THEME: Rise of the legion

PILUM, HASTA, GLADIUS, AND SCUTUM

Weapons of the
early legions
Three centuries after the Servian reforms, we finally get
a glimpse of the arms and tactics of the Roman legion
that derives from reliable contemporary sources. The oc-
casion is the Battle of Asculum (279 BC), against Pyrrhus.

By Ross Cowan

F
or his description of the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC in
The Life of Pyrrhus, the biographer Plutarch consulted
the account of the Pyrrhic War by Hieronymus of Car-
dia. Hieronymus was a veteran of the Wars of the Suc-
cessors of Alexander the Great and a keen student of
military science; he drew on Pyrrhus’ Memoirs (Plutarch, Pyrrhus
21.8) and perhaps the king’s own work on tactics. Proxenus, the
historian attached to Pyrrhus’ court, informed the work of Diony-
sius of Halicarnassus (Roman Antiquities 20.10.2), and Dionysius
was utilised in turn by Plutarch (Pyrrhus 21.9).
Asculum was fought over two days. On the first day, the
Romans gave battle in rough terrain that favoured the ma-
noeuvrability of the manipular legion. Pyrrhus “was forced
into regions where his cavalry could not operate, and upon
a river with a swift current and wooded banks, so that his el-
ephants could not charge and engage the enemy”. The king
presumably made more use of his Italian allies, particularly
the Samnites, than his Epirote phalangites, but the Romans
clearly had the better of the fighting.
When night fell and the Romans had retired to their camp,
Pyrrhus sent a detachment to occupy the unfavourable
terrain. On the following day, the king offered battle on
level ground, where his cavalry and elephants
could operate freely and his hybrid
phalanx of Macedonian-type
pikemen, Italiote hop-
Relief from Satricum of
a Latin warrior equipped
with an aspis and kopis
(490–480 BC). His panoply
should be indicative of
that used by legionaries
of the Servian first class
in nearby Rome. Note the
thigh armour. Supplementa-
ry limb defences continued
to be used in Central Italy
into the fourth century BC.
© Dan Diffendale / Flickr
lites, and Samnite and Lucanian maniples
could advance en masse and unimpeded.
Pyrrhus and his companion cavalry were
positioned at the centre of the line, and the el-
ephants with their attendant corps of slingers
and archers were held in reserve. The two divi-
sions of the phalanx advanced first, and the Ro-
mans were desperate to defeat them before the
dreaded elephants were loosed. On the previ-
ous day, the Romans had fully exploited the
adaptability of the manipular legion to frustrate
Pyrrhus, sometimes advancing, sometimes re-
treating or performing flank marches, but now
they had to meet the phalanx head on. The
legionaries counter-charged, hurled their pila
(heavy javelins), and, “being anxious to repulse
the enemy’s infantrymen before their elephants
came up, they fought fiercely with their swords
against the sarissai (pikes), reckless of their lives
and thinking only of wounding and killing,
while caring nothing for what they suffered.”
But the Romans could not break the pha-
lanx or even force it back. Pyrrhus sensed his
moment and charged, followed by the ele-
phants. The Roman line was pushed back by
the king’s assault; leading from the front, Pyr-
rhus was wounded in the arm by a pilum.

Ancient Warfare XIV-2

40
Having learned at Heraclea (280 BC) that Ro-
man valour was useless against the monstrous
war elephants, the legionaries did not wait to
receive them but fled for camp (Plutarch, Pyr-
rhus 21.5–10; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ro-
man Antiquities 20.1–3; Frontinus, Stratagems
2.3.21; Polybius 18.28.10).
intended to punch through shield
or armour (Livy 9.19.7, 10.39.12)
and were unleashed in devastat-
ing volleys (Appian, Celtica 1.1).
Heavy pila might also be used like
thrusting spears, or to parry blows (Plutar-
ch, Camillus 40.3–4).

The pilum The hasta

The Romans would have employed a variety
of pila at Asculum. Since the seventh cen-
tury BC, the predominant type in Italy was
socketed (i.e. the means of securing the iron
shank to the wooden javelin shaft), but early
in the fifth century BC the spike-tang (with
collet) appeared, and the flat-tanged variety
arrived at the close of the fourth. An example
of the latter from Pomarico Vecchio may be a
relic of the Pyrrhic War.
Pila came in a variety of sizes. Shanks
could be long or short, thick
and heavy or slender. Some had
leaf- or kite-shaped heads, others
were barbed, while some shanks
simply tapered to needle-
like points (see AW
VI.4, XII.6). All were
The principal weapons of the three main
classes of the Servian legion were the has-
ta and the gladius (sword) (Livy 1.43.2-5).
In The Roman Republican Army: A Source-
book (2008), Michael Sage translates hasta
as “heavy thrusting spear”, but, considering
the nature of battle in central Italy in the ear-
ly Archaic period, where hoplite equipment
was used in combination with javelins, axes,
slashing swords, and even maces (Cowan
2013), it is likely that the Servian hasta was a
dual-purpose thrusting and throwing weap-
on suitable for close or open-order combat.
In the fourth and third centuries BC, the
Romans knew the hasta as a missile. Enni-
us, who served as an allied centurion during
the Hannibalic War, described “the hastati
scattering their hastae… a shower of iron”
(Top) Fresco from a Lucanian tomb
showing a duel between two soldiers
that is being judged by a sphinx.
In addition, a flute player and two
weeping women stand off to the side.
The fresco, which is from Paestum,
Italy, dates to ca. 340 BC.
© Carole Raddato / Flickr
(Bottom) King Pyrrhus of Epirus. The
expression ‘Pyrrhic victory’ derives
from his costly victories over the
Romans at Heraclea (280 BC) and
at Asculum (279 BC), where he was
wounded by a pilum.
© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

Detail from a lid of Praenestine cista show-

ing a youthful warrior advancing with a scutum
and hasta or javelin. The scabbard identifies his
x

sword as a gladius Gallicus. He wears a single

greave, but his lack of helmet and other armou
might suggest a Roman or Latin levis. r
Ancient Warfare XIV-2
© RHC Archive
41

Drawing of a miniature terracotta
model of a scutum from Vetulonia
(eighth century BC). Such shields
were used by the Romans from the
earliest times.
© RHC Archive
Restored painting from the Tomb of
the Fabii on the Esquiline (Rome) de-
picting episodes in the Samnite Wars
of the later fourth and early third
centuries BC. Roman legionaries and
Samnite warriors are equipped with
hastae and scuta, but the pose of
the combatant at the bottom
right suggests he is thrusting
with a sword.
© RHC Archive
Ancient Warfare XIV-2
42
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(Annals 281W). This fragment comes from
the eighth book of the Annals and concerns
the First Punic War (264–241 BC), when
the hastati (“spearmen”) were definitely
equipped with pila. It seems that hasta had
become synonymous with pilum.
In the tradition that came down to Livy
about the defeat of a Gallic warband in Latium
in 350 BC, prior to charging with swords, le-
gionary hastati and principes (“the best men”)
hurled pila and hastae at the enemy (Livy
7.23.8). They were screening a work party of
triarii (“third-line men”). The triarii were also
known as pilani. Varro believed they “were
those who fought with pila” (On the Latin Lan-
guage 5.89), but all other sources agree that
the triarii were always armed with spears.
However, pilum also means pestle, and so pi-
lani may describe the shape of their battle for-
mation (a column) and its function (to smash
the enemy). The triarii in the leading ranks cer-
tainly used their spears as thrusting weapons.
The column was a close-order formation, but
we cannot discount the possibility that those
positioned further back found space to launch
their hastae in the direction of the enemy
(Livy 8.8.12–14, 8.10.5–6).
The sarissa
When the Romans finally de-
feated Pyrrhus at Malventum
(275 BC), the principes were
temporarily equipped with
“cavalry spears held in the
middle with both hands”
(Dionysius of Halicarnas-
sus, Roman Antiquities
20.11.2). We might sup-
pose that the principes
were organised in
the manner of saris-
sa-armed phalan-
gites, but perhaps
the spears were in-
tended more as a
defence against Pyr-
rhus’ remaining el-
ephants. Either way,
the principes would
have dispensed with their
scuta (below). The long cav-
alry spears were presumably
borrowed from Rome’s Italic
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© Credit this
cavalry allies. At Hera-
clea, a Frentani squadron
commander named Oblacus
Volsinius charged Pyrrhus and,
holding his spear with both
hands, killed the king’s horse (Dio-
nysius of Halicarnassus, Roman An-
tiquities 19.12).
Gaesum and gladius
In the mid-fourth century BC, the gae-
sum, a Gallic variant of the pilum, was
part of the legionary arsenal (AW XII.6).
It was used by the unarmoured leves (Livy
8.8.5). They are not to be confused with the
later velites, who were equipped with light
javelins that could be thrown from a dis-
tance. The leves were the youthful elite of
the hastati and, for their heavy gaesa to be
effective against armoured opponents, they
were obliged to advance to right up to the
opposition. Their role appears to have been
to open battle by breaking up the leading
ranks of the enemy (Small 2000, 230). The
leves had disappeared from the legion by
the time of the Pyrrhic War, but their heroic
legacy lived on, symbolised by the gaesum,
which was awarded to legionaries for acts of
bravery (Polybius 6.39.3).
From the sixth to early fourth centuries
BC, the ‘Italic sword’, the central Italian vari-
ant of the cut-and-thrust hoplite xiphos, was
the typical gladius of the legionary, but the
cleaver-like kopis or machaira was an alter-
native. After the sack of Rome by the Gauls,
the Romans adapted the sword of their con-
querors. This gladius Gallicus (‘Gallic sword’)
may be considered a precursor to the famed
gladius Hispaniensis (AW XII.4).
The scutum
At the time of the Servian reform (Servius
Tullius is supposed to have reigned 578–535
BC), wealthy Romans of the first class were
compelled to equip themselves with the full
panoply of the hoplite, including the bronze-
faced aspis or Argive shield (clipeus in Latin).
The oval scutum was the traditional Italian
shield, and Servius required the less wealthy
citizens of the second and third classes to
use it (Livy 1.43.2–5; Dionysius of Halicar-
nassus, Roman Antiquities 4.16). Livy for-
gets this and, in his famous digression about
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the organisation of the manipular legion,
assumes that all legionaries used the aspis/
clipeus until 406 BC. The final war against
Veii began that year. Rome intended to con-
quer and introduced military pay (stipendia)
to enable legionaries to remain in the field
for longer. Other innovations were the deci-
sion to equip all legionaries with the scutum
and the introduction of a rudimentary ma-
nipular organisation (Livy 8.8.3–4). It was
presumably at this time that the pilum started
to displace the hasta.
There is an assumption that the Roman
legions fought as a phalanx at the disastrous
Battle of the Allia in 390 BC. For example,
a reconstruction of the aftermath of the bat-
tle in Nick Sekunda’s Early Roman Armies
(1995) depicts legionaries as hoplites with as-
pides being pursued by sword- and scutum-
wielding Gauls. In reality, the Romans were
equipped with the Italic scutum. Immediately
afterwards, in the defence of the Capitol, Mar-
cus Manlius used the umbo (boss) of his scu-
tum to batter a Gaul from the ramparts and so
won his famous cognomen, Capitolinus (Livy
5.47.4). A generation later, Titus Manlius de-
feated a Gaul in single combat with a scutum
and (possibly) an early gladius Gallicus. The
younger Manlius used his shield to barge into
the Gallic champion, threw him off balance,
and then dispatched him with a succession of (Top) Scutum boss from Umbria
sword thrusts. Titus proceeded to hack off the (early fourth century BC). Legion-
Gaul’s head, “tore off his torque, and put it, aries used the boss to punch and
covered with blood as it was, around his own batter opponents.
© Dan Diffendale / Flickr
neck. Because of this act, he himself and his
descendants had the cognomen Torquatus” (Bottom) Obverse and reverse of a
(Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 9.13). Roman currency bar decorated with a
The Manlii demonstrate the offensive scutum. Dating from the period of the
Pyrrhic War, it illustrates the braces on
potential of the scutum. In 308 BC, victory
the back of the shield.
over the Umbrians at Materina was credited
© RHC Archive
to the scutum: “[the legionaries] did their
work more with shields than with swords,
swinging them from the shoulder and knock-
ing down their enemies with the boss” (Livy
9.41.18). The open order of the maniples fa-
cilitated this. Scuta were presumably used
in this manner on the first day of Ascu-
lum, but on the second day, there was no
room to swing a shield. In order to en-
gage a phalangite, each legionary had to
negotiate his way down a narrow, serrated
alley of pike heads (cf. Polybius 18.30.6–
10). But his equipment was up to
the job. 0
Ross Cowan is a regular
contributor to Ancient
Warfare magazine.
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