A Question of Spears

[Patrician]

In the Second Punic War, the Roman consul Marcellus is said to have
defeated Hannibal at the city of Nola, an event narrated by Plutarch
(Marcellus, 12.2) as follows:

"Marcellus ... had distributed long spears used in naval combats among
his infantry, and taught them to watch their opportunity and smite the
Carthaginians at long range; these were not javelineers, but used
short spears in hand to hand fighting."

(Mark will recall earlier discussion of this subject elsewhere.) The
word describing Hannibal's soldiers' weapons and translated above as
'short spears' is 'aikhmes'. In a recent trawl through Appian, I cam
across the following passage in his Gallic history (section 1):

"The spears ... were not like javelins, but what the Romans called
pila, four-sided, part wood and part iron, and not hard except at the
pointed end."

The Greek is:

" ta de dorata ēn ouk apeoikota akontiois: ha Rhōmaioi kalousin
hussous, xulou tetragōnou to hēmisu, kai to allo sidērou, tetragōnou
kai toude kai malakou khōris ge tēs aikhmēs."

'Hussous' is also the word Polybius uses for 'pila'. Noteworthy is
the use of 'aikhmes' for the business end of a pilum. Could Plutarch
have meant that Hannibal's men were using pila at Nola in 215 BC?

And a request: does anyone have access to a Greek text of Dionysius XX.
11, featuring the 'cavalry spear used two-handed' that was the subject
of recent discussion? I would very much like to know if the word used
is 'xyston'.

Thanks.

Patrick

[Mark]

Patrick:

The passage from Dionysius is quoted in the first paragraph on p. 24
of Rawson's "Pre-Marian Roman Army" article, which is included in the
excerpt from the article that I posted here (and I sent you a copy of
the complete article).The word used is "dorata" ("tous tois hippikois
dorasin ..."), which pretty clearly means thrusting spears.

I would take the usual meaning of "aikhma" to be "spear-head" or
"spear-point" - could be the head of a pilum, or the head of a doru.

By the way, there's a good discussion of the passage from Marcellus by
Duncan Head at pp. 53-54 of Slingshot 229 (2003).

Sorry for the brevity of this note - will be preoccupied with other
things for the rest of the day.

Regards,
Mark

On Jul 16, 6:01 am, Patrician <patrick.water...@mypostoffice.co.uk>
wrote:

[Mark]

Gad - I was mistaken - p. 24 of Rawson's article was not part of the
excerpt I posted earlier!

I've now posted pp. 24-26 in the "Files" section.

Mark

> > Patrick- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Patrician]

Thanks, Mark: not sure what we would do without you! I suppose the
64,000 drachma question is whether Dionysius' 'hippikois dorasin' etc.
is transcribed directly from his source or whether he is paraphrasing
another term in his own words.

My reason for airing this is because Josephus (Jewish War III.5.95),
where he is describing the equipment of the Roman legionary, writes:
"hē de loipē phalagx xuston te kai thureon epimēkē," i.e. 'the
remainder of the phalanx(!) [carry] a xyston(!) and a long thureos
[scutum]'. Having previously described the two
'swords' (makhairophorountes amphoterōthen) differentiated by length
(the gladius and pugio), Josephus gives the legionary a 'xyston' where
we would expect a 'pilum'.

The question is: was Josephus alone in this usage (unlikely, in my
opinion) or had 'xyston' mutated its meaning though the centuries and
come to be (inter alia) a Greek equivalent denoting 'pilum'?

I suppose we cannot answer whether Dionysius is trying to paraphrase
an original source 'xyston' for his audience (and getting hold of the
wrong end of the - er - stick) or whether his original source actually
recorded the use of 'hippikois dorasin' by the principes, but it may
be a point to bear in mind.

Anyway, thanks for rising to the occasion: much appreciated.


Patrick

[Mark]

I now see why I was confused about whether I had posted pp. 24-26 from
Rawson earlier; I hadn't, but I had typed them out in a post on this
site on 30 June!

Rawson (p. 24) says that Lévêque (in "Pyrrhos (1951) at p. 201)
believed that Dionysius XX.11 may have come from Hieronymus of Cardia,
I have not looked into this, but if so, it would make the usage
roughly contemporary with Pyrrhus. Conceivably this could mean that
the "cavalry spears" description originated with a Greek attempt to
describe the equipment the Romans were using. As Rawson says, it is
hard to imagine that Dionysius could think he was explaining anything
to a Roman audience by saying that these foot soldiers were wielding
"cavalry spears".

The use of "xyston" for "pilum" by Josephus is the subject of quite a
lot of comment. As far as I know there are no other clear examples of
this usage, but perhaps someone here knows otherwise ...

Perplexity over terminology is nothing new. Already Arrian was
complaining that the old writers on tactics were unintelligible
because they used the names of formations and items of equipment
without explaining them.

Best,
Mark



On Jul 16, 12:41 pm, Patrician <patrick.water...@mypostoffice.co.uk>
wrote:

> > > Mark- Hide quoted text -

[Patrician]

In his first book, Dionysius lists his sources, or at least those that
came to mind, as:

"The first historian, so far as I am aware, to touch upon the early
period of the Romans was Hieronymus of Cardia, in his work on the
Epigoni. After him Timaeus of Sicily related the beginnings of their
history in his general history and treated in a separate work the wars
with Pyrrhus of Epirus. Besides these, Antigonus, Polybius, Silenus
and innumerable other authors devoted themselves to the same themes,
though in different ways ..."

Noteworthy is the mention of Timaeus' 'separate work' covering the
'wars of Pyrrhus of Epirus'. I would suggest this as being a more
likely source than Hieronymus of Cardia for any questionable material,
given what Polybius has to say about Timaeus.

Josephus translated his original writings into Greek, but given his
high-level contact with the Romans is unlikely to have used a term
that would have been misunderstood by his intended audience, so I
would suggest that his usage would be what was then current, whereas
Dionysius' periphrastic description indicates that the original term
in his source would not have been familiar to his audience. One
wonders when 'xyston' became the accepted Greek equivalent for
'pilum', assuming naturally that Josephus did know what he was
translating (he gives Roman cavalry a 'kontos', which seems over-
generous). Conversely, Polybius, writing after Timaeus, uses 'hussoi'
to represent both pila types together and 'belos' for a pilum (VI.23),
although this is no guarantee that Timaeus would not have used
different terminology.

I sense that this may be the explanation for Dionysius' apparently
anomalous cavalry-spear-armed principes, but in the absence of further
evidence it does not seem possible to do more than raise it as a
caveat regarding Rawson's interpretation.

Patrick

On Jul 16, 11:21 pm, Mark <m.kindrac...@usask.ca> wrote:
> I now see why I was confused about whether I had posted pp. 24-26 from
> Rawson earlier; I hadn't, but I had typed them out in a post on this
> site on 30 June!

Yes, sorry, I should have mentioned that!

> Rawson (p. 24) says that Lévêque (in "Pyrrhos (1951) at p. 201)
> believed that Dionysius XX.11 may have come from Hieronymus of Cardia,
> I have not looked into this, but if so, it would make the usage
> roughly contemporary with Pyrrhus. Conceivably this could mean that
> the "cavalry spears" description originated with a Greek attempt to
> describe the equipment the Romans were using. As Rawson says, it is
> hard to imagine that Dionysius could think he was explaining anything
> to a Roman audience by saying that these foot soldiers were wielding
> "cavalry spears".

Although he was evidently trying to explain something to someone,
otherwise why not just use a single familiar word, e.g. 'belos',
'dora', or even 'xyston' as per his presumed source? Or even
'aikhme' ...

> The use of "xyston" for "pilum" by Josephus is the subject of quite a
> lot of comment. As far as I know there are no other clear examples of
> this usage, but perhaps someone here knows otherwise ...
>
> Perplexity over terminology is nothing new. Already Arrian was
> complaining that the old writers on tactics were unintelligible
> because they used the names of formations and items of equipment
> without explaining them.

Indeed. Arrian at least managed to put the xyston back in the
cavalryman's grasp, suggesting he devoted considerable effort to
finding out what went where. Modern historians struggling to
appreciate the difference between a grosphous and a loncha will surely
sympathise!
>
> Best,
> Mark

[Paul Bardunias]

Do you know what "xyston" actually means? For example "Kontos" is
simply a long pole, like a barge pole, later coopted to mean a large
lance. Perhaps there is some nuance of the original meaning that made
it attractive for use as "pila"?

On Jul 17, 7:30 am, Patrician <patrick.water...@mypostoffice.co.uk>
wrote:

[Patrician]

That may be an inspired thought, Paul: according to the various online
lexica at the Perseus project, it bears the essential meaning of
'shaft', with the connotation of being shaved and/or polished.

It is also used to indicate a column (architectural): in Josephus, BJ
2.344, Agrippa addresses a crowd from the top of a colonnade (gephura
tō xustō), so once again it denotes something long and slender.

An extended use to mean a slender weapon, perhaps with a shaven or
polished shaft, seems logical. The actual size and extent of the
weapon may have been less significant. We make literal reference to
arrows as 'shafts', and also have spear shafts and shafts for
harnessing horses to carts, a possible source of confusion in
centuries to come!

Thanks.

Patrick