From various types of Roman art, from wall paintings to monumental works and ivory diptyches, it would appear the 'typical' Late Roman spear was approximately 6 to 7 feet long. Darts are not mentioned as such in Ammianus, I've scoured Rolfe's Latin translation without finding any specific words such as 'plumbata' or 'martiobarbuli'. I'm not quite clear on how big these 'darts' were, from descriptions in 'De Rebus Bellicis' they would appear to be at least a foot long, and some reenactors have them about two feet long. Vegetius claiming that 5 such dart's were somehow clipped to the inside of the shield could not be right if they were as big as this, as having used such shields myself I find it difficult to see how dart's over say a foot long would possibly allow you to grip the shield properly.ShrubMiK wrote:I thought it was you VV, I recognised some of the arguments and style
Personally I'm happy with the idea that LIR legionaries can be fielded as either Impact Foot (if they have spiculum...or pilum, if it was indeed still in use at all) or Light Spear (if they don't). There seems no need to me to talk about Offensive Spear, not based on anything I've read anyway.
Which is a bit of a turnaround for me...way way back when we were using something like WRG 4th Ed and the only army lists we had were those in the purple Airfix book I concocted a LIR Roman list, based on extensive* research, and yes I had legionaries armed with long thrusting spear instead of pila.
* I think maybe I had just read Robert Graves "Count Belisarius" at the time
I'm more disappointed that darts do not show up as a differentiating feature of LIR foot vs. earlier versions and opponents, but that's another story...
Incidentally, I wonder if accounts of Adrianople can be used to infer "normal" fighting styles. IIRC the Roman foot were initially fighting against Vis foot behind wagon laager, so might not be throwing their spears against an opponent behind good cover. When charged by cavalry to flank/rear they might well retain their spears inhand, both because that could be thought more effective against charging cavalry and because of shortened reaction times. And then they are surrounded and compressed into a confused mass so that (allegedly) those in the middle could not properly deploy their weapons. Just a thought.
As to the Battle of Adrianopolis. Hmmmm.... its not at all clear as to where the Gothic cavalry struck the Roman lines. My own research, hopefully to be published, would indicate that the Gothic horse hit the Roman right flank and part of the gothic cavalry also went behind the wagon laager to hit the Roman left wing, who had advanced upto the wagons by this stage. Who the Legiones Lanciarii and Mattarii were fighting is a matter for conjecture, I favour the gothic infantry who had left the wagon laager and engaged the Roman lines.