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What would you like the title to be, Roach?
Quote:the Roman shieldwall was no different from Greek or Germanian or any other shieldwall save for in some rather minor details
Yep, and spears were pretty much the same, too, given varied length for function, etc.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)
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Quote:Quote:the Roman shieldwall was no different from Greek or Germanian or any other shieldwall save for in some rather minor details
Yep, and spears were pretty much the same, too, given varied length for function, etc.
Yes. In fact, most shield walls, whether Celtic, Greek, Persian, Roman, you name it, used spears 2.2-3 meters long.
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Quote:Gaius Julius Caesar post=299555 Wrote:If you created the thread, you should be able to edit the title too. mile:
Pardon my stupidity, but I can't figure out how it's done. ad:
Either way, I agree with Sean in that the Roman shieldwall was no different from Greek or Germanian or any other shieldwall save for in some rather minor details.
Just edit your first post in the thread, and the title is in a smal lblock, top left.
Click on it and edit away! mile:
(or leave it to Dave! )
Visne partem mei capere? Comminus agamus! * Me semper rogo, Quid faceret Iulius Caesar? * Confidence is a good thing! Overconfidence is too much of a good thing.
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Done.
And you're not stupid, bro, it's just not obvious until you see it, that's all.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)
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I agree that there are a lot of things we don't know about classical Greek phalanxes ... but Xenophon seemed to believe that a Greek phalanx of doruphoroi, an Egyptian phalanx with body shields and very long spears, and an imaginary Persian phalanx with sagareis and mikra gerra differed more in details than in essence. I take his judgement in res militares quite seriously.
Quote:I think of all the changes in Roman military equipment over the ages, this one has intrigued me the most, probably because it affects directly my 'period-of-choice', the Third Century.
What do we know of the development of vertical grip shields anyways? Connolly shows surviving La Tene period scuta as flat with a horizontal grip. I have a vague idea that flat vertical grip shields are 'Germanic' but I would like to learn more about when and where they appeared.
Nullis in verba
I have not checked this forum frequently since 2013, but I hope that these old posts have some value. I now have a blog on books, swords, and the curious things humans do with them.
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Quote: I don't want to criticize here but the Hasta and Kontos are two different spears - the Kontos emerged in the Late 5th century as a rougly 8-12 foot cavalry spear if I'm correct. You're the expert though.
You are mistaken. Both names are used for a number of spears, apparently Romans did not stick to one name for one type of spear. The kontos was also a much earlier thrusting spear,but it was also a name used for a thrusting spear in late Roman times. The hasta was a thrusting spear of shorter length during the Principate, but we see it used for longer thrusting spears as well. Both can be used by infantry as well as cavalry. Confusing, I agree.
Quote: Also I think he means shieldwall, and I thought the pila was replaced by the spicula and then the Hasta and lancaea/veruta javelins replaced that.
Who means shieldwall?
Yes, the pilum (pila is plural) was replaced by the speculum. No, the lancea was an earlier throwing spear. The verutuum was also a throwing spear, but a much lighter one than the pilum. The hasta was a thrusting spear.
Quote: And the Hasta was not developed in the 3rd Century AD it had been around for years because the Auxilia used it during the Principate era and the Pre-Marian Army did as well.
Who said the hasta was developed during the 3rd c.? I said that the LONGER thrusting spear (named hasta) was developed during the 3rd c. The hasta used before by the Principate auxilia was a shorter weapon.
Quote:The complete Roman Army - Adrian Goldsworthy
Roman Warfare - Adrian Goldsworthy
Rome and Her Enemies - Osprey Publishing
Nice books, but not much used for a detailed study of tactics and weapons. :wink:
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Quote:Either way, I agree with Sean in that the Roman shieldwall was no different from Greek or Germanian or any other shieldwall save for in some rather minor details.
Sorry, but I have to disagree sir! Below.
Hi Sean,
Quote: How is that different from the Greek and barbarian phalanxes describes by, for example, Xenophon? There seems to be this widespread assumption that Greek phalanxes were fundamentally different from everyone else's, but I haven't seen a lot of evidence (except the details which are different because of different types of spear and shield and body armour and level of drill).
Well, first of all, you won’t hear me commenting about the Greek phalanx as ‘being different from everyone else’s’. I’m just explaining the difference between a Classical Greek phalanx and a Late Roman one. Because there were plenty of differences. You already rightly mentioned spear, shield, body armour and drill, and that’s of course not minor. Late Roman shield wall formations were also much more versatile than the Greek phalanx: they were just one formation in a whole array of formations know and used by the Roman army, whereas the phalanx was (please correct me if I’m wrong) the battlefield formation of the Greeks. LR shield walls could perform both defensive as well as offensive testudo-like formations (fulcum), something I don’t know from the Greeks. While the Greeks created formations with the intent to push against a similarly-equipped enemy, Roman shield walls was probably developed against enemy cavalry first. The did consist of one body, but on (ideally) 3 to 4 lines. Roman missile support (archery, javelins, plumbatae) was also very different from that of other armies, and its heavy rate of fire continued throughout the entire battle.
Quote: After experimenting with large (80-100 cm diameter), round, flat, centergrip shields Hammaborg in Germany concluded that they are better adapted for single combat (leading with the edge opposite the hand) than group combat (leading with the flat) and that forming in close formation with shields overlapping was a way to work around this. The old Augustan scutum was very defensive but it had very short reach unless you struck with the bottom edge, leaving your body exposed below the shield.
Exactly. And that’s because the round or oval scutum was not developed for group combat. The LR shield wall was a battlefield formation, but of course Roman warfare consisted of much more than just field battles: if possible, these were avoided. LR infantry was very versatile: troops could fight both as light infantry as well as heavy infantry. I think that the scutum reflected that.
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Quote:I agree that there are a lot of things we don't know about classical Greek phalanxes ... but Xenophon seemed to believe that a Greek phalanx of doruphoroi, an Egyptian phalanx with body shields and very long spears, and an imaginary Persian phalanx with sagareis and mikra gerra differed more in details than in essence. I take his judgement in res militares quite seriously.
Although I believe this is stretching the limits of the topic quite a bit (maybe I should open a thread about it?), did Xenophon say the Persians used axes&taka? I mean, unless the taka were large, they would no fit a phalanx. Also, the spear was the weapon of honor in Persia, not the axe.
Quote:Mithras post=299564 Wrote:I think of all the changes in Roman military equipment over the ages, this one has intrigued me the most, probably because it affects directly my 'period-of-choice', the Third Century.
What do we know of the development of vertical grip shields anyways? Connolly shows surviving La Tene period scuta as flat with a horizontal grip. I have a vague idea that flat vertical grip shields are 'Germanic' but I would like to learn more about when and where they appeared. The late shields were vertical grip?
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Quote:In fact, most shield walls, whether Celtic, Greek, Persian, Roman, you name it, used spears 2.2-3 meters long.
Quote:Yep, and spears were pretty much the same, too, given varied length for function, etc.
Where do you guys base that on? Roman pila were c. 6 ft (1m80), and these were seen as too short from the early 3rd c. onwards. Did you know that no Roman spear has ever been found?Did you know that, based on funerary monuments, no Roman spear would have been roughly longer than the height of a man?
How long were Celtic spears? Where do you find that information?
How long were German spears in your opinion, and where do you base that on?
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Crap.
Failure. Farewell, forum!
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Quote:Roach post=299586 Wrote:In fact, most shield walls, whether Celtic, Greek, Persian, Roman, you name it, used spears 2.2-3 meters long.
Quote:Yep, and spears were pretty much the same, too, given varied length for function, etc.
Where do you guys base that on? Roman pila were c. 6 ft (1m80), and these were seen as too short from the early 3rd c. onwards. Did you know that no Roman spear has ever been found?Did you know that, based on funerary monuments, no Roman spear would have been roughly longer than the height of a man?
How long were Celtic spears? Where do you find that information?
How long were German spears in your opinion, and where do you base that on?
Robert, surely Vegetius tells us the length of various Roman spears?-
'Their offensive weapons were large swords, called spathae, and smaller ones called semispathae together with five loaded javelins (martiobarbuli) in the concavity of the shield, which they threw at the first charge. They had likewise two other javelins, the largest of which was composed of a staff five feet and a half long and a triangular head of iron nine inches long. This was formerly called the pilum, but now it is known by the name of spiculum. The soldiers were particularly exercised in the use of this weapon, because when thrown with force and skill it often penetrated the shields of the foot and the cuirasses of the horse. The other javelin was of smaller size; its triangular point was only five inches long and the staff three feet and one half. It was anciently called verriculum but now verutum.'
Your statement about Roman spears is not entirely correct. The contos in Late Roman literature is nearly always a long spear, usually the arm of the heavily armoured Catafractarii/Clibanarii, some depictions of it show it was at least 8 feet long. Whilst there are mention of many types of spears in Ammianus, such as the Hasta, Lancia and 'pilis' (pilum), there are also references to contemporary weapons such as the Spiculum and Veruta that Vegestius spoke about. Some Late Roman monumental works show infantry with a spear that appears to be about six feet to six and a half feet long, yet others, such as the pen and ink drawings of the mostly destroyed Column of Theodosius show the infantry in many cases just holding a short spear, probably the Veruta. I believe references to the Spiculum are also to be found in the SHA.
Adrian Coombs-Hoar
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Quote:Crap.
Failure. Farewell, forum!
Stick with us please Peteris.... some of our posts get a little .... detailed? :???:
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Come back Roach, do not be scared off by the rather blunt nature of some of the discussion. Rather stick with it until hopefully a balanced view emerges.
Roman and even Greek writers do use interesting and varying nomenclature, a tradition we seem to be keeping alive today. Even in this thread. But some names are used over long periods of time, and can give us glues to the function and nature of the weapon. Vegetius does give the measurement of some weapons, although sadly not the “spear”. Iconography can be useful in showing us how the weapon was carried and used. And remaining artefacts can give us the size and weight of the metal components suggesting how the weapon was hafted and its function.
A few people have mentioned pila and spicula, generally throwing weapons but with a secondary role as thrusting weapons. Very much in the tradition of the dual –purpose throwing/thrusting spears such as the lancea and Greek longche. Generally around five to seven feet long, sometimes carried in pairs. Hunting spears often fall into this category.
Smaller javelins or around three to four feet have smaller lighter heads, no butt spikes, thin shafts, and are purely throwing weapons such as the Greek akon and palton, plus Roman verutum.
The thrusting or great spear often has a large cutting head, usually counter-balanced by a butt spike. The distance between the two when found in situ give us the length of spears in Anglo-Saxon graves. They are generally centre-balanced which may involve tampering the shaft. The shaft is generally around nine feet long, relatively thick, and not suitable for throwing. It is a weapon exclusively for war. The Greek doru and Latin hasta would both fall into this category. It is the standard close order weapon in both the Greek and Roman phalanx formations. The dynamics of combat in both formations would not be so different and I suspect it was the strength of will that dictated the victor rather than the length of the weapon.
Cavalry weapons are another issue altogether, but some ideas can be viewed at http://earlyridinggroup.org/research_longweapons.html
All of which is a long way from the discussion of shields!
John Conyard
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Quote:Crap. Failure. Farewell, forum!
Ow, that's radical. Serious? Never meant to be blunt, you know?
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