Returning spears

[Jona Lendering]

In one of his sermons, Ambrose mentions several attempts to hurt people that turn against their authors. One of these is the throwing of spears, which are blown back to the throwers by a sudden wind.

Both Claudian and Dio Chrysostom pick up this trope and convert it into a historical fact; both do so in their account of the battle of the Frigidus.

I was wondering if the danger really exists. I have never heard of spears being blown back, and I would not be surprised if the whole "fact" is nothing but a misunderstood literary figure. Anyone any thoughts?

[Gaius Colletti]

By spear are you referring to a pilum or plumbata? Either way I have to agree that this is a "misunderstood" literary figure.

[john roberts]

Maybe it is a confused reference to the very real likelihood of an enemy throwing your own spear back at you. The very disable-on-impact design of the pilum was meant to discourage this. For the same reason Tchaka Zulu took away his mens' throwing spears and made them use stabbing spears, explaining that throwing a spear was simply giving your enemy a weapon.

[Jona Lendering]

Here are Ambrose's words (from a commentary on Psalm 36.15)

Saepe enim jacula in ipsos qui ea jecerint, refunduntur. Quod etiam proximo accidit bello, cum infideles et sacrilegi lacesserent aliquem in Domino confidentem et regnum eius ereptum ire contenderent, ecclesiis Domini persecutionum saeva minitantes; ut subito ventus oriretur, qui infidelibus excuteret scuta de manibus, ac tela omnium atque missilia in peccatoris exercitum retorqueret.

Often, projectiles (jacula) rebound on those who have thrown them. This happened in the last war, when faithless and sacrilegious men attacked a man trusting in the Lord [e.g., Theodosius], and tried to snatch his reign away from him, making dire threats of persecuting the churches of the Lord, so that suddenly a wind arose, which tore their shields from the hands of the faithless and turned all their projectiles (tela) and missiles (missilia) back on the army of the sinner [e.g., Eugenius].

[M. Demetrius]

It would take gale force winds tp rip the shields from their hands and redirect the thrown spears (javelins) 180 degrees. If that happened exactly as reported, then that would probably be a miracle.

[Titvs Statilivs Castvs]

If the spears would've been blown back, that would be a fascinating story. :razz: Much too thin and heavy for that. Shields might be possible however. You catch a lot of wind with these things, and an unexpected, very heavy wind blow might blow some shields away from a few soldiers. Don't you think? I experienced that a little wind is already frustrating when holding your shield up.

It seems to be a very big propaganda-story.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

There was an incident in the Peloponnesian war where some men lost aspides by the wind!!! This happened during a march i think,not during battle.
But all the story about projectiles turning back and all,linked with the style and purpose of the text i think should be dismissed. There are many ways that an army can hurt itself by its own weapons,but Ambrose is very clear in what he says: God turned the missiles of the bad people against themselves and protected the faithful!
Khairete
Giannis

[Jona Lendering]

We're all in agreement that it's not possible. Thanks for the contributions!

[Sean Manning]

There was an incident in the Peloponnesian war where some men lost aspides by the wind!!! This happened during a march i think,not during battle.
But all the story about projectiles turning back and all,linked with the style and purpose of the text i think should be dismissed. There are many ways that an army can hurt itself by its own weapons,but Ambrose is very clear in what he says: God turned the missiles of the bad people against themselves and protected the faithful!
Khairete
Giannis

Its the Hellenica 5.4.18 line 4: some hoplites were crossing from Boeoetia to the Megarid along the edge of the Gulf of Corinth.

τέλος
δὲ πολλοὶ οὐ δυνάμενοι σὺν τοῖς ὅπλοις πορεύεσθαι, ἔνθεν
καὶ ἔνθεν τοῦ ἄκρου κατέλιπον λίθων ἐμπλήσαντες ὑπτίας
τὰς ἀσπίδας.

[john roberts]

If I were marching along some goat path on the top of a cliff and a bad wind came up I'd let that sucker go, too, rather than let it drag me over the cliff. Of course, it could mean an embarassing scene at home:
"I said with your shield or on it!"
"Well,Mom,there was this wind, see....."

[Epictetus]

We're all in agreement that it's not possible. Thanks for the contributions!

I would be somewhat cautious saying that it is "not possible." Practically anything is possible under the right circumstances.

But under this context I would agree with everyone else: it didn't really happen like this and was simply a literary trope.

[ValentinianVictrix]

Is'nt this a reference to the Battle of Frigidus where its claimed that on the second day a huge wind blew down the valley into the faces of the defenders, blinding them and allegedly sending their own missile weapons against them?-

'Before the battle, Eugenius and Arbogast placed a statue of Jupiter on the edge of the battlefield, and had applied images of Hercules on the army banners. This way they hoped to repeat the victories of Rome in earlier days, when it had always relied on the old gods for support in battle. On the first day of battle the old gods seemed to be winning. Theodosius attacked almost immediately, having undertaken little to no prior reconnaissance of the field of battle. He committed his Gothic allies to action first, perhaps hoping to thin their ranks through attrition and lessen their potential threat to the Empire. The Eastern army's headlong attack resulted in heavy casualties but little gain, and the Georgian general Bacurius was among the dead.

Day's end saw Eugenius celebrating his troops' successful defense of their position while Arbogast sent out detachments to close off the mountain passes behind Theodosius's forces.

After a sleepless night, Theodosius was cheered by the news that the men Arbogast had sent to bottle him up in the valley intended to desert to his side. Buoyed by this favorable development, Theodosius' men attacked once again. This time nature was on their side as a fierce tempest—apparently the bora, a regular occurrence in the region—blew along the valley from the east. Other stories tell of Theodosius praying to God for a storm, which God subsequently granted. The high winds blew clouds of dust into the faces of the Western troops (legend also says, that the fierce winds even blew the Western troops' own arrows back at them). Buffeted by the winds, Arbogast's lines broke and Theodosius gained the decisive victory that the Egyptian monk had prophesied.

In the aftermath, Eugenius was captured and brought before the emperor. His pleas for mercy went unanswered and he was beheaded. Arbogast escaped the defeat and fled into the mountains, but after a few days' wandering, he concluded escape was impossible and committed suicide.'

[Jona Lendering]

Is'nt this a reference to the Battle of Frigidus

Exactly. And it turns out that we do not know anything about this battle.

All accounts are derived from the church historian Rufinus, who was not interested in the battle, but in Theodosius' triumph. Augustine, picking up a clue from Claudian about Theodosius destroying sanctuaries of Jupiter in the Alps, transferred Jupiter to the battlefield; Hercules is a similar invention.

More importantly, there's no evidence that Eugenius supported a pagan revival. But Ambrose had questioned Eugenius' orthodoxy; Ambrose's hagiographer Paulinus added converted Ambrose's opinion about Eugenius' questionable orthodoxy into a statement of fact about his paganism. And so on.

I am very impressed by Alan Cameron's book on The Last Pagans of Rome. It's the best book on ancient history I have read in ten years.

[Crispvs]

Whatever the truth of the account, strong winds can definitely have an effect on equipment. I have had great difficulty controlling my shield on a number of occasions when faced with strong, especially gusty, winds. I can also attest to having seen shields torn from men's hands by sudden strong gusts of wind. I have also seen arrows and catapult bolts skewed wildly off course in flight by strong winds. Obviously this does not happen very often but I would think that even the most experienced commander would have trouble controlling not just the preferred site of a battle but the weather as well. Given an extended battle line I could easily imagine lightweight projectiles such as arrows and light types of javelin being carried back by strong winds, not necessarily to the very men who actually threw or shot them but certainly it could sometimes be possible for them to be blown back onto men a little further along in the same line.
I have also experienced plumatae being carried off course by the wind. Only a few weeks ago I was demonstrating the throwing of plumatae when I experienced this. I was attempting to lob a plumbata at a roughly sixty degree angle to demonstrate how it would drop and then a moment after it had left my hand the wind blew it back and I was very lucky not to have been hit by it when it dropped only about a foot from me!

Crispvs

[Titvs Statilivs Castvs]

So it's not just me being too weak to hold my shield. :lol:


Iacula, tela and missilia are all just words for projectiles, aren't they? If these would mean 'plumbata', than Crispvs' story confirms this might be possible!
I've also been thinking of projectiles blown by the wind to other soldiers positioned elsewhere in the line.