When to use your pugio

[Tarbicus]

I think the pugio got used most often for mugging civilians and winning bar fights.

Good point, as it's directly attached to the one thing went everywhere with the soldier.

Backed up by one of those nasty knuckleduster types of "military" rings no doubt.

[hoplite14gr]

I think the pugio got used most often for mugging civilians and winning bar fights.

Good point, as it's directly attached to the one thing went everywhere with the soldier.

Backed up by one of those nasty knuckleduster types of "military" rings no doubt.

Yep! Seems nastiness has a tendency to survive through the ages.
Kind regards
Stefanos

[Crispvs]

"I think the pugio got used most often for mugging civilians and winning bar fights."

Why does this always come up? :evil: :evil:

Please put your hands high in the air all those who think that the army issued kit to soldiers or soldiers spent considerable amounts on kit for themselves which was primarily for the purpose of mugging civilians rather than simply using the cheap and reliable wooden clubs they were all supposed to have anyway!

Right, hopefully that is out of the way and I can continue.

It is obvious that pugiones were valued as pieces of military hardware. Far too many representations of soldiers on funerary stelae show them for them to have been little more than playthings for the night off. It should also be noted that considerable money was obviously spent on many pugiones, pointing to them as items of some status. Tarbicus is probably right when he says that the pugio, being attached to the balteus went everywhere with the soldier. This may be a clue to the amount of intricate (and no doubt expensive) silver and enamel inlay found on many sheaths and some dagger handles. The balteus militare, that very symbol of a military man, was probably a highly fashionable item (in terms of being in an up to date style) for a soldier and it might make sense to lavish equal attention to the item attached to it (although the nicest surviving sheath of all, the example from Velson, was accompanied by a second hand and quite substandard set of belt plates).

This is not to say that pugiones never found their way out of their sheaths during tavern brawls. It is scarcely feasible that no one was ever killed or injurred in a brawl with a pugio. My point is that soldiers clearly did not see their pugiones as simple tools for use in a brawl or mugging. They had fusti for this anyway, which were presumably quite cheap by comparison and quite effective in either a brawl or a mugging.

We cannot say how Roman soldiers actually did see their pugiones but the military aspect of them is underlined by their presence along with swords and belts on stelae. As far as I know, no soldier below the rank of centurio is shown on his stele with a cudgel by comparison. Standing soldier type stelae, unlike totenmahl type stelae, do not show wine cups either. Soldiers are depicted in their stelae as soldiers, not men on their night off. Every item depicted on these stelae must have military significance to be included.
We can only guess at the exact function of the pugio, but we can be sure that soldiers thought of it as an important piece of kit at least until the Flavian period. It is almost certainly very significant that when the Romans adopted the Spanish sword, they also seem to have adopted the Spanish dagger along with it, which suggests that the two weapons complimented each other in some way on the field of battle. As I have said before, pugiones are not normally small items. They reflect the shapes of swords and can be nearly a foot in length. They are not utility knives - they are battlefield weapons, but how they were used in battle is open to question. Certainly, if a battle did involve any grappling actions then a pugio would have come into its own as the gladius (and especially the true gladius hispaniensis) would be rather too long for this. As I have also said before, they are also a much better size than a sword for rifling dead bodies for valuables whilst still being able to dispach one which still squirms with little trouble, although here too, I doubt that the army would have issued a weapon purely for this task. I doubt that it was issued as a deperation weapon either - surely that is where fists and teeth come to be mentioned in accounts of battles.

As to the issue of dropping your sword to draw your dagger, I can boast of being able to draw my gladius and bring it to a horizontal position in under a second. I can sheath it again nearly as fast. I do not train at Roman army drill for three to six hours every day. I wonder how long it would have taken the professional Roman soldier to do what I can achieve in under a second when I only do it sixty or eighty times a year.
It worth noting here that the pugio always seems to have been worn where it could be drawn in a hurry. There are indications that the ancient Spaniards wore their daggers on crossbelts on their chests. The earliest reprsentation I am aware of of a Roman dagger being worn shows the centurio Minucius Lorianus wearing his dagger horizontally at the front of his belt. Years of fighting with axe, shield and seax when I was an eleventh century re-enactor taught me that a large knife worn horizontally at the front could be employed startlingly quickly. On the first century AD Rhineland stelae, pugiones are worn not on the hip, where most re-enactors wear them, but on the left at the front, where again they would no doubt have been easy of access and would not require the right hand to pass all the way round to the soldier's left side.
Given then, that the gladius can be sheathed quickly and the pugio was positioned for quick access, perhaps we should be asking ourselves precisely how long it would take a trained professional to sheath his sword and draw his dagger, and vice versa. If I can draw my sword in under a second and sheath it again in around a second, I suspect that the Roman soldier could have sheathed one weapon and employed the other in the same time. It is likely that sword and dagger (and shield) complimented each other and could be used as and when needed. The legionary was not a member of a Greek phalanx he (and no doubt his auxiliary compatriots) fought in a dynamic style in a much more dynamic unit (the century or cohort) than the phalanx.

Whatever the truth about the battlefield use of the pugio, is was obviously a valued part of military hardware as well as an item which soldiers felt worthy of heavy expenditure. By contract, they were issued with wooden cudgels for crowd control. Let's not confuse the two too much.

Crispvs

[stevesarak]

Excellent, Thanks

[Dan Diffendale]

Crispus, your mention of the expenditure frequently lavished on pugiones, and the fact that they seem to have gone everywhere with the soldier... It's a good place to invest your wealth, perhaps the piece of kit least likely to get stolen, easier to keep track of than coins, plus a stylish accessory and defensive armament to boot.

[Quintilianus]

Crispus, your mention of the expenditure frequently lavished on pugiones, and the fact that they seem to have gone everywhere with the soldier... It's a good place to invest your wealth, perhaps the piece of kit least likely to get stolen, easier to keep track of than coins, plus a stylish accessory and defensive armament to boot.

Yeah, but the Roman legionary could deposit his money in an army banking system, so was there any need to invest it in an elaborate pugio unless he liked the look of it and wanted to show off?
And of course it was possible to lose it or be stolen, why else are there so much engraved names found on equipment for no other reason then to express ownership?

[Tiberius Claudius Vindex]

I'm wondering if it wasn't unlike the short sword a Samurai carried in Japan. It would be more useful for defending in a tightly packed place such as a tavern or brothel, and if he didn't want to be captured he could use it to take his own life, not unlike a Samurai commiting hari-kiri.

[stevesarak]

As posted in previous posts on this thread, the pugio was probably used for tight fighting on the field, yes it could be used else ware but so could wrapping your belt around your hand and hitting someone. That probably wasn’t the intent for it, it was a weapon to be carried into battle.

As far as committing hari-kiri, that wasn’t the roman way. There was a large battle once (Sorry I cant’ remember which one) where the Romans lost. The Romans were being slaughtered so bad that some of them buried their heads in the dirt to hide from the horror.

[Crispvs]

I think the battle in question was Lake Trasamene.

As you say, the normal Roman way was to withdraw, regroup and take the battle back to the enemy, or go down fighting if you had no other option.

Crispvs

[Cornelius Quintus]

Ave

Another idea – perhaps the pugio was no backup for the gladius, but for the scutum?

In case the shield breaks or is blocked with a sticky javelin?

It’s interesting to watch a medieval reenactment-fight with right hand sword and left hand dagger. For this, the waisted shape of the blade could make sense.

But don’t try to form a pugio-testudo now ;-) )

Greetings from Germany

Heiko (Cornelius Quintus)

[Matthew]

It seems to me that the Pugio was simply an 'emergency back up weapon', for use when and if needed and likely to be carried by any soldier who could afford to.
Interestingly, Samurai not only made use of Wakizashi as back-up weapons, but also Tanto (essentially a Dagger). The exact combination depends on the period and individual concerned. Interestingly, I have heard that Ju-Jitsu was initially developed for use on the battlefield when one found oneself entirely disarmed (the first order of business being to acquire a weapon). This suggests that losing ones primary (Spear or Bow), secondary (Sword) and tertiary (Short Sword, Dagger or both) weapons was a matter of some concern for a professional warrior.
I'm doubtful of the practicality (or liklihood) of sheathing a Sword to draw a Dagger in the midst of combat, but I accept it could have been done.
The degree of action the Pugio saw must remain entirely speculative, but it seems to me that it was thought necessary to have one, if only for the psychological confidence benefits.

Matthew James Stanham

[Crispvs]

Danno Ulpius wrote:
"Crispus, your mention of the expenditure frequently lavished on pugiones, and the fact that they seem to have gone everywhere with the soldier... It's a good place to invest your wealth, perhaps the piece of kit least likely to get stolen, easier to keep track of than coins, plus a stylish accessory and defensive armament to boot."

Quintilianus wrote:
"Yeah, but the Roman legionary could deposit his money in an army banking system, so was there any need to invest it in an elaborate pugio unless he liked the look of it and wanted to show off?"


This wasn't quite what I meant. I was referring to the presumable expenditure on the 'time and effort' aspects of the pugio sheath and sometimes the handle. Considering that the workmanship to be seen on many (although not all) pugio sheaths is that of very skilled craftsmen, I think that the expenditure on the 'labour' element of the cost of a nice pugio would far outwiegh the cost of the silver and / or brass, along with niello and enamel, actually used to make the decoration. It would come as a surprise to many to find that many silver inlaid sheaths probably contained the same weight of silver as only two or three denarii, which means that value has to be in the overall execution of the object as a whole rather than the worth of the materials used for the decoration.

Therefore I do not see richly decorated pugio sheaths as a handy way to carry wealth.
Instead, I think that for some reason the pugio had some sort of status which befitted rich adornment. What that status was and why it had it is, of course, completely open to question. As far as I know they do not turn up all that often in literature compared to swords. :roll:

Crispvs

[stevesarak]

The rich adornment on some pugios could be attributed to modern day battle dress. What a soldier wore in the field isn’t always what he or she wears in full battle dress. The adorned pugios could be something a wealthier soldier wore when parading around the towns or cities. Attach a clean cape, slide in the fancy pugio, slip on a non-stained pair of sandals, then he was ready to impress the women in town.

[totem]

If we see the soldiers of today -lets say- two thousands from now,we will probably end up thinking that they used their k-bars or M9 Bayonets to kill the enemy when they run out of bullets.
I think the legionaries- as well as today soldiers- used their pugios as a tool.
The legionaries buildt forts and bridges everywhere they went.Just imagine how many ropes they used in any single construction?
Meat wasnt the primary source of food the legionaries eat but i think that if they had some nearby cattle they wont refuse to eat it.The pugio is perfect to kill cattle -with a small movement at the base of the skull u cut the spinal cord-
Yes u can kill someone with a pugio!! only if u have no other option at hand -and should be the very, very last-

[Crispvs]

True, but where the utility knife argument falls down is that the Romans had plenty of other knives to use which are better suited to the tasks you list and which turn up much more commonly than pugiones. Most museums on Roman sites display numerous examples of knives of various sizes. Only a few can boast of pugiones in their collections. It is worth noting as well that in form, pugio blades are not shaped like any normal form of utility knife - rather, they are shaped like small swords. It makes sense therefore to see them primarily as weapons, which also accounts for their presence on funerary stelae.

I have often also noticed that the word 'pugio' has similarities with 'pugnans' and other words to do with fighting. Perhaps a Latin expert could step in here.

Crispvs