01-22-2008, 07:29 AM
David/M.Demetrius wrote:-
The heavy throwing spear called soliferrum is a different weapon again, being a slender, all-iron affair and appearing at around the same time or actually a little later in fourth century Spain. By the late third century, the expensive all-iron soliferra are less often seen, and are supplemented by pila copies, called falarica, though the all-iron soliferra lingers on - the Macedonian king Perseus is wounded by one, possibly wielded by a spanish auxiliary, (168 BC) and an officer of Sextus Pompeius is hit by one in a naval battle in the Civil Wars.
The intention ( heavy penetrating throwing weapon) was the same but Italians and Iberians came up with different solutions and the two weapons are clearly not related.......
Quote:What I meant was that the same general sort of javelin existed in other places, and some say the solifera was the daddy of them all. I don't think I could make that claim, nor would I try, but the records over in Iberia aren't all as complete as Tacitus. We don't know for sure if the idea wasn't taken back to Rome by some traveller or explorer, and the Roman smiths used that plan, but substituted a wood shaft for the first 4 feet or so.The pilum first appears in northern Italy at the beginning of the fourth century BC, and the earliest examples are painted in Etruscan tombs, together with archaeological examples - it is clearly a native Italian invention.
The heavy throwing spear called soliferrum is a different weapon again, being a slender, all-iron affair and appearing at around the same time or actually a little later in fourth century Spain. By the late third century, the expensive all-iron soliferra are less often seen, and are supplemented by pila copies, called falarica, though the all-iron soliferra lingers on - the Macedonian king Perseus is wounded by one, possibly wielded by a spanish auxiliary, (168 BC) and an officer of Sextus Pompeius is hit by one in a naval battle in the Civil Wars.
The intention ( heavy penetrating throwing weapon) was the same but Italians and Iberians came up with different solutions and the two weapons are clearly not related.......
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
