lancea

[Quintus Aurelius Lepidus]

i have some questions about this weapon. i always associated this weapon with the lanciarii but it appears this was used earlier.

1) When did this get into the roman arsenal?

first mention I have found (although I would like to point out I'm not an archeologist, just an interested amateur) is from the ala sebosiana in britain in the late first century AD. author ross cowan mentions that legio II Parthica first used the lancea during the parthian war of 215-218 ad adrian goldsworthy mentions that "in an account written by arrian, he had an encounter with the Alans (during hadrian's reign, i did not had the chance to date this). In order to resist, arrian's legionaries (elements of XII Fulminata & XV Apollinaris) deployed in 8 ranks, backed by a ninth of archers and a tenth of horse archers. the first 4 were armed with pila, ranks 5-8 have the lighter lancea. "

2) did Arrian "borrow" this weapon from the cavalry or was this the first recorded use of what we would later call lanciarii?

depending on what your answers will be, i will have many more questions

[Virtus Probi Invicti]

Arrian's text was in Greek, so one has to be very careful of how the terms used are translated into Latin.
I'd have to look at the text tonight to know about the rear ranks, but I do know that the weapon used by the front ranks was "kontos" in Greek, which I find very hard to reconcile with a pilum.
I will dig out the book this evening in case I can be of any real help with your question!

[mcbishop]

i have some questions about this weapon. i always associated this weapon with the lanciarii but it appears this was used earlier.

1) When did this get into the roman arsenal?

first mention I have found (although I would like to point out I'm not an archeologist, just an interested amateur) is from the ala sebosiana in britain in the late first century AD. author ross cowan mentions that legio II Parthica first used the lancea during the parthian war of 215-218 ad adrian goldsworthy mentions that "in an account written by arrian, he had an encounter with the Alans (during hadrian's reign, i did not had the chance to date this). In order to resist, arrian's legionaries (elements of XII Fulminata & XV Apollinaris) deployed in 8 ranks, backed by a ninth of archers and a tenth of horse archers. the first 4 were armed with pila, ranks 5-8 have the lighter lancea. "

2) did Arrian "borrow" this weapon from the cavalry or was this the first recorded use of what we would later call lanciarii?

depending on what your answers will be, i will have many more questions

Depending upon your questions, we may have more answers.

This is a terminology question to some extent and you have to be careful not to get confused between the lancea, a light javelin (he says, carefully avoiding the tautology of 'a throwing javelin'), and a lance, which is a two-handed weapon used by cavalry (for which see Coulston, J.C. 1986: 'Roman Parthian and Sassanid tactical developments', in P. Freeman and D.L. Kennedy (eds.), The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East, BAR International Series 297, Oxford, 59-75).

The lancea was principally (but not exclusively) found amongst the cavalry of the alae in the early empire, but by the beginning of the 3rd (and almost certainly earlier) it was used by some legionary infantry troops, the lanciarii (at least two are shown on tombstones of legio II Parthica from Apamea clutching bundles of them).

There are plenty of references to it before the late 1st century (not least the ill-fated lancea Lucullanea under Domitian) and it would not be an unreasonable guess to suppose that it came into the Roman army (under that name - javelins will always have been used by the Romans) with the cavalry of the Gallic/'Celtic' peoples (since it forms a focus of the cavalry evolutions described in the Hippika Gymnasia, where the bulk of the terminology used is Celtic). The ala Sebosiana reference is presumably the Carlisle writing tablet which lists missing javelins (not helped by the translator getting confused and thinking the subarmalis was a type of javelin for no good reason, contrary to Ockham's Razor).

So you see javelins and 'lanceae' can get mixed up and the vague way in which most ancient authors use terminology ensures it is quite difficult to get a sense of what was happening, but it boils down to this: all lanceae were javelins, but not all javelins were lanceae; and absolutely no lanceae were lances. Ever. Under any circumstances ;-)

Hope that helps.

Mike Bishop

[fasta]

Oh dear!My head is spinning already.
:lol:

[Virtus Probi Invicti]

Excellent post, Dr. Bishop.
I'm wondering if you have a take on what kind of weapon Arrian was intending for the front ranks of legionaries to use in his (theoretical) battle with the Alani. If I remember correctly, he does mention that these weapons should have soft metal heads so as to deform and stick in the Alani armor, which obviously brings the pilum to mind. But, I still wonder why he would use the term "kontos" (or something like it) to describe a pilum.

BTW, I have enjoyed your books and articles very much. Please keep them coming!!

[Quintus Aurelius Lepidus]

interesting post and a possibility i did not yet think about 8)

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Bill,

Excellent post, Dr. Bishop.
I'm wondering if you have a take on what kind of weapon Arrian was intending for the front ranks of legionaries to use in his (theoretical) battle with the Alani. If I remember correctly, he does mention that these weapons should have soft metal heads so as to deform and stick in the Alani armor, which obviously brings the pilum to mind. But, I still wonder why he would use the term "kontos" (or something like it) to describe a pilum.

I've attempted a take on that here on the forum, the article is also on my website. If you haven't read it, let me know what you think.

[mcbishop]

Hi Bill,

Excellent post, Dr. Bishop.
I'm wondering if you have a take on what kind of weapon Arrian was intending for the front ranks of legionaries to use in his (theoretical) battle with the Alani. If I remember correctly, he does mention that these weapons should have soft metal heads so as to deform and stick in the Alani armor, which obviously brings the pilum to mind. But, I still wonder why he would use the term "kontos" (or something like it) to describe a pilum.

I've attempted a take on that here on the forum, the article is also on my website. If you haven't read it, let me know what you think.

Well I certainly can't add anything to that.

BTW, I have enjoyed your books and articles very much. Please keep them coming!!

Just wait until you see the DVD of Bishop & Coulston sing the Robinson helmet typology...

Mike Bishop

[Tarbicus]

Just wait until you see the DVD of Bishop & Coulston sing the Robinson helmet typology...

To the tune of Smoke on the Water I'll bet.

[Paullus Scipio]

I might venture to offer an alternate and perhaps slightly simpler explanation than that of the erudite Dr Bishop......'pointy sticks' used single handed fall broadly into three categories....darts/javelins, which are throwing weapons generally about as thick as a thumb, and around 3-4 ft long.

At the other end of the spectrum are the heavy thrusting spears, with shafts up to 20-30 mm thick( 3/4-1 1/4 inch aprox) meant primarily for hand-to hand fighting, usually 7-9 ft long but up to 12 ft long, exemplified by the 'great spear'/Dory of the Greek Hoplite.

In between was a dual-purpose spear ( also often used as a hunting spear) about 5-6 ft long and 15-20mm or so thick, generally without a spear-butt, so that it could be thrown, and intended as a dual purpose weapon, with two being a common number carried - one to throw, and one to fight with. Being larger than a javelin, it had good penetrating power if lacking in range.

In Greek, it was called longche, and may have been first encountered by the Romans in the hands of Pyrrhus of Epirus' balkan troops. Later, it was used by Carthaginian/Spanish troops, as well as Celtic cavalry.In fact similar weapons were also used by Eastern/Persian cavalry too, as well as Thracians etc so it was quite a widespread weapon.
At all events, and however/when it arrived in the Roman Army, the greek longche soon became the Latin lancea to describe this dual-purpose throwing/hand-to-hand weapon....

[Virtus Probi Invicti]

Hi Bill,

I've attempted a take on that here on the forum, the article is also on my website. If you haven't read it, let me know what you think.

Wow! I'm going to have to read all that carefully at home later (the forum postings). Good stuff, and thank you for the links!!

Just wait until you see the DVD of Bishop & Coulston sing the Robinson helmet typology...

Mike Bishop

I can only hope that you're also both dancing AND wearing lorica segmentata and Imperial Italic D helmets with transverse crests!!
hock:

In Greek, it was called longche...

That appears to be the word that I couldn't quite transcribe in my Arrian text. My Greek skills are severely limited by the fact that I only know about half of the letters.
I did notice that the translator of my book, which also includes Arrian's "Ars Tactica" (sp?), mentioned that some of the Roman cavalry used "javelins" in the manner of the Parthian and Sarmatian cataphracti. You've really gotta watch these translators...the Greek word was something on the order of "kontos".