Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of"

of the army (see ROMAN ARMY), passed through a great number of changes, and it is quite impossible to summarize it as a single subject. In the period of the kings the legion was the old Greek phalanx with Greek armour; the front ranks wore the Greek panoply and fought with long spears and the circular Argolic shield. The early Roman sword, like that of the Greeks, Egyptians and Etruscans, was of bronze. We have no direct statement as to its form, but in all probability it was of the ordinary leaf-shape. We gather from the monuments that, in the 1st century B.C., the Roman sword was short, worn on the right side (except by officers, who carried no shield), suspended from a shoulder-belt (_balteus_) or a waist-belt (_cingulum_), and reaching from the hollow of the back to the middle of the thigh, thus representing a length of from 22 in. to 2 ft. The blade was straight, double-edged, obtusely-pointed. On the Trajan column (A.D. 114) it is considerably longer, and under the Flavian emperors the long, single-edged _spatha_ appears frequently along with the short sword. The second period ending with the Punic wars witnessed a change. The _hastati_ and the _principes_ are both heavily armed, but the round shield has given way to the oblong (_scutum_), except for one-third of the _hastati_ who bore only the spear and the light javelin (_gaesa_). The third period--that described by Polybius--is characterized by greater complexity of armour, due no doubt in part to the experience gained in conflicts with a wider range of peoples, and in part to the assimilation of the methods peculiar to the new Italian allies. Thus we find the skirmishers (_velites_) armed with a light javelin 3 ft. long and 3/4 in. thick, with an iron point 9 in. long; this point was so fragile that it was rendered useless by the first cast. For defence they wore a hide-covered headpiece and a round buckler 3 ft. in diameter. The heavy-armed carried a _scutum_ formed of two boards glued together, covered with canvas and skin, and incurved into the shape of a half-cylinder; its upper and lower edges were strengthened with iron rims and its centre with a boss (_umbo_). A greave was worn on the right leg, and the helmet was of bronze with a crest of three feathers. The wealthier soldiers wore the full cuirass of chain armour (_lorica_), the poorer a brass plate 9 in. square. For offence they carried a sword and two javelins. The former was the Spanish weapon, straight, double-edged and pointed, for both thrust and cut, in place of the old Greek sword. The characteristic weapon, however, was the _pilum_ (Gr. [Greek: ussos]). The form of this weapon and the mode of using it have been minutely described by Polybius (vi. 23), but his description has been much misunderstood in consequence of the rarity of representations or remains of the _pilum_. It is shown on a monument of St Remy in Provence, assigned to the age of the first emperors, and in a bas-relief at Mainz, on the grave-stone of Quintus Petilius Secundus, a soldier of the 15th legion. A specimen of the actual weapon is in the museum at Wiesbaden. It is a javelin with a stout iron head (7 in.), carried on an iron rod, about 20 in. in length, which terminates in a tang for insertion in the wooden shaft. As represented on the monuments, the iron part of the weapon is about one-third of its entire length (6-3/4 ft.). It was used primarily as a missile. When the point pierced the shield the weight of the stave pulled the shield downwards and rendered it useless. At close quarters it answered all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of the modern bayonet when "fixed." Vegetius, in his _Rei militaris instituta_, describes it in a modified form as used in the armies of the lower empire, and in a still more modified form it reappears as the "argon" of the Franks. This equipment was characteristic of _hastati, principes_ and _triarii_ (save that the latter used the _hasta_ instead of the _pilum_). We thus see how great is the change from the time when the _hastati_ were the light-armed (from _hasta_) of the Greek phalanx. The cavalry, which had originally been protected only by a light ox-hide shield and the most fragile spears, adopted, about Polybius's time, the full Greek equipment of buckler, strong spear and breastplate. In the last period of the republic the _pilum_ became the universal weapon of the heavy-armed, while the auxiliaries (all foreigners, the _velites_ having disappeared) used the _hasta_ and the long single-edged sword (_spatha_). Under the empire the heavy-armed, according to Josephus, had helmet, cuirass, a long sword worn on the left side, and a dagger on the right, _pilum_ and _scutum_. The special detachment detailed to attend the commander had a round shield (_clipeus_) and a long spear. The cavalry wore armour like that of the infantry, with a broadsword, a buckler slung from the horse's side, a long pole for thrusting, and several javelins, almost as large as spears, in a sheath or quiver. Arrian, writing of a period some fifty years later, gives further particulars from which we gather that of the cavalry some were bowmen, some polemen, while others wielded lances and axes. For the arms and armour of other peoples of antiquity see e.g. PERSIA: _History, Ancient_, section v. "The Persian Empire of the Achaemenids"; BRITAIN, _Anglo-Saxon_, section v. "Warfare"; ETRURIA; EGYPT, &c. (J. M. M.)