How many Pila did a Roman Soldier carry?

[Aetius]

IIRC the Roman pila would be bent in someone's shield if it worked correctly so it couldn't be thrown back.
Do you think the Romans would collect the enemies javelins and throw them back? In one ruleset I have the Romans have to move forward a bit to throw pila which keeps them from doing so when in melee!
John

[Erpingham]

On bendyness of pila, this topic contains a lot of evidence and discussion

http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=4298.0

Whether Romans ran forward to throw pila or stopped to throw then charged is, of course, one of our "known unknowns" about Roman battle. 

[Cantabrigian]

Whether Romans ran forward to throw pila or stopped to throw then charged is, of course, one of our "known unknowns" about Roman battle. 

As a very wise contributor to the forum once said, the Roman Army wasn't a one trick pony.

So it's easy to imagine against a phalanx that they would run forward, throw the pila, then draw swords and try and exploit any gaps.

But you can also imagine the front ranks forming something like a shield wall when facing a barbarian charge, and then the rear ranks lobbing all the pilas over their heads into the seething mass of barbarians.

Whether either of those imaginings is at all realistic, I'll leave to others to judge...

[Aetius]

On bendyness of pila, this topic contains a lot of evidence and discussion

http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=4298.0

Whether Romans ran forward to throw pila or stopped to throw then charged is, of course, one of our "known unknowns" about Roman battle. 

Wow so the pila might not have been bendy, that would have come in handy against cavalry armies especially. Against infantry armies I would like the bendy pila to take out their shields so the follow up with sword and scutum would have been more deadly. Perhaps they carried one of each into battle depending on the enemy or two of one type or the other. Who knows..

[Nick Harbud]

Perhaps they carried one of each into battle depending on the enemy or two of one type or the other. Who knows..

It's a good job the later legionaries were equipped with golf bags to carry all this gear..."Ah, Grumio.  The barbarians appear to be coming at us with their foot.  Hand me my number 5 pilum."

Can you imagine the ribald comments when the inexperienced legionary selects the wrong one to fight the particular enemy bearing down upon the cohort?

[DBS]

As a very wise contributor to the forum once said, the Roman Army wasn't a one trick pony.

This was rather the point I was trying to make.

Take Arrian's Ektaxis.  If it is not simply a literary fiction to allow him to show off his mimicry of Xenophon, and if we accept that his legionaries with kontoi are in fact armed with pila, then even then only half his legionaries have pila, and only one eighth of them actually get to throw them (his fourth rank) as the front three ranks are using them as pointy sticks to hold off the Alans' charge.  The other half (ranks five to eight) are throwing javelins over their heads from further up the hill.  Of course, if one takes the alternative view that the kontoi are in fact hasta, then NONE of his legionaries have pila...

Now, yes, this is a special case, and literary conceits aside, dear Arrian obviously thinks that his military genius can be demonstrated by showing how he adapts and adopts his available forces to beat this rather unusual variant of hairy barbarian.  But, it is certainly evidence that the Romans are indeed not a one trick pony, and also that legions have several thousand javelins on hand with which to equip 50% of the legionaries before setting off to thrash the dastardly foe, as they will not have been magicked up overnight.

[Mark G]

We are getting to it now I think.

So back to the big question.
What have rules for this thing?

Do you want pila rules in your rules because you are convinced it was a super weapon advantage no one else ever had or copied until gunpowder weapons made the choice redundant.

Or because there is some evidence it existed so it must be worth adding rules for?

Or because you are convinced one of the many possible ways or warfare it could fit into is correct, worth modelling rules for, and unique to romans (for a period in time never to be repeated)

[Aetius]

I think pila should come under the heading of javelins of which their enemies also had. I think the pila was bendy which made it a little better weapon but it was not a superweapon. I have yet to read that a serious foe was beaten strictly by the pila. On one site I was looking at the Romans were supposed to carry two pila, one light for throwing distances and the other heavy for penetrating armour, shields etc. as the opponent got closer. In the ruleset I am using now they are considered javelins but with their own hit/damage factor. First you need a hit and then you roll for damage and if this fails then nothing happens. With a successful damage roll you wound your opponent. Depending on the position of the units you can roll two or four dice. This is how my ruleset for Onus! deals with it. You can download the Onus! rules at DracoIdeas.com if you are interested...

[Mark G]

Look, the bendy thing has been as comprehensively disproven as anything 2000 years old ever will be.

The narrow shaft was to penetrate the shield, not to bend on impact.  Nothing to do with anything else, just penetration of shields immediately before the swordsman got in close.

Further, once you understand that, most of the common models of how it was used fall apart. Especially the ones assuming unaimed middle rank legionaries engaging in overhead volley throwing while keeping formation.

If you are keen on writing rules, you absolutely must start to explain why you want special rules for romans with pila, and how you believe they worked.

Because rolling more dice is fun, is a valid reason so long as you state it up front. 

[Aetius]

I want rules for those with javelins including the pila. If it wasn't bendy I suppose its modifiers would be different, that's all...

[Aetius]

It seems some modern historians don't think the pila was bendy. Perhaps this was a incidental thing but wrought iron is much more bendy then modern steel. I think it did bend either when hitting the shield or when you attempted to pull it out. It is not a superweapon though and would come under the heading of a heavy javelin for the bigger pila. Perhaps the lighter pila wasn't as bendy...

[Mark G]

Well if you want to count all javelins , you probably should look into the research on how effective they were.

Basically, shields and helmets work, and you have to get a pretty lucky shot to inflict any sort of wound.

Made much less likely if you cannot actually see the target or are throwing overhead and letting all the arm power fall off to rely on gravity alone.

You might also want to take a broom, stand with your back to the wall, step forward the 3 feet believed to be Roman fighting distance, and then see how well you can throw with someone behind you.


I'll keep asking this because all I am seeing here is unconsciously repeating discredited ideas from the Victorian era about Roman fighting.

If you can't say why you think pila should be treated in your rules, you probably are not aware how wrong your assumptions are.

If you can give a clear reason then we can look at whether there may be ways to tweak that interpretation a little to get a simpler result for the same idea.

And the bendy thing is just so much irrelevant horseshit.  The point was penetration where other javelins bounced off.

[Erpingham]

Here's a well-known Vendel image perhaps showing warriors who have exchanged angones. One has the weapon through the shield and bent but the bending may just be compositional.



Look carefully at the front of the helmet to the right.  Another warrior has taken a spear through the shield, not bent.  They all appear to continue in action without dropping shields but again this could just be composition.

[Erpingham]

It's fun to come back to a discussion still in full flow.  Just a few parameters that have occurred to me.

We already had this but the Romans didn't use the pilum in the same way in every battle.  For a start, we are talking a long period and the Roman army went through reorganisations during it.  Second, opponents differed. Pilum design varied.  Number of pila might have changed.

We cannot be certain all the terms for pilum, javelin and spear were the same thing.  Was Arrian's kontos a pilum?  Were the rear ranks throwing a different weapon or has A distinguished two uses by using different terms?  And no, I don't know the answer.

Why would legionaries use pila in a "pilum skirmish"?  It isn't a good ranged weapon.  It's long and heavy.  Why not give the lads the hasta velitaris, which is much more use for distance throwing and it less cumbersome - you can carry several.  You can use an amentum with it to boost the range.  And it has this cunning feature of a long iron head which bends on impact (allegedly).  Of course, for much of the period that has interested us, legions contained integral light infantry with these javelins, so it's not clear why extended pilum skirmishing would make sense.  An exchange of missiles before close combat seems to fit many circumstances better, with this truncated to "chuck and charge" occassionally or even just "chuck away and charge".

Now, unless I was playing a skirmish, I wouldn't count missiles.  I'd abstract.  Hence a first volley/first onset rule and then have done.  Roman skill at sword and shield fighting, compared with their opponents, may be a better focus for skill uplifts in the stats. 

[Mark G]

Useful images .

Proving some points - bent or not bent makes no difference, if it's stuck through your shield, you have a serious problem.  If it bounced off, who cares.

I keep coming back to the real point though- you have to explain how you think these guys fought, what combat model you favour.

Because until the starting point is clear, no one can be sure what you're talking about.

If you think they throw things at 100m or so, then bent points might matter as you're likely assuming some prolonged missile exchange.
If you think it's a flat throw at 25m as your swordsman charges in, it's a totally different conversation.

If you think the whole formation gave volley ala Rome total war, ammunition is important.  If you think really only the front rank issued as they came in, then you have all those spare ammunition carriers behind to make it a null point.

If you think combat is continuous like the films of the 60s, totally different responses to the dynamic flow of combat model many of use are more convinced by.

And if you think throwing things is about killing, you'll get a completely different response than if you think this was about Disordering, Discomforting or Disrupting (with some tech having more effect than others)

It's not a given than pila should give an extra chance to kill.  Many perfectly good rules don't even bother with them.  It's equally good to subsume pila into an overall combat effectiveness, or reverse the rule entirely and make those contacting pila armed romans test to not lose a factor on the first round, or to not become disordered.(depending on that tech gradation effect)

There all valid interpretations - as is simply saying you like the chrome and the extra dice rolling.

What is less valid, is assuming something you cannot describe is true and needs no explanation.

And as is just giving a bonus to romans because they have more written evidence. 

Don't forget - sources are clear Gauls were preceded by a shower of javelins, but no one is going to be happy playing rules that allow Gauls a missile advantage over Macedonians and hoplites. Not without a detailed rule evidence footnote, anyway