Javelin

Origin

The javelin is one of the oldest projectile weapons humankind ever made. The wooden spears about 300,000 years old unearthed at Schoningen in Germany are among the oldest hunting weapons humans made, thought to have served both for throwing and for thrusting. The light infantry of ancient Greece, the peltasts, threw a javelin called the akontion, winding a leather thong, the amentum, called the ankyle in Greek, around the shaft to give it spin and send it farther and straighter. In Rome the heavy javelin called the pilum developed around the 4th to 3rd centuries BC and became the standard weapon of the legionary, while regional forms developed elsewhere, such as the all-iron Iberian soliferrum.

Features

• A spear made light for throwing (about 150 to 200 cm)
• The Roman pilum, whose soft-iron shank bends once it sticks in a shield
• An ingenious design by which the lodged shaft disables the shield
• A universal weapon developed independently in nearly every civilization
• A tactic of switching to a sword after the throw
• An effective throwing range of roughly 20 to 30 m

Stories

The typical use of the javelin was a volley just before battle was joined. The Roman legionary usually carried two pila, and as the distance to the enemy closed he threw them together to disable the enemy's shields and break up the formation, then at once drew the gladius and charged. Light troops such as the Greek peltasts and the Roman velites harried the front of an enemy formation, striking and falling back, pelting it ceaselessly with javelins and withdrawing as the enemy drew near, in skirmishing tactics. Winding a leather thong around the shaft to throw gave the javelin spin and greatly increased its range and accuracy, and throwing from horseback while riding off, like the Numidian cavalry, was also common.

Weakness

The javelin is essentially single-use, so once thrown it must at once give way to another weapon. Held in the hand it cannot thrust as far as an ordinary spear nor serve well to parry on the defensive, and being light it is much affected by wind, so a hit cannot be guaranteed at long range. Its range is short compared with a bow, and carrying several is a burden in proportion. In the end its essential limit is that it is not a standalone main weapon but an auxiliary, expendable arm that opens the fight.

Cultural Significance

The javelin is among the most widely and longest shared of all human weapons. Rather than the invention of any one culture, it carries a universality in having arisen independently almost everywhere for hunting and for war. The Roman pilum in particular, as the standard equipment of the legionary, became a weapon symbolic of the Roman army itself. The act of throwing, moreover, carried over beyond weaponry into athletic contest: the javelin was part of the pentathlon of the ancient Greek Olympics and continues today as the javelin throw of Olympic athletics. And as with the Gae Bolga, the fateful spear of Cu Chulainn in Irish myth, the thrown spear appears too as a symbol of heroic legend.

In Popular Culture

The javelin is a weapon never missing from works that deal with ancient warfare. In films set in Rome and Greece and in strategy and action games such as Rome Total War and Mount and Blade, the legionary's pilum volley and the skirmishing of light troops with javelins are often depicted. In games it commonly appears as a skirmisher unit that switches to a melee weapon after throwing. In myth and fantasy the thrown, fateful spear is sometimes drawn as a hero's symbol, as with the Gae Bolga of Irish legend. In fiction, though, the ingenious design by which the pilum's shaft sticks in a shield and bends to disable it is rarely reflected accurately.

Trivia

• The wooden spears about 300,000 years old unearthed at Schoningen in Germany are among the oldest wooden weapons known to date, showing that humans used the thrown spear in hunting from a very early time.
• According to Plutarch, the Roman general Marius replaced one of the two pins fastening the head of the pilum to the shaft with a wooden one, so that the moment it struck a shield the wooden pin broke and the spear bent and hung down.
• The javelin throw was an event in the pentathlon of the ancient Greek Olympics and carries on today as an Olympic athletics event, and the ancient throwers wound a leather thong, the amentum, around the shaft to add spin and range.