03-24-2014, 02:33 PM
Quote:Vegetius. He specifies that, does he not?That puts you at a disadvantage. Apart from being incomplete that version will be based on a text that modern scholars would regard as unreliable. Bluntly, however, if you are forced to use Clarke's translation, there is no excuse for using the abridged version. The full version is available online; I posted a link to it here and on TWC a while back. The Latin text is also available online in The Latin Library and the Internet Archive has Lang's 1885 text. The latter is particularly useful for its Index Verborum. Mike Bishop posted a link to it.
Then again, I'm using an abridged version of John Clarke's translation because I have no money to buy a decent copy.
Getting back to the issue, Vegetius mentions lancea three times (3.14.5; 3.24.11;4.29.1). He does not describe it but, in the last reference, he lists it with other weapons, including the verrutum, so he plainly does not regard them as being the same. Clarke mentions the head of the verrutum as being 'triangular', which he will have got from the text he was using, but modern versions omit that word, no doubt because his text is not to be relied upon.
Michael King Macdona
And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)