Full blown combat or display only?

[Crispvs]

I think that there is a difference between what you can do with late Romans from what you can do with earlier periods in a display.

Althougfh missile weapons must still have been employed in large numbers by the late Romans, the fact that the spatha is a slashing weapon opens up the possibility of combat re-enactment, albeit without missiles.

This is not the case if you are armed with a shorter thrusting weapon such as a Mainz or Pompeii gladius. When I was a combat re-enactor myself, in a group which was an offshoot of Regia Anglorum, I learned the 'five attacks' and five corresponding defensive movements. Of these five attacks the head shot was banned. That said, the one attack we were not taught (with side arms at any rate) was the thrust, as a thrust with a sword is much harder to control (not to mention the pointed end of an otherwise blunt edged sword). As Giannis suggests above, if your weapons are designed for thrusting, mock combat is a much more dangerous proposition than it is when you weapons are designed for slashing. We certainly thrust with spears, but as these were used two handed a variable amont of pressure could be used when holding the shaft to ensure that there was no hard impact. With a single handed weapon you do not have this option.

Then there is the issue of missiles. If I was really to try to fight like a genuine first century soldier I should really preceed any swordplay with the throwing of pila. I pride myself on being able to control the movement of a weapon which I am still holding but I cannot do this the something I have thrown. Safety has to be paramount. If we were to depict the professional Roman army it would look ridiculous if all of our pila were to land short. It would be similarly unlikely that trained and professional soldiers would throw their missiles in a way which would ensure that they passed over the heads of the enemy and landed harmlessly behind them. The remaining option: that of throwing them at an opposition, would be likely to result in the weapons doing exactly what they are designed to do, leading to serious injuries and worse. We cannot take that risk.

Therefore, while the spatha gives the late Romans some latitude in the area of combat re-enactment, the gladius and pilum do not allow the same freedom, which means that the first century AD Romn re-enactor must stick to field formations and drill.

Crispvs