Roman Pilum - ScholaGladiatoria Mini Documentary 

You thought he was talking about duration?

Is this a low key predecessor to Matt's first book?

Next video: 44:59

But I like the longer videos. The longer the better! ^_^

Sorry to be offtopic but does any of you know of a tool to get back into an Instagram account?? I was stupid forgot my account password. I love any assistance you can give me.

Many thanks.

Good to hear, thanks!

@@scholagladiatoria You're welcome.

Agreed!

Same. Excellent video that probably required a lot of research and editing, so let's thank Matt for the hard work. 100% worth it (as a viewer), very informative and clear. That's the type of content I came for and will gladly share.

I second that statement (OP). This format is great.

Can really penetrate deeply if it snapped Ouch

There is a lot of evidence that the Romans used the pila in melee combat as thrusting spears (so they had to be sturdy): 1) Caear's writings about Alesia said he had his troops first use pilums as spears/pikes before switching to swords. "omissis pilis gladiis rem gerunt" (with their javelins set down they pressed the attack with their swords). -Gallic Wars Book VII 2) Plutarch describes Caesar's men at Pharsalus jabbing upwards at the faces of Pompey's cavalry with their javelins. "And this was what actually came to pass; for they could not endure the upward thrust of the javelins..." -"The Life of Julius Caesar" by Plutarch 3) Plutarch in Life of Antony 45 talks about Mark Antony's legions using their pila to thrust at Parthians in melee. In this incidence, pilas would definitely be of primary importance and much more useful in melee than their short swords, 4) We have reliefs on Roman artwork showing Romans using pila in melee combat stabbing at Dacian infantry. See Tropaeum Traiani 5) Arrian in Array against the Alans (2nd century AD) talks about legionary heavy infantry equipped with an iron shank weapon used to thrust at horses: "And the front four ranks of the formation must be of spearmen, whose spearpoints end in thin iron shanks. And the foremost of them should hold them at the ready, in order that when the enemies near them, they can thrust the ironpoints of the spears at the breast of the horses in particular. Those standing in second, third an fourth rank of the formation must hold their spears ready for thrusting if possible, wounding the horses and killing the horsemen and put the rider out of action with the spear stuck in their heavy body armour and the iron point bent because of the softness." -Array against Alans by Arrian

The plural of "pilum" is "pila".

Err... as point out in the video, it depends on the pilum.

Good addition to the conversation. Personally I like the idea that I read, that the Triarii had spears in the back rank to present a wall of points to deter any units from routing, since they would have to run into a wall of their own spears. Probably not real, but the idea tickles some absurdist part of my brain.

One place they did see major use was with cavalry, who employed their _hastae_ as lances.

@@yetanother9127 Makes sense, but I'm surprised they didn't have a dedicated cavalry spear. I would think cavalry would want a longer spear, in the nine to ten foot range.

Longer spears more useful for horsemen did exist; they just weren't differentiated from infantry spears, both being referred to as _hastae._

AriasRequiem I think the tacit threat of “don’t you dare route and besmirch the Legion’s honor, or we’ll skewer you harder than the enemy will” was definitely one part of it-especially since the legions in that period were often a mix of career veteran soldiers and green ad-hoc conscripts, with the least experienced at the front. And in the earliest days of the maniple strategy, all the most elite/veteran fighters would have been far more experienced with phallanx combat than maniple combat, so it probably eased the transition significantly. I would argue that the main reason that the triarii were equipped with hastae, however, was that a phallanx of spears and shields is a just plain broken, easily exploitable tactic, with its only real weaknesses being time and location to set up properly and the need for more mobile units to protect their flanks. The maniple addresses those weaknesses and as such is a more versitile tactic, but by the time the principes (“vanguard”, least experienced first line) and hastati (literally “spearmen” even though they no longer used spears at this point, the veteran-but-still-young second line) were doing badly enough that they needed to send in the Triarii to save the day, they had had plenty of time to set up and the retreating forward ranks streaming past their flanks provided plenty of buffer in that regard.

deektedrgg That’s a horrific thought. I always tend to think of the “immediate” kill when a pilum punctures straight through, but put into that context, that’s a nasty way to go.

Why would you not be wearing armor?

@@duranpredur1098 Because you are to poor and most of Rome's Imperial enemies lacked the slave power and economic organization to make armor inexpensive for every fighting man. Most troops in imperial Rome's enemies just have a helmet and no real body armor..

I always imagine it hitting your hand and/or arm behind your shield. Effectively nailing them together. Now you're in horrible pain with a severely encumbered shield, a mostly useless shield arm, and lots of angry Romans coming at you.

@@duranpredur1098 Some Gallic tribes would usually wear only clothes or be naked sometimes wearing only war paint.

Always overheating in the heat of battle too.

Nearly sucked me in!

Only the privately owned ones ;-) The speed of the professionally used good ones was so incredible that for 10 times they became the fastest weapon of all. And an Italian and a Finn each got named champion of the world twice while using a certain variant.

L

Thanks. Unfortunately most of a day, as I had to research it all, check the facts and then write a kind of script. Not nearly as easy as talking at a camera about something I am more familiar with for 10 minutes!

Thanks! Good stuff though, this seems to have a real timeless, formal academic quality to it.

scholagladiatoria thank you for putting in the extra work. The visuals are very engaging and make the whole learning process a lot more enjoyable

Exalted to the ultimate penetration elation.

Ah the context of penetration.........

So the pilum throw was an ancient elongated pommel strike?

10:19

I for one thoroughly enjoy a good shaft-deep penetration after tossing my pilum.

Rare? No, lots of pila are bent, just out of the ones we found. We can only guess how common it was back in the day, but founding a bunch of bent ones, sometimes extremely bent like 45 degrees, makes it pretty plain that a long, thin, soft-metal (iron) shank at the end of a heavy javelin is... well, that's just physics, it would be weird if it didn't bend. You can call it a symptom or intent, but obviously no one minded this happened and didn't design for it to stop happening.

Puts the plumbata into utter shame and severe belittlement.

This is a good summary. Many uses, many tactics, versatile. 10,000 legionaries with 20,000 pilum between them would decimate in a few seconds the approaching force at close range, and then the second, third rank etc and so would throw. It's the ancient equivalent of a volley fire formation - later used with crossbows to the same effect - take out the armoured and bravest of the enemy and sow discord.

"Man going insane in his backyard over Bannerlord multiplayer loss"

Yep, there is a lot of evidence that the Romans used the pila in melee combat as thrusting spears (so they had to be sturdy), including: 1) Caear's writings about Alesia said he had his troops first use pilums as spears/pikes before switching to swords. "omissis pilis gladiis rem gerunt" (with their javelins set down they pressed the attack with their swords). -Gallic Wars Book VII 2) Plutarch describes Caesar's men at Pharsalus jabbing upwards at the faces of Pompey's cavalry with their javelins. "And this was what actually came to pass; for they could not endure the upward thrust of the javelins..." -"The Life of Julius Caesar" by Plutarch 3) Plutarch in Life of Antony 45 talks about Mark Antony's legions using their pila to thrust at Parthians in melee. In this incidence, pilas would definitely be of primary importance and much more useful in melee than their short swords, 4) We have reliefs on Roman artwork showing Romans using pila in melee combat stabbing at Dacian infantry. See Tropaeum Traiani 5) Arrian in Array against the Alans (2nd century AD) talks about legionary heavy infantry equipped with an iron shank weapon used to thrust at horses: "And the front four ranks of the formation must be of spearmen, whose spearpoints end in thin iron shanks. And the foremost of them should hold them at the ready, in order that when the enemies near them, they can thrust the ironpoints of the spears at the breast of the horses in particular. Those standing in second, third an fourth rank of the formation must hold their spears ready for thrusting if possible, wounding the horses and killing the horsemen and put the rider out of action with the spear stuck in their heavy body armour and the iron point bent because of the softness." -Array against Alans by Arrian

@@Intranetusa I like your 5th example shows how scary cavalry intent on charging was if the fourth rank at to be ready tohopefully give the final blows to the horse and horseman, the first 2 ranks are expected to get trampled haha, not equipping your infantry with some sort of polearm is almost retarded

The glaring sucess of Caesars army in routing pompeian cavalry at Pharsalus might not be so decidedly resting on using pilas in melee though. There are many examples of smaller cavalry force ovewhelming the opposing cavalry, when intermingled with groups of their own infantry of generally any kind and armament, which allowed them to gain an advantage quickly. Not keeping unengaged reserves and charging too far away from any available supporting units caused general rout and subsequent dissolution of their whole cavalry force, which ceased to exist as an efficient fighting force in short amount of time and with minimal losses for the opponent, if this could be supposed by extrapolation from more recent examples of such events.

@@dontbetrippin4575 Haha, ye...I wouldn't want to be in the first few ranks. The Romans usually adopted what works, so the core legions wouldn't have abandoned polearms such as the heavy thrusting spear if the pila wasn't also able to serve as a polearm/thrusting spear when the situation required.

Yeah, so the idea that all pila were this or that way, as some have been throwing around, saying they all bend or none bend, is ludicrous. Matt's points about reinforced pila are almost totally irrelevant as to how pila were used in other times and places, it shows that military doctrines were changing with time and place.

If that's how they were always used, why would Gaius Suetonius Paulinus have to explain it to seasoned legionaries? It is likely he is repeating common battle tactics to reiterate the importance, but it does suggest that there was an alternative mindset or instinct to overcome (and doesn't explain who actually had the pilum, or how many).

That makes sense. Spike sticks in shield, pilum hangs down, forward movement drives the butt spike into the ground, and the charging warrior's own momentum is what bends the pilum. Another idea I've read is of the thrower stepping onto the butt of the pilum that is stuck in the shield and using his weight to lever the enemy's shield downwards, leaving the enemy open to a gladius thrust.

Would need an extra hand, so maybe???

@@tomdegisi uh no. The gladius could be scabbarded, freeing a hand. Perhaps the second maniple could either defend the first, or deal with the embedded pilium, a bit after the fashion of the second rank augmenting the first in the Greek Phalanx.

Yes, it was built a LOT better. Matt mentioned in a comment in the video he first posted, of throwing the pilum, that it was very thick. Like, pilum vary a lot in thickness, but he got one thicker than the thickest. It's also some kind of mild steel, rather than iron with impurities. Despite all this, and throwing it into a straw mat, it still bent. Somehow, he concluded a thinner shank thrown by a stronger man into a shield would not bend.

​@Seeking Deliverance It was intended to be a multipurpose weapon that could be thrown or could also be used in melee. There are many accounts of the pila being used as a thrusting weapon in melee. Plutarch describes this in at least two different situation with Caesar's legions and Marc Antony's legions where pila are used to stab at cavalry. The Dacian War monument column built in Dacia itself has murals of the pila being used underhand to thrust against infantry. Arrian in Array against the Alans talks about 2nd century legions having a weapon with a "thin iron shank" being used to thrust against horses and the front ranks acting like spearmen. Caesar's writings about Alesia also says the pila were used like pikes before the legions switched to their swords.

I don't have a source for this, but I think there were defensive formations used by legionaries with the pila used as spears in the first and second rank to deter cavalry charges.

@@hazzardalsohazzard2624 Yes. Plutarch writes that pila were used as thrusting spears against cavalry in several different occasions in "Life of Caesar" and "Life of Antony."

ChristophInns well, they come up with design that requires significantly more iron for some reason.

Did you look at the pila in the video? Just the ones he showed had incredibly narrow shanks, and even his extra-heavy one ended up bending against straw (he somehow made it worse, taking it out). This wasn't an urban myth, but something attested by historians, and people with a knowledge of physics.

@@vanivanov9571 I agree that they would often bend on hard impact, but I don't think that was the goal in the design, simply what happens when they are made of iron instead of hardened steel. Steel would have been costly for weapons meant primarily to be thrown, and thus likely lost.