How did the Roman Army Marian Reforms PILUM (spear) Work? An appendix to
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- The Roman Army's Marian Reforms version of the pilum (throwing spear, or javelin). A response and appendix @tods_workshop . My previous pilum videos:
• Roman Pilum Throwing -...
• Roman Pilum - ScholaGl...
• Why The Roman Army Use...
• SHIELD PENETRATION! Ro...
• Roman Pilum (THROWING ...
#romanarmy #romanhistory #legionary #javelin #spear #throwing #history #weapons
HI Matt, HI guys,
I agree on some points and disagree on others. I have not had standard pila bend on extraction, but I have had them a few times land in the ground and then bend due to the way they landed, but that aside I wholly agree with Matt that the shank is thin for all the reasons he mentions about penetration and as a side effect they bend, but that is not and was never the intention. The wooden peg is more curious, but an important note to make is that Marius/Plutarch does not mention anything about throwing them back, so I have to concluded this was not a concern. It is something I have been fixated about as are many of you, but in practical terms it would be difficult and would expose the 'picker - upper' or 'shield extractor' horribly and so I think any breaking is not about the inability to throw back. He does explicitly mention the reason is so that the pilum on impact will 'twist' and the butt fall to the ground encumbering progress or words to that effect. There are two things to note here though and that is that it 'twists' on impact and I took this to mean shears and hinges and the other is that the butt of a 5 foot heavy javelin will dig into the ground regardless and this makes me suspicious in that he is making a change to solve a problem that was already more reliably and cheaply solved by the existing design. To be fair this has not prevented management from doing things like that, but we will never know. It is possible that Matt is correct about simply replacing the pin because there in no mention of any design change or alteration, only of replacement of the pin which does suggest a straight swap and with a weak enough pin the weight of the pilum could shear the pin (it would rotate around to allow this whatever orientation it landed in). But this super weak pin would seem vulnerable to general battlefield movement and incident before use. So the text suggests break on impact to solve a problem that is not a problem but with only a simple pin replacement with no other mods, but would still remain a reliable weapon. All smells a bit fishy to me. Tod
Thanks Tod! I think there are certainly more tests that can be done around this topic, and it seems for the large part that academia has debated the pilum for years without actually doing much testing overall.
Had to express my amusement at the "management finding solutions to problems that didn't exist" thing. The thought had been crossing my mind that this might have been something that a general thought was a good idea... but it didn't work out the way it was hoped to and was quietly dropped soon afterwards. Which would explain why there isn't much evidence apart from that one writer.
Excellent work on these videos to both Matt and Todd.
I think it's the surprise factor of a javelin breaking in a shield and hanging down which might literally trip someone up, or otherwise "encumber progress." A pilum in one man's shield might stop that one man, but if it's broken, hanging, and flailing around, it might be more of a nuisance to adjacent men as well. The riddle is how a breaking pilum better delivers the intent of encumbering an opponent than a normal one, but I think the ultimate question is actually how does a broken pilum change a shield's ability to perform its job vs an intact pilum?
You two should settle this like gentleman. Nerf pistols followed by biffa boffers to first 'aw crikey'.
I've always been very skeptical of the idea of pilum that are intended to bend or break. There are accounts of them being used as a fairly traditional spear, such as accounts by Caesar, and if that's a regular use case you can't optimize for super weird use cases. It makes the most sense that they were fairly normal spears optimized for armor/shield penetration and the ability to be thrown as well as used as a spear.
Here's the problem with the wooden peg. Only ONE variety of pilla really had that design. Many of them have that metal collar at the top, overlapping the wood(as seen on Matts replica), Which means........even with a broken wooden peg, that collar will prevent the iron shaft from flipping much anyway. Many pilla were socketed. Many had more than two rivets. Some had lead weights added to the tips. I suspect Marius tried it on one particular type of light pilla(meant for longer range throwing), but it never made much difference since after his time that design basically went away completely as the weapon was always undergoing changes more towards heavier designs for shorter range and deeper penetration. Basically, if you don't want them to be thrown back only use them up close so they have no time to throw them back before you close the distance.
Excellent comment, spot on!
The massive weight at the end of the shaft you've mentioned probably had the purpose of pushing the shield on impact closer to the body, so even if the soldier kept it at the beginning far enough to be save prom being pierced, the impact of the heavy shaft could have bring the shield closer to the body and thus at least wound him. Great job Matt!
Re: the source, the source is Parallel Lives, the 2nd-century CE series of biographies written by Plutarch. While the work is of incredible value for telling us what early Imperial Romans thought about figures in their past, we should not necessarily accept those beliefs as fact! The point of Parallel Lives is to draw comparisons between famous Romans and famous Greeks as instructional lessons on how best to live a virtuous life. Plutarch would likely have prioritised the moral lesson over historical fact, whether the story about the wooden pegs is true would have been less important than what the legend tells his readers about Marius' character.
It's also worth noting that recent Roman scholarship has for the most part moved away from the idea that the "Marian reforms" even happened. Changes in the roman armies are now seen to have happened gradually over centuries, with most reforms attributed to Marius having taken place before he was born or after he died. A good intro with sources on this would be "The Marian Reforms Weren’t a Thing" over at ACOUP.
Great info, thanks!
@@scholagladiatoria also check out everything else on that blog! really interesting and informative posts (and i know you're a bit of a tolkien fan as well).
History of that era was far more propaganda than we expect today.
Other considerations aside, a peg that broke on impact would have the advantage that the pilum would still be unusable if it hit the ground instead of a shield. Those would probably be the first ones thrown back. It's so cool Matt mentioned meeting Peter Connolly before showing some of his illustrations. His brilliantly-researched paintings of ancient warfare just absolutely captivated me as a child, and ever since.
Since you've found you have to use both hands to get the pilum out, does it seem reasonable that it was done in the middle of a fight? I suppose if you could fall back to behind your front line, drop your shield, and pull the pilum out, that could be a thing, but since we're talking a short-range weapon, I'd think getting a pilum in your shield would be followed quite quickly by getting a charging Roman all up into your grill.
Here's another option: you're charging a Roman formation, the Romans toss their pila at you. The long metal shaft penetrates your shield, but doesn't poke you. HOWEVER! The wooden handle falls downward (especially if there's a bit lead ball there), the back end stabs into the ground, and not only is your own forward charge stopped (and everyone behind you charging has to go around you or smack into you), but as your forward momentum drives the butt of the pilum into the ground, the wooden peg breaks, turning the whole combination of shield and flopping pilum into a mess designed to trip you and your buddies. This would seem to be a great way to break up a charging formation, or at least remove the shields of the front line of a formation being charged.
I'm really curious to hear how the Romans dealt with this issue. It must have happened repeatedly, considering that civil wars appeared to be the national pastime.
Those are some pretty reasonable assumptions.
Exactly the point, its more to render a shield useless, and even like you said your own momentum could drive you to stab yourself in the pilum..
this is a great video. Nobody seemingly ever thought to think about how people would remove a pilum from their shields. As i said on Todd's video, we also know that Romans used their pilum like spears at times, as thrusting weapons. It would be pretty worthless for them to snap when they stabbed somebody. And for all we know, the wooden peg was just a cost saving measure, that created a rumor.
it was because the pilum were often reused during a campaign, and needed constant repair. a shaft would break, a tip would bend, and then two would be combined into one. During this remanufacturing process,, it would be easier to use a wood peg to make a nice tight fit, than to carefully spend all day trying to get a perfect rivet fit,, because if the iron rivets weren't really well made then the tip would wobble on the wood shaft. (just what I heard,, no sources sorry)
I tend to agree the wood peg was either a cost saving or field repair. After all, the hilt of a katana is held on by a wooden peg and it is expected to NOT break..
I think perhaps with the aid of a piece of cord with a knot at the end placed near the tail end of the Pilum, wrapped around the throwing hand would extend the range of these weapons significantly. Much like the Woomera of the Australian Aborigines or the Atlatl. It could have doubled as a sling. I have tried it and it works well.
The pegs breaking on impact reducing the impact force on the receiver is something I had thought about, but I don't know how significant of a difference it would make
Not that much, when it works. The problem then becomes getting a peg that does not break on throwing but does on hitting. There are several options that can be used to do thst but break on attempted removal might be better. With the Romans now charging then you want the pilum out fast or you have to retreat or discard the shield. Tha latter is a very bad option.
Good point.
Big heavy wooden pole is there to increase momentum to improve penetration. If it breaks to early it wastes big part of that energy.
With ancient technology it might have been difficult to make it break just at the right moment.
huge. if the pilum would break then a lot of force would be lost.
The difference would be pretty significant, not so much due to the energy spent for breaking the peg, but the wooden shaft would most likely angle and slap against the shield instead of pushing the tip further through the shield with its momentum.
I would think they just eliminated the metal to make the thing cheaper. Better design
I love the thought process here, asking questions and real world testing instead of making assumptions.
Great video matt! As a student of archeology, Ancient India and roman history too, your videos are absolutely fun and informative to watch..cheers from Mumbai!🙂
Glad you like them!
The fact that Tod's tests actually showed up a problem with shear forces sometimes breaking the peg when actually being thrown, in sliding designs designed to break on impact, rendering the pilum useless for its primary purpose, I think lends even more weight to your interpretation.
Yes, and absolute 100% credit to Tod, he tested this idea extensively and his tests led me to these conclusions. I'm hugely grateful that they tried out that idea.
The problem is to design the peg, so that it breaks at a certain force. IMHO this is not easy with wood. Other materials should be better.
Maybe it was only a part of the good tradition of bad ideas, each generation of soldiers has to deal with.
Some further considerations. Roman soldiers in the time of Caesar and Augustus carried multiple kinds of pila, both heavy and light. The lighter ones were intended to be thrown first at longer range. Then the heavier pila were thrown right before contact to break up an enemy on the charge. The heavier pila could also be used as spears in hand especially in close formation against cavalry.
Useful
Tod found that tuning the peg to break on impact but not on throwing is difficult if not impossible - so this makes sense
Note if you want something pointy to throw far ... do not use an Olympic javelin - they are notoriously known to be hobbled to not go far ... they have been repeatedly redesigned to not go too far so they can be thrown safely inside the track of an Olympic stadium
That's relatively recent (as in my lifetime). As throwers got closer and closer to 100m the chances of skewering some poor sod running the 10k or whatever got higher so they were nerfed.
@@darkwaveatheist I went to check this as my dad always told me they were hobbled after an incident. Turns out it still happens ever few years that runners or judges get impaled! I think it just comes with the sport and the unpredictability of wind direction changes etc. Why people still stand in the area it is being thrown I have no clue.
Omg! I didn't expect to be really excited about a small wooden peg right now!
i love Matts' thinking out of the box, and important factors to be considered in these experimental and historical purposes..and the innuendos ;)
I've been around these arguments since childhood, and think this:: the roman pilum was not supposed to break at all. using wood rivets makes it easier, when working the pilum in a hurry (for example field repairs) to make a nice tight fit. The iron rivet is strong, and the wood rivet is strong ENOUGH in tandem with the iron rivet, and the wood can be more easily sized to be a snug fit meaning no loosey goosey tips. The pilum wasn't bending to keep people from throwing it back,, the romans threw the pilum right before they charged. The CHARGE was to prevent people from throwing it back. The pilum would get stuck in shields and the ground and such, and during the resulting fray, any shafts that were sticking up at some angle would get trampled down, and because the tips were stuck in shields or in the ground, they would get bent.
Makes sense to me. I think a mass produced weapon for the Roman army to take on campaigns would be over engineered, not something with a finely tuned and unreliable breaking point. I really enjoy Tod's testing though.
@@ironpirate8 well there's fair argument for "crinkle points" as an engineering concept,, after all we want our cars to be really good, but prefer not to be killed by them. So it's not as though the logic is necessarily flawed. Also,, battles weren't GENERALLY one battle after another, this did happen but very often battles were a lot of diplomacy until a single engagement and then it would be over.
Your argumentation makes more sense than the sliding socket version Todd has been testing. I do also wonder if it was also a cost cutting measure. I will admit I don't know what the logistics and cost would have been and if one less metal rivet would have been any cheaper with wood instead of iron but I do think it also makes sense that it would be cheaper.
Depending on the scale of production, doing away with a single fitting could absolutely yield huge savings in labor and resources.
brilliant idea, thank you
This idea is the only one that makes sense in my mind as well. Really enjoyed Tods experiments, but the breaking idea was bothersome, but extraction as the breaking point...like it.
Well thought out. I agree with you sir.
I believe you have a grasp on this subject.
Perfectly reasonable and logical. Nice research and conclusion.
Thank you for the video ⚔️
the Pilum will be a great weapon to use against the plate armour later in history since it is compact stiff and it has a thickened head allowing it to penetrate hard surfaces effectively furthermore the metal but cap on the other side of the shaft can also function as a percussive weapon in closer combat
I don't *think* (we can test of course!) that the pilum has much realistic chance of getting through late medieval plate armour with any sort of reliability. I have thrown them through 1.5mm mild steel plate, so I guess it is possible, but most opponents the Romans were facing did not have any sort of plate armour, only mail or scale at most.
Excellent video Matt! And really good points! One idea I did get about the wooden peg I did thought while watching this how about it was introduced for maintance and repair reasons? For making repairing pilum easier and faster, cutting cost in mass produce and or you wouldn't need to carry so many possible extra ones in campaing? Anything easing the maintanance is always big bonus and you can make new wooden pegs from scratch much easier than metal rivets.
Interesting (& well argued) take. Having seen what happened to tod's pilum with wooden peg when it was thrown hard (spoiler alert! it broke on launching), your idea seems like a pretty reasonable & logical explanation for why this was done. It'd be great to find some archeological evidence of them.
One of the main problems with the archaeological samples is that they are usually far from complete, often missing the tang/rivet section from what I have seen.
@@scholagladiatoria yeah I think the conditions that preserve wood, rust away the iron, & conditions that preserve iron, rot away the wood (from what I've heard). I'm guessing that a lot of finds are "used" pilla too, that've been thrown & broken, (with the iron salvaged & the wooden shaft left behind). Still, it'd be lovely to have that one one-in-a-million complete find, to see the exact construction etc.
@@scholagladiatoriathe thinnest pieces of metal are the first to go, so are the least preserved so rivets, and tangs
When i mention the word pilum to my neighbours cat, he gets in his chariot and disappears.
You all need to get together for those next videos 😊
I think everyone (mostly) forgets that the pilum is a killing tool, and get wrapped up in the idea of not being able to throw them back.
This is a very good reminder that a weapon's primary reason for being is to kill.
9:40 Actually, only if you look at the javelins that were used about 45 years ago, nowadays the sport javelins are designed to not be thrown as far (they moved the center of gravity so that it's much harder to throw over 80 meters - and before that in 1984 the record was over 100m [104,8], there was risk that the thrower could eventually reach the stands and injure someone in the crowd, hence the decision to modify javelin to prevent that).
Truth
Fascinating!
I personally think that the wooden pegs, if thy where actually used, where just for cost savings- strong enough for the job when combined with one iron rivet but cheaper than using 2 of them.
Yeah this sounds like quartermaster saving money with a good "explanation". Oh Yeah dropping the nail makes this better.
By the way, we have nails for sale over at the trading post...
The Military Industrial Complex has never considered cost saving. That's what taxes are for.
I think it's because repairing two iron pegs is harder to make a tight fitting pilum shaft. If you use a wood peg, it's easy to make a very tight peg, so that the tip doesn't wobble.
@@act.13.41 You confuse what you produce and what price you ask for. Militaries rarely buy the best, they also consider what they can buy in bulk and can get mass produced. And with the Marian reforms we are talking a transition away from citizen soldiers obligated to buy their own kit to soldiers equipped by the state.
Corruption alone would prefer cheaper gear.
@@mangalores-x_x I was being facetious, as I don't see this as a cost savings measure at all. 😀
As far as the dangling stick impeding walking and fighting, the pilum is much more obstructive when it is whole and imparting more leverage on the shield/body.
There were some potatoes in the kitchen. The wife said, "PILUM!"
Good argument for the cause Matt.
This makes wayyyyyyy more sense!
I've always wondered if the pilum bending and flopping downwards was ALSO so a roman could disarm his opponent of his shield by stomping on the pilum shaft....
.....It would definitely account for the pilum shaft being bent, if a Roman stomped on it.
This makes a lot of sense. Deadly when used especially in romain lines and if blocked with shields a dibilerating issue to pull out or drop your shield.
Something about "I don't think the primary purpose of the pilum is to break" cracked me up
A shield that is stuck by a pilum can be reversed so that the spear point sticks toward the Roman aggressor. If so it would be necessary to break off the wooden shaft in order to do so. A wooden peg would make that extraction easier.
I find this video and discussion fascinating as I do with all of Matt's productions. I think I'm
missing something in your comment. Missing something seems to be my stock and trade.
Disregarding the time and danger of removing ones shield from arm and hand during
ranged, CQC or melee and reversing it how does one hold the reversed shield and still
swing an offensive weapon?
It's one of those "yes and..." tools. The design is for going through shields and hitting the user. Yes, of course, and... if it doesn't kill the person with the shield, it should make the shield un usable, yes and, it shouldn't be able to be used against the thrower's force, yes and... This is something that hasn't been talked about yet. You and Tod do fantastic work (keep it up!), what you guys are exploring is if the the Romans are on the attack, throwing pila into stationary targets but I think the truly devastating "yes and" is, that if you, as a Gaul, Parthian, Briton, etc.. or someone of the wrong Family is charging into a storm of these, and it doesn't hit your body. If you were walking or running, the spear's end will flop down into the ground, digging in, making it into a stake, stopping you flat, or tumbling you, and doing all that bending of the shaft stuff. That wooden peg might just be a guarantee. Tod's videos showed that even with the peg breaking with the throw, the spears were still planting themselves into, if not through the shields. If you have a boss shield, maybe you could just let go, not so if strapped on across your arm. What happens? Slammed in the face with your shield, injured wrist, arm or shoulder? What about the guy who was running right behind you? Matt, Thank you for spending so much time, money and effort in all that you do! Keep Exploring! Keep Teaching!
One note: It was in this period where the pilum started getting a pegged construction in the first place. Before that everyone used the more universal socketed version, often with a barbed head. Ofc in the 3rd century the Romans would return to a socketed version.
ISTR recall, that Todd mentioned something about having a elongated hole in the shank. If that hole is the riveted front hole in the shank, and the front rivet goes through the front part of the elongated hole, then the rivet word take most of the load from throwing the spear and from the impact, while the rear wooden peg, would take most of the load, when trying to pull the spear out of a shield. If both holes in the shank are elongated, and the rivet runs through the front of the front hole and the wooden peg through the rear of the rear hole, that would be even more true.
Fun fact about olympic javelins. In the mid 80s they changed the design to fly shorter distances because athletes were managing to throw it past the end of the javalin field.
damn , Athletes too OP
From what i gathered, only one peg was a wooden one, that means there is still one metal one holding it all together when someone attempts to wiggle it free..so what is the advantage here exactly ? If these two parts do not separate in the end ? Will it fold in on itself when thrown or smthn and thats why it can't be thrown back ?
Because the iron shank would be flopping around, pivoting at the one remaining rivet.
@@scholagladiatoria So it would just fold like a swiss knife ? ok cool ^^.
Interesting viewpoint. For what it's worth my take on the pilum is that it's main purpose was to disrupt an enemy formation, either through casualties, and/or making the enemies shields difficult to use, which would leave the targets vulnerable to the impact of the oncoming gladius and scutum wielding legionaries. Assuming a maximum range for the heavy pilum of, say 10 meters, I can't really see an enemy having enough time to even think about getting the thing out of his shield. And given that the sole source for the wooden peg is, well, post-mairan buy some considerable years, I'm tending to thing some pencil-necked Roman historian just made it up.
You made sense. I think your right.
"Due to unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances, our supplies of iron studs are severely compromised. In order to save iron, all pilun must now use one wooden peg" - the missing first half of the message
Fantastic
Thank you! Cheers!
@@scholagladiatoria what about binding it with cord through the hole string cord leather?🤔
I always thought that the idea of the pilum "bending" was more of just an optical illusion in the fact that the weight of the shaft would be sufficient enough that when its part way though a shield, the shaft side flops down (so everything including the metal portion is straight, just when you're looking at it from the throwers point of view, the shaft of the pilum is angled down, making it look like its bent)
As for the wooden peg? because there is a collar on the pilum if the wooden peg was broken at any point, there's still 2 points of contact keeping it straight so it might not necessarily become unthrowable but perhaps it would take out some of the "punch" dependant on if the collar can withstand the shock when it hits the target when its thrown back with a broken peg as it may come off through leverage or something
or it could be bollocks or it could be religious (the usual cop out to "exotic" things)
This sounds like a good explanation. The bending may have been a positive emergent property resulting from the desire to penetrate deeply. I might be wrong, but the penetration with a "weak" and long point might be more successful in wood/leather shields than in ones made from steel or bronze.
My argument is, that the wooden peg was not supposed to break at all. It obviously did, sometimes when thrown by the enemy, but mostly during practice. What were the centurions supposed to say then?
"Oh, well, guys. We give you crappy weapon, because we decided to save a few pennies by replacing an iron peg with a wooden one."
Or:
"See guys how clever it is? You throw it once or twice and it breaks, which means it will never be thrown back at you!"
"Nah, the wooden peg was just to save money."
- Roman Supply officer.
Ah yes, another video about the Roman era! I've been preoccupied with the 17th and 18th centuries lately, but I still love me some ancient warfare!
I think you may be right about the wooden peg, but Tod's video show it may have been an option, it could have been an idea which as you said reduce the primary role of a pilum, but if the iron breaking off from the wood that would very hard to remove.
I agree with your assessment. As a career soldier, the primary and overriding requirement of a weapon is to kill or incapacitate your enemy. It's fairly obvious that the iron end is designed for penetration. Anything else isn't even secondary, it's tertiary.
By Jove, he's onto something!
thegn theand tested this several years ago. Interesting video as far as i remember
you can also save (on a large scale) a lot of iron by replacing the one of the pins with a wooden one
I remember learning that the metal shaft (especially with the lead weights attached!) was meant to render the enemy's shield unusable, by pulling it down.
It makes sense to me in a battle formation (rather than one on one) that the tactical impact of a weapon that either kills through penetration or puts a serious dent into a defensive formation by forcing their shields down or making them much harder to use, allowing for the melee weapons to break that formation could be quite formidable.
That being said, the Roman Empire lasted for centuries, so it's save to assume that their weapons and tactics changed and evolved over time, especially when facing long term opponents (like the Parthans), who would also change and develop to adapt to their Roman counterparts. So it seems unlikely that *one* singular purpose of a weapon would dominate long term (very basic things like *swords stab good* aside, of course).
One more thing to add: Battles at the time were often (most of the time?) decided by who managed to keep formation and who turned to run. So a devastating attack on a suddenly faltering frontline could probably decide the outcome of entire battles …
Good theory, makes sense to me!!
The difficulty with the peg theory is that two distinct versions of pilum would need to be on the battlefield and not get mixed up by those using them in the heat of battle.
For what its worth, I completely agree with this assessment. A weapon that has a chance of breaking, or rendering itself useless while being employed (remember in Todd's video, some pegs actually broke when thrown) does not make military sense.
Its far more reasonable to suppose that these wooden pegs - if they were used at all - were a cost-saving, or weight-saving, measure. And maybe the fact that it breaks so easily was why they didn't continue to use them.
I saw Tods film and i was imagining 100s of broken pilum of the battlefield on the enemies side .Wouldn't that be useful if they could all be made to work again within seconds ? Well it can hire a dozen boys with different sized wooden pegs to go around and collect them put the pegs in then hand out the pillum to there own guys ..We know that back then if there was a way they would find it ..Plus i agree with you about the spear needs to penetrate as much as possible ..Can you imagine the Brits laughing when they see Romans spears breaking on impact there not going to say those sneaky Italians made it so that we cant throw them back .Ok just snap the metal bit of and use it as a club .Thatl still probably be better than what the Brits had as weapons
I had always imagined the pilum to penetrate the shield (a wound or kill would be a Brucie Bounus) and the weight of the pilum embedded in the shield would be too much to carry and the opponent ditch the sheild. Or the iron shaft would bend when the weight of the pilum forced the rear end into the ground.
That wasn't a point that I was thinking about but it does make sense. But I was also wondering, could they be like the Norse spearhead and simply be detachable pins?
Proper testing should have the pilum thrower in full kit, (lorica segmentata or lorica squamata, tunic, belt, gladius and pugio scabbarded, and helmet) and wearing caligae.
To the best of my knowledge, the wooden peg isn’t attested as one of the ‘Marian Reforms’ of the Roman military, it’s just one reference by one writer about one battle many, many years after it occurred
Also, as far as I recall, that writer didn’t refer to the effectiveness of the ‘innovation’
So either Marius was visited by he ‘Good Ideas Fairy’ or the writer just thought it sounded like a cool idea
One thing to remember about those old writings is that they didn't have a lot of concern for the truth. A lot of it was just writing cool things about people you like and bad things about people you don't like. You don't want to immediately discount everything they say but you also want to take it with a huge grain of salt.
We can see with arrows, whether regular target shooting or penetration testing, that arrows that broke on impact lose a lot of their damage potential
everybody always forgets that the romans did indeed use javelins, quite a lot, during the republic! the Velites were the skermishers of the roman army and they carried a small round shield, a gladius and lots of javelins to harrass the enemy before the heavy infantry kicked in. they were usually young (or poor), light and fast, no armor at all. the greek version was the peltast.
the sport was obviously created as a training for that job, just like archery in england in the middle ages, and basically all the folks of the mediterranean area used javelins and slings, since the bronze age!
of course by the time of the marian reforms that kind of warfare was obsolete, hence the reform, i'm sure they tried quite a lot of new things in that time frame.
Maybe there was just a shortage of iron rivets at some place & time, so one wooden peg was used to stretch the supply. It would have been a rare situation, but one historian seized on it.
Ah, what do you know! I suggested the exact same thing on a comment to Todd's latest video! I was concerned that the whole breaking action might somewhat lower the efficacy of the pilum.
Your argument makes sense to me. Nice video!
Would a wooden peg even break, og there is a ferrule like the one on Matt's pilum? ... and even if it broke, would said ferrule not keep the pilum together such that it could be thrown back??
I tend to agree more with Matt's interpretation than with Tod's. It is a GREAT thing, that they work together and do so many diverse analyses of ancient weapons and sources about their use. Keep it up👍👍👍
If you care so much about them not being thrown back, you could make the head held in by friction alone with a socket. Like Matt said, that seems to be a tertiary priority at best
What were those wooden spikes that roman legionnaires carried, they are like an ancient czech hedgehog or dragon teeth, seems like a useful tool to quickly make a fortified position.
Great video. My thoughts, are IF it did happen, it was likely in a specific scenario. We always imagine the set piece battles with the tight formations, but it could be a different scenario. Pure speculation but perhaps they were expecting to be besieged in the next day or two and had plenty of pila but did not want the ones thrown at the enemy from the walls to be used against them.
Yes! Not only were the Romans holding a scutum, but they somehow managed to throw two of them before charging the enemy line. How did they hold the extra pilum? How did they ready it for throwing?
The extra pilum is held in the shield hand
The pegs might be fine for either scenario but what was Roman logistics like? How well would they survive(vs the iron rivets) if you left the pilum stored in an armory for a few months under not ideal condition then transported to the battlefield under even less ideal conditions? Would you end up with a situation where these work as intended during testing but fail on the battlefield?
I don't think the wooden pin thing would have caught on for one reason, pilum were generally used for shock and charge tactics; throwing into the enemy so it's hitting him as you draw your sword and charge. The only person you are impairing by making it difficult to pull out of a shield is whoever is left on the battlefield after the battle. And I don't think you should modify your equipment with the idea in mind that you will be defeated.
I need a video for what to do with my spears in the house wr do I keep them... I made 4 and I feel dirty putting them in the garage. Love ur shit from Texas.
The problem I have with the peg is that the Pilum loses its utility as a weapon with it.
A Pilum is still an effective spear even if it’s more optimised for throwing.
Having it collapse on impact robs it of this melee utility when needed.
How well would a weak wooden peg hold up on the march and in the everyday work of a soldier?
Not very well at all, I should think. But they would be easy to replace.
Sure, but how predictable would the need for replacement be? If charged by Gauls while collecting grain you really would not like having to check your pegs.
@@scholagladiatoria My speculations are inspired by your youtube videos about everyday practical armor and weapon wear.
I can't imagine that the recipient of a shower of pila would have time to even attempt an extraction given the short range of the weapon & the closing speed of the Romans who had discharged them.
I’m wondering about the variation of the pilum over time and how ideas spread. You mentioned they varied a lot but was that slowly over time or could a battle have a variety of designs all used at the same time? Were the design differences regional? How difficult was it to get a design change implemented? Did it have to be approved from the top or was it up to the individual soldier? Sometimes ideas spread and stick around even if they’re wrong. I think a talk about how ideas and tech spread in the roman army would be super facilitating, if we know such things.
Do you know of any surviving wooden shafts? Tod’s pro pilum thrower, Michael?, mentioned modern javelin are aerodynamically shaped for lift in flight and I wonder if similar would improve pilum flight characteristics.
I think getting a hinged pilum stuck in my shield would be a nasty curveball, especially right before combat lines meet. There might be a useful novelty effect like when you had people spar with the flails. It might be the novelty effect might outweigh the awkwardness of using the weapon. Or maybe training to deal with novel tactics takes away training time from conventional things. The threat of novel makes your enemy not as well prepared as they could’ve been for the normal, bread and butter stuff.
Can’t wait to see what Tod comes up with next!
Another video about shafts, thrusting and penetrating. Love it.
The whole "pilim to disable shields" thing smells about the same as "gladius only for stabbing"
6:53 I really want to agree with this, but did you see the bit where it punctured the helmet? I don't think there is an issue here with penetration.
I did, that was great! But with even less chance of breaking on impact, even more of those throws are going to penetrate better on average. This is a numbers game with hundreds/thousands of men.
I totally agree
I have all sorts of reservations about the wooden pin story, many of which you cover. To me it sounds like one of those things a historian (in this case Plutarch, over a hundred years after the fact) finds a vague reference to and then gives way too much weight. The question that stands foremost in my mind is 'when were the opponents supposed to have the time to return the thrown pilum?' If pila were thrown just before the charge, then the opponents were way too busy dealing with charging Romans to salvage and return thrown weapons. It seems like a solution for a non-existent problem.
I do see a problem in that the wooden pin would have to be a certain hardness in breaking properly w/ all that force upon impact in Todd's method, but w/ your design, it would have to have an easier breaking point as pulling the pilum out of a shield or body would be significantly less force on the peg than that of on impact. Therefore, the peg would break on both scenarios w/ the easier to break peg (on impact or removing from shield).
If I am not mistaken it is the direction of the forces generated that is supposed to make the difference. The relatively straight on forces of the throw or the impact v.s. the twisting (shearing?) of trying to remove it. That being said I think as someone put it above that this was someone that got attacked by the good idea fairy. And the idea was tested and abandoned.
@@samualaddams705 Possibly, but the relative force to break vs twisting still has to survive the straight on impact. That's quite a bit given the weight of the pilum behind it.🙂
@@jimspetdragons3737 Sure just another reason I think someone had a visit from the good idea fairy. I think they tested it and said nope. Although one with a pin went through a helmet !!! I don't think they had the time to cat and mouse around with it in a fight.
@@samualaddams705 Yep. Best drop the contraption and stick w/ the less complicated wooden stick.🙂
If a line of legionnaries throws 100 of those at the same time at a charging enemy, maybe 1 or 2 enemies at most will stop to recover a javelin and throw it back.
I doubt Romans were thinking that much about that possibility when designing it, more like "how do we make this thing as effective as possible at stopping their charge ".
Some accounts suggest at leat 2 pilum, would it be reasonable to suggest one was more hollow and lighter and ment for longer range, less damage more psychology, then if the enemy keeps running at you short range heavy pilum to finish them of? I could be totally wrong but it's plausible
I love how nobody actually read _the Life of Marius_ Chapter 25: "...His design was that the javelin, after striking the enemy's shield, *should not stand straight out* but that the wooden peg should break, thus allowing the shaft to bend in the iron head and trail along the ground, being held fast by the twist at the point of the weapon."
The "not throw it back"-part is purely an addition by historians.
If you consider the actual quote it'd seem a lot likelier that the idea was to have legionaires not face the end of their own pila hindering their charge.
8 hours ago
There is a possibility put forward by some authors that the pilum, if it struck a shield but didn’t kil or wound the carrier, would bend down touching the ground. The Roman legionary could then step on the shaft jerking the shield down and giving an opening for the gladius to the neck. At least one source describes the front ranks of the legion as being covered in their opponents blood. Sorry a bit gruesome.
love the videos about heavy deep penetration objects, cheers Matt
Should be fairly easy to test.. it certainly sounds reasonable!
To echo other comments: if the pilum was a fairly short range weapon, it would have been used just before a massive charge. It is doubtful whether whether anyone would have the time to try to extract it, before the full force of scuta and gladii hit them... ?
Both are convincing but...... I'm gonna haf'ta side with Todd here? You're right that deep penetration but the "break" doesn't really manifest itself until all forward momentum has been used up. Me thinks you're both right!
I guess the wooden peg that replaced the iron rivet was simply for cost reduction or for saving the more precious iron.
Is it a fact that the Roman front guard used two pila.
If you pierce into to the enemy fine. If not, his shield has to be abandoned. Now use the second one as a spear. But once you’re in close combat, the holder can forsake it and take up the gladius.
All three procedures would have been announced with whistles and voice commands.
‘Legionaires! Throw pila!’
‘Legionaires! Scuta & Pilum’
‘Legionaires! Gladii!’ Etc.
Possibly totally wrong, but seems practical.
Yea, your theory makes more sense than Tod's original idea. I had something back there in my mind nagging to me when I watched Tod's video. I just didn't try to formulate it to a real thought. Lazy me.
Sorry, Tod.
ive read that the first purpose of the pilum was to render the shield useless, if it hit the person behind it is good but not its first purpose.
And it would make sense, of course if it kills the better but if you think about it it will almost 100% of the chance render a fighters shield useless when embedded, inbthe chaos and fury of combat a soldier would not take the time to drop his shield down, grab a pilum with both hands (therefore putting down his sword as well) and being completely vulnerable proceed to pull the pilum out of his shield..