Plumbata

[John Conyard]

Good afternoon,

I fear my head is spinning from a great weekend of filming. I'm doing a DVD on the late Roman army and this weekend Comitatus reconstructed scenes I've only dreamed about. It was brilliant and everybody worked very hard to make it come true.

Anyway, the rate of resupply using dart quivers is far better than passing darts forward individually. Darts can be used underarm at distance and overarm at close range, so all ranks in the formation get to use them at some time. The front ranks use them at close range with an overarm throw using a straight arm. This gives power to the throw. I suspect there is still an article on www.comitatus.net which may give more information.

I don't feel our pedes care if they fight with darts inside shield or not. But if the darts get broken during combat, our file leaders will beat them senseless. Darts strapped to the inside of shields are liable to breakage.

I do favour short relatively heavy darts. You can use them in different ways at different ranges. The quivers generally have a layer of wood in the base. We've used them from horseback for the past three years. I like to attach the quiver to the front of the saddle. The darts can be delivered with great power and force from the back of a horse. But there are no references to darts been used on horseback in Late Antiquity. I was mislead by a fake reference in Procopius. (so you can stop looking now Robert!)

I will one day try posting pictures on RAT. But really we are only talking about a leather bucket/quiver with a hop or two to tie it on a shield handle,/a saddle etc. Frankly I give little consideration to the number carried by this method. I suspect it depends how many are available, and how strong you are. I've carried a bag of around twenty with rubber heads, but normally just take whatever I'm given. However I would complain if I only got five!