Roman Pilla

[Crispvs]

I am afraid I am about to make most of the above posts redundant. Sorry chaps but it has to be done.
There are several suggestions above about tests being done to test the theories about pila. Well, to remove the apparent veil of secrecy which seems to have prevented this information leaving the British Isles - Tests have been done!!!!
Specifically, for several years Peter Connolley has been testing reconstructed pila and has demonstrated fairly conclusively that they were, in all probability, NEVER designed to bend or break. He points out that the idea of the bendy pilum appears nowhere in ancient literature and is simply an extrapolation of Plutarch's statement that Marius, seeing that the pila were being thrown back, replaced one of the rivets with a baked wooden dowel which would snap on impact, making the pilum head swing sideways so it could not be returned. Unfortunately, Plutarch's statement, written around two hundred years after Marius's death, is not bourne out by archaeology, as finds from Numantia and Alesia, have two iron rivets and as far as I am aware, none exhibit the empty rivet hole which would be required to support Plutarch's claim. Furthermore, many of them have flanges worked out from the sides of the tang, which seem to have been specifically designed to prevent any sideways movement. Furthermore, the Augustan period pila from Oberaden were secured to their shafts by three rivets, again demonstrating a desire to prevent lateral movement.
As for the idea of the pilum bending to prevent it being thrown back, in addition to pointing out that the bendy pilum is not actually mentioned by Plutarch, Connolley has spent a lot of time getting people to throw reconstructed pila (correctly forced from iron rather than being milled from steel as most modern reconstructions are) at pieces of wood and metal. He has discovered that if the shank of the pilum is soft enough to bend even slightly, it will not penetrate the target properly, the force of impact having been largely spent on the act of bending the iron. If a pilum is to penetrate to any effective depth the shank must be rigid so that the full weight of the weapon, including that of the shaft and shank is directly behind the head, forcing it forward. Any bending of the shank dissipates this force. Caesar makes it clear when describing an attack by the Nervii that pila were capable of penetrating at least two shields at once, pinning them together and forcing the Celts to throw them away.
As to Plutarch's statement about replacing one of the rivets with a dowel, Connelley believes that Plutarch has confused his information. What he suggests may actually have happened is that Marius may have equipped many of his soldiers with a type of javelin which was common in Northern Italy where he was training his army. This type of javelin has a rod-like tang which is pierced by a single rivet. Plutarch, perhaps being familiar with a pilum which had two rivets, may have heard of Marius using a pilum-like javelin with only a single iron rivet, and postulated a reason why one of the two rivets he was used to might be missing. Obviusly this last part cannot be proved, but Connolly has shown that Plutarch may have been mistaken and his tests certainly meen that any ideas of pila designed to bend or break should be laid to rest and forgotten. As Connolley points out, the long iron shank is designed to allow the head to penetrate further, not bend so that it hardly penetrates at all.

If anyone wishes for a more in depth view of all this, send me a PM with your postal address.

Crispvs