Bows in Roman army

[eugene]

Why did Roman light-armed forces used mostlu javelins and slings, but not bows?

[Crispvs]

Javelins and slings were the normal projectile weapons used in the West and Middle East and had been in use for a very long time. In fact both almost certainly have a much longer history than bows, given that throwing things is a more basic and primitive action than shooting things and it seems likely that both javelins and slings were in use in neolithic times and probably before. They were also much easier and quicker to make than the composite bows used in the east.
The fact that they were quicker to produce however, does not mean that they were not used without skill. They were both used as hunting weapons until relatively recent times and in the hands of people who came from rural backgrounds and had grown up using such weapons they were probably very effective weapons of war. To bring down a moving animal with a javelin or a bird or small mammal with a sling requires both practiced skill and accuracy and requires just as much skill as it takes to target a man in the enemy battle line.
It is true that the use of bows would have been just as natural to people who had grown up in the East but given that the Roman empire was largely in the West and Middle East, it would be far more sensible to arm people with javelins or slings, which many of them could already be expected to be proficient with, rather than trying to make them good archers in less than a decade.
It is also worth remembering here that in ancient accounts of besieged towns and the quantity of javelins which seem to have been used in their defence, in all likelihood much of the rural populations of the towns' hinterlands had probably retreated into the towns in fear of the enemy threat and so might have formed pools of skilled javelineers or slingers which the town could have used in its defence.

Crispvs

[Sean Manning]

Why did Roman light-armed forces used mostlu javelins and slings, but not bows?

Which period are we talking about?

I'd suggest that a lot depended on the military tradition of different regions. For example, Italy and Spain grow good bow wood, but they didn't have a strong archery tradition in the ancient world. Regions which did, like Syria, provided the Romans with archers. The Romans could train more archers when they needed to (Maurice talks about this ... archery training goes quickly when its your full time job) but slingers and throwers were useful too and usually it was easier to use recruits' existing skills and existing idea of the proper way to fight.

[Robert]

Speaking from experience, it is no great deal to train a person to effectively use a bow (any type) in less then a week, if the purpose of that exercise is to consistently put an arrow in close proximity to or striking a target as big as a man at about 50 meters. So, if the purpose of the archers is to deliver a volley of arrows to disrupt an enemy advance or to hinder a group drawn up for battle, even a limited amount of training should get that job done. Firing a bow itself is not a great feat to master, there is just the solid stance with the body aligning the bow to the target, the abbility to hold the arrow in the bow when coming to full draw and a reasonably smooth release (achieved by just allowing the finger of the bowhand to relax). Now, when we are talking about good accuracy, like hitting a head sized target at 50 meters or more, this does require much more practice. To get to a good level of accuracy, it requires shooting at a close target (20 meters) till you group the shots well, then moving it back and repeating the proces. Once you have a good instinctive "sight picture", things start to progress more rapidly, as the sideways deviation is greatly reduced by good stance and release and all that remains is the inclination of the shot. Given that, only those well trained can target individuals consistently in longer ranged shots. Mind you, there is still a good chance of clipping the one next to him or behind him if you should miss, as long as you get the distance (inclination) right. Frankly, the only way to teach someone anything about archery is to get out to a range and fire arrows till the arm shakes with fatique and the sight grow dim .....

[jkaler48]

It may be that slingers were preferred over archers because of a larger amount of ammunition could be carried and because it was more difficult for the enemy
to use the ammunition in return fire.

[Zenobia of Palmyra]

Imperial Rome actually had some pretty impressive archers - auxiliary Hamian infantry from Syria, and auxiliary horse-archers, to give some examples.

[Sean Manning]

Indeed, I'm still wating for eugene to say which period he is asking about. I'm not sure that the Romans did use more slingers than archers under the empire; and if they did do so at any particular date, the answer probably depends on that date.

[ScipioAsina]

Before the Imperial period, the Romans were certainly in contact with peoples who used bows. More specifically, Caesar employed both Cretan and Numidian archers during his campaigns in Gaul, and likewise encountered Gallic archers in battle. The Carthaginians might also have had bows, as arrow tips were found in a mass grave near Himera containing the remains of individuals who might have fought the Carthaginians in 480 BC. (source) It might be worth adding that Numidian stelae from Cirta (dating to the 2nd century BC) mention bowyers.

That the Romans themselves did not produce bows in any large quantity reflects (at least in my opinion) that they did not have a strong tradition in archery. Unlike the navy they suddenly created during the First Punic War (and even then they employed socii navales), the Romans had no need for archers.

[fiatjustitia]

My guess is that the climate played a big part. Wet, humid and rainy conditions would have made bows less effective

[Robert]

In a self-bow, a bow made from a single piece of wood like the English longbow or the flatbow, there is no great climatic issue with dampness and the like, depending on the bowstring used. Under very cold conditions, a wooden bow does become more brittle, but that sort of conditions do not spell much good for composite bows or torsionweapons, either. I believe many of the Roman bows would have been self-bows. A great quantity of arrowheads were found at Xanten, of various types, dating first and second century, so at least there, a significant number of archers may be presumed. As far as I know, there have not been finds of composite bow-componants (grips and bone plates) in any number. I believe a bow is a more accurate weapon at range then a sling, but that may be up for debate, as I have little experience with slings myself.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

i understand that the glues used were fish oil based....so would have water resitant effects for the bow.
At least from what I understand from the maker of my own bow.
Possibly they used different glues back then, but seems there must be some hand down of technology.?

[fiatjustitia]

The Romans were familiar with the bow as were their neolithic predecessors. Yet there remains the mystery of why no group of peoples in the Western Mediteranean or Nothern Europe adopted it in any meaningful way in organized armies. Consider "Otzi", the 5,000 year old Northern Italian mummy: he had premortem healed wounds caused by arrowheads embedded in in his shoulderblade and carried a bow in a case at his side yet he was killed with an edged weapon. Similiarly, deaths caused by arrows in Bronze age European skeletons are very unusual.
The answer to these findings must be that archery was either ineffective( I doubt that) or that the weapon was unreliable. The second speculation may be more likely because of the care a bow requires to maintain its effectiveness. You can read modern archery manuals which deal with maintenance of a bow- it really is quite a lot and possibly unfeasible for prolonged campaigns away from a base. Even the Huns didnt apear to use the bow as a primary weapon when they entered Western Europe.
Vincent

[Sean Manning]

The Romans were familiar with the bow as were their neolithic predecessors. Yet there remains the mystery of why no group of peoples in the Western Mediteranean or Nothern Europe adopted it in any meaningful way in organized armies. Consider "Otzi", the 5,000 year old Northern Italian mummy: he had premortem healed wounds caused by arrowheads embedded in in his shoulderblade and carried a bow in a case at his side yet he was killed with an edged weapon. Similiarly, deaths caused by arrows in Bronze age European skeletons are very unusual.
The answer to these findings must be that archery was either ineffective( I doubt that) or that the weapon was unreliable. The second speculation may be more likely because of the care a bow requires to maintain its effectiveness. You can read modern archery manuals which deal with maintenance of a bow- it really is quite a lot and possibly unfeasible for prolonged campaigns away from a base. Even the Huns didnt apear to use the bow as a primary weapon when they entered Western Europe.
Vincent

I don't think that's a very good argument because lots of cultures did use bows for war, including ones like the natives of the north east US and eastern Canada who travelled long distances through rough terrain to hunt and fight. And bows have often been used on long hunting trips (obviously, a short trip out and back on a single day doesn't raise the maintenance issue so much). The Nydam boat (probably buried in the 4th century BCE) contains longbows along with the swords and spears and shields, which suggests that the medieval Norse tradition of military archery got started early.

[fiatjustitia]

Sean:
Your arguments are pretty persuasive and I have to admit this is all speculation on my part. It may be that cultural factors played a part in not adopting the bow, or that the bow was not effective sufficiently enough to adopt it as a weapon, or as I have speculated that the bow required too much maintenance and was not effective in many climatic zones. I did some research, and pulled an Osprey book called The Hun by Nic Fields. There are several interesting comments the author makes about the composite bow; first he states that the bow becomes quickly useless in relative humidity of 80% or more, and second that it does not produce a lethal wound against most types of body armor. He mentions that the English Bowman at Crecy had to store their bow strings under their caps to keep the humidity from affecting them and of course they were not using composite bows.
I also pulled the relative humidity map of Europe from the Internet:
http://www.intellicast.com/Global/Humid ... gion=sweur which shows that relative humidity is quite astonishingly high for the Mediterranean basin and northern Europe. Naturally, the climate of modern Europe may not resemble what ancient Romans were accustomed to, and since we don't have anyone to interview from that period we will never know. It is fun to debate it though with knowledgeable people such as you who have compelling arguments.
Vincent

[Sardaukar]

There is also the production issue with composite bows, they take long time to make.