Roman Pilla

[Matthew Amt]

As I understand it, metallurgical analyses of pilum heads have not shown that the points were specially hardened. They were possibly a little harder than the rest of the iron shank simply because of the hammering, if there was no final annealing. The shank should not really be thought of as "soft"--try biting one--just "unhardened".

I tend to refer to the iron part as the point (the pyramidal business end), the shank (long skinny part), and the tang (where metal is wider and rivets to the wood), all three being one piece of iron. On the sockted types, there is a socket rather than a tang.

I think the reference to the rivet being replaced by a wood peg under Marius suggested that the iron shanks were simply too thick to bend regularly. Surviving ones from that era do seem to be beefier, not really meant to bend at all. However, most of the tanged types have extra-wide tangs that actually project beyond the wood block and for flanges to hold everything together securely. So even with one rivet, nothing is going to flop or swing! But clearly they did not generally want anything to really break.

Anyone wanting to use a Roman pilum against the guys who threw it would have to drop his own weapon to do it. If you are reduced to using the wrong end of someone else's broken weapon, that's not a "battle", that's a "massacre". I suggest running. Fast. I'll be right behind you--muahahahahaaaa!

Valete,

Matthew