how far could a pilum be thrown?

[ModernMarvel]

Forgot about that. Good point.

 

Marv

[QwertyMIDX]

caldrail is right, it's important to remember that the pila wasn't a killing weapon, it was a disabling weapon. Once one or two of them were stuck in your shield you pretty much had to ditch the thing. The added weight made it heavy, and the protruding pila made it highly unwieldy (and provided an easy way for your opponent to disarm if you didn't disarm yourself). The effect on enemy morale was also an important factor. Of course Romans weren't the only ones to think of this, across the ancient world javelins of all sorts were used for the same purpose be it by Celts, Samnites, Iberians, or Greek Thureophoroi.

[caldrail]

There's a difference between a roman pilum and a barbarian javelin. Javelins are throwing spears and do indeed get used to cause casualties. After all, your enemy could throw the darn thing back so it was just as well to kill him first. Now the pilum can kill just as easily. It was just as much a weighty sharp point thrown in your direction. However, the soft iron shank meant that it wasn't going to get thrown back. The reason I refer to the pilum as a disabling weapon is because roman soldiers used it to de-shield their enemy deliberately, whereas a for a barbarian javelin this was a happy coincidence. It was the tactical use that differentiated them as much as physical properties.

[votadini]

For the sake of economy,after a clash, was it the norm that the discarded/used pilum collected and made reuseable?

[caldrail]

I haven't read of this but I can't imagine a roman commander leaving these weapons lying around. Unrepairable ones would serve as firewood? Those suitable for repair would soon be in the hands of the weapon smiths. Why pay good sestercii for more?

[Antiochus of Seleucia]

For the sake of economy,after a clash, was it the norm that the discarded/used pilum collected and made reuseable?

 

Pila were most definitely reused. The soft iron was easy to repair at the smith.

[Gaius Octavius]

In the event of victory, not only were discarded Roman arms collected, but also those of the enemy. The enemies' arms were part of the 'loot', but more importantly, the Romans would not leave arms lying about to be collected by their enemy for future use.

 

From Marius' time onward, the Roman pila were made in such a fashion, so that when they hit something, one of the two bolts connecting the head to the haft broke. This made a sort of 'L' shape out of the pilum, rendering it useless. I believe that this construction was unique to the Romans.

Edited December 30, 2006 by Gaius Octavius

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

According to Adrian Goldsworthy's "Complete Roman Army" the pilum could theoretically be thrown a distance of 100ft (30m) with an effective range of half that much.

This has been determined from tests done from modern reconstructed pila

[Gaius Octavius]

I wonder what the present Olympic record is?

[Skarr]

I believe there were two types of pila - a light one, which could be thrown farther to slow down an advancing enemy and a heavier one, which would be thrown just before engaging the enemy with the traditional gladii or short sword that the infantry favored.

 

The light pila were modified in their design by Gaius Marius, who found that if the pila bent at the part where the metal joined the wood, the enemy could not retrieve and throw it back at the advancing legion. I think this must have been the lighter one and while I doubt they threw it when the enemy was at about a 100m apart, 30m or even a little closer sounds more reasonable.

 

As far as the trajectory is concerned, I think anything more than 45 degrees would have been difficult and a higher angle, as someone pointed out here, would result in loss of distance. Even at 45 degrees, a hail of the light pila thrown at the enemy would cause them to instinctively raise their shields and possible catch many of the pila and since they could not easily get them out because of the soft metal which broke off the pila and left it useless and dangling, they had to probably throw away their shields, which made them easy targets for a stabbing gladius.

 

Anyway, I'm not a military expert and maybe I've got everything wrong, but this is my 2 sestertii on this...

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Another interesting thing about the pilum.

Apparently the heads of the pila in early Republican times were rather different from the later ones. They were not pyramidal ones that we are so familiar with, but tended to be bigger and of a slightly different shape, with long tapering sides. I don't know if all early pila heads were of this shape or only some, but apparently they became standardized in late Republican and Imperial times to the pyramidal shapes that we know so well.

I though it rather odd that the Romans would actually prefer the later type because it seems the earlier types could do much more damage

[Pertinax]

Longbow sent me a piece written by re-enactor horsemen, the interesting thing as regards this debate is that the advice in that letter was as regards how very easy it is to maim a horse , even with a blunt pole. The letter gives detailed advice to "saxons" who have to "die" in a "norman" charge ,all efforts are directed to avoiding the horses and removing any ground obstacles (or becoming one such) , apparently a heavy wooden pole pushed into the chest of a moving animal is quite enough to kill it outright. So close contact cavalry versus heavy missile fire would seem to be a situation to be avoided.

[Julius Ratus]

Antiochus of Seleucia -- Go measure out 100 meters and see if anyone can throw a 4 foot weighted javalin that far!

 

100 meters would be one hell of a throw. I could easily do it with my SKS easily, but a pilum would be a bit too much to ask.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

Another interesting thing about the pilum.

Apparently the heads of the pila in early Republican times were rather different from the later ones. They were not pyramidal ones that we are so familiar with, but tended to be bigger and of a slightly different shape, with long tapering sides. I don't know if all early pila heads were of this shape or only some, but apparently they became standardized in late Republican and Imperial times to the pyramidal shapes that we know so well.

I though it rather odd that the Romans would actually prefer the later type because it seems the earlier types could do much more damage

Gaius Marius is credited with a design change about 100 BC. He found that the iron shank was not bending very often, so that the enemy were able to throw the pila back at the Romans. So he had one of the two iron rivets that held the parts together replaced with a wooden peg which would break or shear off on impact, causing the head to flop and making it unusable. After the battle it was a simple matter to replace those pegs. One problem is that on many of the surviving pilum heads from this general era, the edges of the tang are bent to form flanges which essentially wrap around the wooden junction block. So they aren't going to flop if one rivet is missing! But of course few of these can be dated with certainty, and there do seem to be pilum heads with simple flat tangs which would function as the story says.

 

By the end of the Republic, however, it looks like the difference between heavy and light pila has gone away. The tanged variety is slimming down, and the points are generally a narrow pyramidal form, very rarely barbed any more. Some have three rivets rather than two, and most have an iron ferrule or collet at the top of the joint, so Marius' wooden peg system was apparently no longer in use. But we do find that the iron shank will bend on impact, keeping the enemy from chucking them back. Most illustrations of Imperial legionaries show only one pilum, but a few show two, both tanged and apparently identical. It would appear that two pila were still carried, but that there was no longer a "heavy" and a "light".

 

Check out this site, it's got picture's and diagrams of the different pilum's and it even gives you the correct way a pilum should be made.

 

Take a look at the whole site, it's got everything a legionary needs to know about clothing, armour and weapons.

 

http://www.larp.com/legioxx/pilum.html

Edited January 29, 2007 by Gaius Paulinus Maximus

[caldrail]

Beware - the bendy pilum works because of gravity, not impact. If the point bends on impact then the weapon is functionally useless since the point will not pierce but simply deflect. Once the point has penetrated, then gravity and the weight of the shaft will bend the shank without any problem whatsoever. If the pilum hits the gound at a fine angle the end result is likely to be a bend rather than penetration, but then if it does stick into the gound the result is the same as the a shield strike. So thats good from a roman perspective.

 

There is always the possibility that a pilum thrown flatly will simply land on the ground without major damage and can be immediately re-used by the enemy.