they have one spear.

Yes I can see the groove that makes it look like you have two shafts, briefly, but still only one spearhead and one butt.

So is it worth somebody trying to contact him to ask?

[Swampster]

http://dspace.unive.it/bitstream/handle/10579/8003/833720-1192476.pdf?sequence=2 has some illustrations from other friezes which do show two spears, such as this https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/media/pdf/books/978-88-6969-390-8/978-88-6969-390-8-ch-07.pdf
and
https://edizioniquasar.it/products/1737

These are shown in a paper on the Certosa Situla - some confusion perhaps?

Not that I would have called them even proto-pila.

EDIT: One of the examples is the Vace belt, so usually used for Illyrian rather than Italian evidence. Found in Slovenia though, so sort of the Veneti/Illyrian boundary and even slightly towards main Hallstatt culture.

[Duncan Head]

Yes, there are certainly plenty of situlae and other art from the region which do show two spears - I think we've touched on some of them in previous threads on early Italy.

I do note that http://dspace.unive.it/bitstream/handle/10579/8003/833720-1192476.pdf?sequence=2 explicitly says that the Certosa figures with four-sided shields carry "una lunga lancia", so another vote for the "traditional" viewing.

So is it worth somebody trying to contact him to ask?

Not sure I can be bothered, it's not that vital a question.

Thanks for all the responses so far.

[Imperial Dave]

The third figure is carrying 2 spears to me. They may not be the same kind of spear and it may be at odds with the rest of the figures but for me its clear he has 2

[Erpingham]

The third figure is carrying 2 spears to me. They may not be the same kind of spear and it may be at odds with the rest of the figures but for me its clear he has 2

Agree this is the most equivocal.  However, if he does have two, we have absolutely no detail of one of them, so it would take the eye of prior assumption to say it was a pilum.

[Imperial Dave]

definitely agree on the point that even assuming its 2 spears its impossible to say what type of spear it is

[aligern]

Do devotees of  Western Way of War have to sign on to two spears??  Or is the singular spear proof that the Etruscans came from the East?
Roy

[Jim Webster]

Do devotees of  Western Way of War have to sign on to two spears??  Or is the singular spear proof that the Etruscans came from the East?
Roy

What you have to remember is even the Western Way of War allows for spear armed troops. Triari for example. Also from some grave sets better armed and armoured warriors may not have bothered throwing stuff, but formed the solid core around which the more lightly armed troops moved.
Mind you given a date of 600 to 550BC it is from a period where there is debate as to whether the hoplite phalanx existed 

[Erpingham]

Mind you given a date of 600 to 550BC it is from a period where there is debate as to whether the hoplite phalanx existed 

Didn't hoplites of this period have two spears anyway?  The Etruscans may have been influenced also by the Gauls, who had a fashion for large headed spears at this time.  They fought the Gauls as much as the Italians and the Greek cities IIRC (though Etruscan chronology is not my strong point, so I could be wrong).

[Duncan Head]

Mind you given a date of 600 to 550BC it is from a period where there is debate as to whether the hoplite phalanx existed 

Didn't hoplites of this period have two spears anyway?

The Bologna museum site and the thesis Peter cited both date the situla to 500-475 (though I have seen earlier dates elsewhere), so contemporary with the Persian Wars and into the period when most hoplites are using a single spear.

The Etruscans may have been influenced also by the Gauls, who had a fashion for large headed spears at this time.  They fought the Gauls as much as the Italians and the Greek cities IIRC (though Etruscan chronology is not my strong point, so I could be wrong).

This is if the subject-matter of the illustration is Etruscan rather than Venetic, of course. If Venetic, they probably had contacts with Alpine Celts even before the Celts started to move into the Po plain.

[aligern]

Jim, the reductio ad absurdum if the Western Way was that that everyone in the  West used javelins unless they had spears abd  everybody in the  East used spears unless they had javelins. You were only mildly  put out because your Thracians should have migrated West rather than going to Bithynia. 😉
Roy

[Jim Webster]

Jim, the reductio ad absurdum if the Western Way was that that everyone in the  West used javelins unless they had spears abd  everybody in the  East used spears unless they had javelins. You were only mildly  put out because your Thracians should have migrated West rather than going to Bithynia. 😉
Roy

looks round nervously

"My Thracians?"

(What have the sneakly little beggars done now!)

[Erpingham]

Can i just say, for newer members, that the Western Mediterranean Way of War was a theory of the late Paul McDonnel-Staff.  In simple terms, everybody at the Western end of the Med fought with two throwing or dual purpose spears and carried a robust oval or rectangular shield.  People at the East end had a single thrusting spear and round shield.  Everything was disrupted by the intrusion by the introduction of the thureos but generally the pattern remained.  The split between the two "ways" ran down the Adriatic.  The subject was fiercely debated many years ago on Ancmed and a series of Slingshot articles were written about it (by Roy).  Paul himself never published the theory, AFAIK.

While it is interesting, therefore, to consider our current discussion in light of this, it isn't essential to know the details.  It is important to know that when Roy uses it to differentiate Eastern and Western influences, his tongue is in his cheek