Latinitas`s questions topic for his school report

[Dan Howard]

Oh, there is evidence! There is at least one Roman writer who refers to pilum heads bending, and bent pilum heads have been excavated (though of course we don't know if those were bent in battle or what).

I don't have a cite but I sure there is an account where a legionary is said to have parried so much with his pilum that it resembled a strigil. The one passage is evidence both for bendy pilums and for them being used in melee combat.