When to use your pugio

[stevesarak]

Hail,

Someone had asked me when would you use a pugio in battle, they got the question from this site. I looked around and couldn't find the question, so here's my two cents to who ever asked it.

In the chaos of battle when lines start to crumble and your left fighting one on one. Sometimes in the course of fighter you might step back or side step to avoid a thrust. When there are thousands of warriors all fighting in the same general area, you have a tendency to bump into people. And sometimes as people are moving this way or that, people start getting closed in on each other.

In a situation where your people and that of the enemy are all cramped into each other, sometimes when you thrust your sword, you don't always have the room to pull back and face the your next enemy at your side. In a situation where it gets too crowded, a good dagger always come in handy.

If it is so tight that you can hardly move, a pugio to the neck, face, armpit is always an option. In tight spaces where there’s not much room for your sword, smaller is sometimes better.

That’s my two cents anyway.

[Kate Gilliver]

assuming we're talking about legionaries...

mm, but if it's so squashed in the melee that you're having to use your pugio, would you be able to re-sheathe your gladius - mid battle - in order to draw your pugio? Dropping your gladius to use a pugio would be a dangerous choice (plus, it's an expensive piece of kit to chuck away and also an offence).
I tend to regard the pugio as a desperation weapon (oh *&£!, I've lost my gladius, time to draw the pugio), and generally as the Roman equivalent of the Swiss army knife.

Kate

[stevesarak]

The Pugio would be a last resort weapon, true, but in battle a lot of times you might find youself in that kind situation. Someone said that the pugio wasn't really used, I thing that back then, it was used more times then people realize.

[Tarbicus]

Dropping your gladius to use a pugio would be a dangerous choice (plus, it's an expensive piece of kit to chuck away and also an offence).

It could get knocked out of your hand? Very rare event I'm sure, but a backup weapon would be a good thing to have.

[Tib. Gabinius]

Kate, the romans already knew "clap" knifes like the swiss, so this would be a real big useknife

But if you lose either gladius or shield, the pugio would be a real good choce, esp. the big knifes later typ.
And they are useful after the battle while you looting and help people dying (in know is sounds strange...)

[Virilis]

In my opinion pugio was definitely not an all-around tool in the camp. Everyone who has worked for example with wood knows that the shape of the pugio blade is totally unsuitable (and too long to be handy) for that purpose. It is primarily a stabbing tool.

[Kate Gilliver]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you'd do everything in camp with a pugio when there are surely more useful tools around; but it has wider potential applications than the gladius, as Gabinius says. But I do feel that in pitched battle the pugio was unlikely to have been used as anything but a last resort after loss of gladius, that it would not have been chosen over the gladius.
In the engagement with the Insubrian Gauls in 223 BC, when the Romans deliberately fight at much closer quarters than usual for them, they're using gladii (though the tactics are employed because the Gauls needed more space to operate successfully than the Romans).
Some of the recent literature on battle - for the period I'm studying - suggests that it was fairly fluid; it might be unwise to dump gladius in favour of pugio in a momentary melee when that might swiftly loosen up.

[Chuck Russell]

when stabbing your caeser

[Kate Gilliver]

when stabbing your caeser

Indeed, but isn't that a last resort?

[john m roberts]

The question is not why legionaries carried the pugio, but rather why wouldn't they? Throughout history, nearly everybody who has carried a sword has also carried a dagger or knife of some kind as a backup. Even in an open fight it is not useless. many gladiators who fought with legionary-sized shields used swords no bigger than pugios, and the Spartan xiphos was just a big dagger. You just have to get a little closer.

[Tarbicus]

And there are gladii out there that don't seem any longer than a big dagger (35cm).

[Ebusitanus]

If I would be to cramed, due to the mele, to efectively withdraw my Gladius from the ribs of the enemy of choice in front of me, I certainly would drop it and make use of the shorter blade of the Pugio. I´m sure there was a good practical reason for its adoption in Spain other of its nice status simbol.

[Matthew Amt]

I think the pugio got used most often for mugging civilians and winning bar fights. If it does come in handy on the battlefield once in a great while, that's just a nice side effect! (If it's too cramped even to draw your arm back for a sword thrust, how the heck are you going to reach your pugio, anyway?)

Valete,

Matthew

[Chuck Russell]

ya by the time you go for you pugio, most legions ahve died or run away to their standard hehehe

[hoplite14gr]

I feel the previous thread answered most of these issues:
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic. ... ight=pugio
Kind regards
Stefanos