Javelins

[Paullus Scipio]

Gents, I did preface my post with "generally", and I was referring to design purpose.....I have no doubt that a Dory might be thrown on occasion, but was it designed to be?....... a throwing weapon does not have a butt spike ( generally!) because for accuracy, it needs to be 'head-heavy', nor do you bother with such a thing on a weapon you are going to throw away, and an 8 ft spear with a shaft c. 18-20mm thick just does not make a good throwing weapon, compared to a purpose designed one....with all due respect, a Rev. War spontoon hardly makes an ideal throwing weapon, compared,say, to the olympic javelins you were experimenting with........
And sure, I can refer you to a number of ARW depictions of Dory with butt spikes (?), so I'm not sure of the point here.....

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

I'm pretty sure that if I throw my spear and it sticks to the ground,it will break emediately from the waight of the butt. There is a great number of butt spikes and yes,many of them are from the early fifth century. Also it is true that early depictions very often don't have butt spikes. Even sculpture,like the Syphnian treasure(late 6th century) or grave stelae(the Ariston stele early 5th century) don't show them. These spears may had been slightly tappered,since the point of balance seems to had been in about the middle or even a little further backwards.
I wouldn't throw my one and only spear for any reason. First,if you think about it,if they threw their spear,they had to have done this all together with an order. Otherwise some would have to stop the charge and others not. Then,some would have to face a wall of spears without having one. It's cuiside. When coming close it's pointless to throw your spear. And even when you win,I think it's pointless to lose your spear. We do know that some of the retreating oponents some times grouped together and by doing so were rather dangerous. The question would be IF they holded two spears,one shorter than the other,and in what time.Men marching holding two equal sized spears both points raised up,does not mean that one of them was used in battle. A marching line can have secondary weapons,and servants could be close to receive the secondary one when the phalanx was formed. Why would a hoplite carry the secondary weapons? Because the servant would already be carrying the most heavy equipment,and if the hoplite was to carry something more than his own armour,this had to be the weapons.
The only clear evidence for throwing javelins by hoplites is the Chigi vase. Which is very early and what this oddity: the hoplites are almost engaged in spear fencing,yet they still hold the shorter spears. And the other oddity that I already mentioned is that both spears have loops!(?)
Khairete
Giannis

[PMBardunias]

'Short' spears, which can be thrown or used hand-to-hand tend to be somewhat larger, at 5-6 ft,(1.5-1.75m) and again don't usually have butts ( e.g. the longche of Macedonia, or the 'spears' on the Chigi vase)

Would a logche have a throwing thong like a javelin? The presence of these on BOTH sizes of spear on the Chigi vase is troubling to me.

I'll echo Paul that a rear weighted spear is not going to fly well. That said, I think there was a Spartan Polemach killed by a Dory thrown by theban hoplites up on a hill, so "well" may be a relative term. For all we know this hit sauretor first- which is how I would throw a dory if I had to.

[Sean Manning]

At the risk of stating the obvious, it is worth bearing in mind that true javelins, the kind that go any sort of distance and that a man can carry several of, generally have smallish heads, socket diameters less than 15 mm, tend to be 3-4 ft (1-1.3 m) long and have no butts.....
'Short' spears, which can be thrown or used hand-to-hand tend to be somewhat larger, at 5-6 ft,(1.5-1.75m) and again don't usually have butts ( e.g. the longche of Macedonia, or the 'spears' on the Chigi vase)
The 'long' spear, or 'fighting' spear/Great spear/dory is typically rather taller than a man (generally 7-8 feet (2.1- 2.4 m), has a socket diameter of at least 18mm, often 20-25 mm( 3/4-1 inch) and usually ( always?) has a counter-balancing butt,and often has a binding for better grip.
These respective features can be helpful when trying to decide what exactly is being depicted.....

I think those are good rules of thumb. Many medieval infantry long spears had no back spike or counterweight, so back spikes aren't a necessary property of such spears. I also don't think most ancient warriors would be fussy about throwing a long spear, or stabbing with a javelin, if they had to! For example, the medieval master of arms Fiore dei Lieberi taught how to use and defend against thrown longswords!

If throwing thongs are so good, I wonder why (as far as I know; feel free to prove me wrong) they were the exception rather than the rule historically? I don't know of their use outside of 5th/4th century Greece and Persia.

[Paullus Scipio]

It must have been used in Italy too since there is a latin word - amentum -for the throwing thong..... and such loops appear in Italian depictions too IIRC........

[Praefectusclassis]

amentum

...which is also a form of the Latin amens, insane / frantic / out of one's mind (a-mens, as in 'Mens sana in corpore sano'). I bet you'd have to look in Pauly's Realenzyklopaedie to find what that says about those who used that thong. It is, btw, (interpreted as) visible on some imperial tombstones too.

[Gregg]

Stephanos, I think you are referring to the part of Book 13 where Big Ajax and Little Ajax try to keep Hector from burning the ships. Homer goes to some lengths to make clear why the Locrians aren't assisting Little Ajax, their leader, and explains that the Locrians came to Troy without helmets, armor, shields or even spears. They were forced to make due with bows and slings (one assumes due to poverty), and therefore are incapable of fighting among the front ranks.

This is not a separate tactical group of missile troops, but rather a regional contingent too poorly equipped to fight the enemy at close quarters. They were certainly effective, but the fact that they were forced to hide behind the armored men and fire arrows at the Trojans should not be interpreted as some kind of organized mixed unit tactic, especially since the armored Greeks in the front continued to fight not as a compact armored line but rather in the loose, disorganized “skirmishâ€

[Gregg]

As for the throwing thong or loop, I've always found the topic of the thrown spear/javelin in post-Roman Europe an interesting but generally ignored topic. I've read at least one historian who claims that throwing spears had gone out of fashion in Europe long before the Crusades. But have a look at this illustration from the Carlisle Charter, dated 1316. It clearly shows an unarmored Scottish soldier pierced with a thrown spear that is equipped with a throwing loop. Also, the English knight on the tower above is about to throw another spear, which is also equipped with a loop (the details are a bit obscured in this poor copy but it's the only one I could find):

[PMBardunias]

If throwing thongs are so good, I wonder why (as far as I know; feel free to prove me wrong) they were the exception rather than the rule historically?

Just a guess, but I'll bet that the amentum benefits small javelins more than larger heavy ones. So no amentum is likely on heavy Pila for example.

All the amentum does is make it as though you arm were longer- causeing the spear to move faster as it moves through the same arc of motion as the rest of your arm (think inside lane-vs- outside lane in a race). It is essentially a flexible Atlatl. Since you don't get something for nothing, accelerating the spear through the arc gets harder with the length of amentum and the weight of the shaft.