Roman Infantry Tactics: Why the Pilum and Not a Spear? | Hacker News Reader

Roman Infantry Tactics: Why the Pilum and Not a Spear?

acoup.blog

25 pointsgostsamo12 comments

A very common preconception is that the pilum was meant to bend after piercing a shield, thereby disabling it. If that's what you were expecting based on the title, the article takes a couple dozen paragraphs before it gets to the point:

> ...it is often asserted that the purpose of the long shank was to bend on impact, making the weapon impossible to throw back. Which is tricky because our sources don’t quite actually say this...[my] own view is that bending was possible, but was not the purpose of the long-shank design ...[which is] both shield penetrating (it can strike a man behind a shield) and shield disabling (the weapon is really heavy and quite hard to get out of a shield easily even if it doesn’t bend).

These kind of speculations are so strange. How do he know that the Roman soldiers didn't use the javalins as spears? Like, he speculates to much.

I mean, that's kind of what historians have to do. They have to extrapolate. Any event that happens in the past, you kind of have to. Even in relatively recent past. But yeah, I had the same question as well.

I am sure, a Roman soldier, in the centuries that the Pilum was in use, must have used one in a thrust and either killed or injured an enemy soldier. But based on the historical evidence he has, the Pilum was intended to be and probably mostly used as a throwing weapon.

That would be like a future historian asking whether WWI soldiers used their single-bolt rifles as clubs rather than as projectile weapons.

Sure ye agree.

> used their single-bolt rifles as clubs rather than as projectile weapons.

Bayonette charges were a thing though?

Not by the day of the magazine-fed rifle, no.

I didn't imply it was a good idea.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonet

However, the article notes it was mainly a way of "sabre rattling".

Bayonet charges were done with magazine fed rifles in WW2 and the Korean war.

Author answered in the comments [1]:

> You can use a pilum as a thrusting spear, but it isn’t particularly well designed for the role (weight distribution is all wrong, the long shank is fragile (bends) in ways you don’t want, etc). If the plan was to do that, you’d just do what most Gauls and Spaniards seem to do: carry one javelin and one thrusting spear. And in the event, our sources are quite consistent that when they imagine Roman heavy infantry in close combat, they are using their swords, not the pilum. So while that’s a possible use and it probably happened from time to time, I don’t think it was a normal use.

[1] https://acoup.blog/2023/11/24/collections-roman-infantry-tac...

Thanks ok so he have thought about it.

Dunno. It is hard to reason about. My gut feeling is that close combat sucks so much that you'd really want two chances to throw the javalin versus the random pleb robber you need to arrest. But you can also use them as spear, since sword close also sucks.

Most encounters was maybe sabre rattling contests anyways. Like footballs huligans kicking in the air towards each other.

I read Romans had a height disadvantage against Germans, etc. So Roman strategy was to knock enemies down with the shield and stab up close. Like Mike Tyson vs taller heavy weight boxers.

The shield mitigates the risk of close combat.

You can easily try it by making one and trying it out.

I mean, certainly you can use the handle of a screwdriver as a hammer (we've all been there), but just by attempting it for a bit you quickly realize the purpose of the tool you've been handed.

What's more interesting is the insistence of modern folks that ancient warriors were very happy standing around and being stabbed to death, and that anyone with a bit of sense wouldn't avail themselves of a standoff weapon. As the author points out, the "highland charge" of the gunpowder era exploited the fact that lines of infantry tend to not want to get stabbed, and tend to rout rather quickly at the prospect.

Having your lines disordered or broken when the enemy has already closed in probably would induce panic the requiste panic quite quickly.

I think Caesar’s infantry used them as spears to turn back Pompey’s cavalry at the battle of Pharsalus.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com