spear or pilum?

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Paul,

I think that with the very long reply below I’ve exhausted my replies. It seems (as can be seen from the exchange below) that while we agree on many points about shifting meaning and generic use, we will continue to disagree about several other point, the main one I think being the translation of several words (xyston, kontos, others) with pilum, ‘because that spear was used by the legionary infantry’. I will challenge that view below, although I doubt it can be solved in this discussion.

Also, the inability for us modern folks to establish exactly what was meant by an ancient author, or to establish the exact technical details even for weapons of which we know the specific name and use, will in my opinion hamper this discussion too much to come to a generally accepted conclusion. There are too many variables.

But I’ll give it a go nonetheless. :wink:

dory =Great spear,long thrusting spear derived from 'plank'
kamax = long cavalry spear, derived from 'pole' or 'vine prop'
xyston = long cavalry spear, derived from 'pole' or 'spear shaft'
kontos = long cavalry spear, derived from 'punting pole' or 'barge pole'...but can also mean a boathook

....or for Roman missile weapons, we have, again not an exhaustive list:-

telum =missile weapons
pilum,spiculum=heavy throwing spear
jaculum, verutum=javelin
lancea= light/short dual purpose thrwing/thrusting spear
...not to mention martiobarbuli/plumbatum.

Thanks for that list!

Btw, it’s martiobarbulus/plumbatae (pl. martiobarbuli/plumbatae) :wink: :wink:

Now all of these are quite specific weapon types - but in some cases the name changes over time.
The difficulty occurs when Latin is translated into Greek and vice versa - there is no Latin equivalent of 'sarissa', because Romans didn't use it, nor a Greek equivalent of 'pilum' for the same reason, Greeks didn't use it.
Thus sarissa becomes a very long 'hasta'=spear-shaft/shafted weapon - but 'hasta' is not a direct translation of 'dory' (a specific weapon = long thrusting spear, whereas 'hasta' is generic)

We agree on the change of meaning!
But (while accepting that ‘hasta’ is a generic term), I still come across source after source where the ‘dory’ is used as a synonym for a ‘hasta’, or vice versa.
If ‘hasta’ is generic (‘hasta longa’ being a long spear and ‘hasta amentata’ being a shorter lancea), then it’s still surprising that ‘dory’ was used as a translation if a lancea was meant, or even a pilum!
But you yourself claim that the Greek ‘dory’ is a translation of the generic ‘hasta’, have you changed your mind? Yesterday you wrote:

......we have already seen that hasta can be a generic word for 'spears/shafted weapons' - and Herodian's 'dory' is just a greek translation of this.

And again:

and again, hasta/dory is just the generic term for 'shafted weapons'

Looks like a synonym to me! :wink:

So maybe Wheeler (2004) is correct in suggesting that many ancient authors, when writing about the ‘hasta’, had a longer spear in mind, rather than a shorter one.

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