How Common Was the Counter-Weight?

[rrgg]

Is there any evidence that heavily weighted sarouters continued to be used on thrusting spears into Roman times and the dark ages or was it something unique to the Greek hoplites?

I realize spears almost always have butt spikes, but my understanding is that most of them tended to be hollow iron caps or too light to cause a major shift in the spear's center of mass.

[PMBardunias]

I'm no expert on Romans, but I've not seen sauroters on the hasta used by triarii for example. With shorter spears they are not as beneficial. If you want 6" more reach on a 6' spear, you just make a 7' mid-balanced spear. Only when the spear gets so long that it is unweildy do you need to move the balance back. Also rear weighting greatly limits throwability. I should note that there are many simple butt-caps from Greek sites as well, and objects that you would be hard pressed to tell from sauroters have been excavated from middle eastern cultures.

Do a google book search for "Die Angriffswaffen aus Olympia" By Holger Baitinger, you can see some in the preview: http://books.google.com/books?id=h4Xb8Tk...navlinks_s