05-06-2008, 07:17 AM
I don't know if this has been referred to before ( there is way too much on RAT regarding plumbata to check it all !! ), but while checking some points about velites/grosphosmachoi (lit: grosphos-users, the grosphos was a type of javelin, used by Polybius to describe the Velites 'mini-pila' weapon), I came across this passage at Strabo IV.4 written c. 20AD:
"The Gallic armour is commensurate with the large size of their bodies: a long sabre, which hangs along the right side, and a long oblong shield, and spears in proportion, and a "madaris," a special kind of javelin. But some of them also use bows and slings. There is also a certain wooden instrument resembling the "grosphus" (it is hurled by hand, not by thong, and ranges even farther than an arrow), which they use particularly for the purposes of bird-hunting.
.....Hhhhh..mmmm, a hand-thrown missile resembling the velites'mini-pila' i.e. wooden half-shaft and iron shaft/tip, and reputed to outrange arrows, which must be fairly small to be used in bird-hunting?
Sounds rather like a 'plumbata' ,though no mention of the 'plumb', doesn't it ? (the lead, as well as increasing range would also turn a 'bird-killing' weapon into a lethal weapon of war).............
The earliest reference to the origins/ancestry of the plumbata?
"The Gallic armour is commensurate with the large size of their bodies: a long sabre, which hangs along the right side, and a long oblong shield, and spears in proportion, and a "madaris," a special kind of javelin. But some of them also use bows and slings. There is also a certain wooden instrument resembling the "grosphus" (it is hurled by hand, not by thong, and ranges even farther than an arrow), which they use particularly for the purposes of bird-hunting.
.....Hhhhh..mmmm, a hand-thrown missile resembling the velites'mini-pila' i.e. wooden half-shaft and iron shaft/tip, and reputed to outrange arrows, which must be fairly small to be used in bird-hunting?
Sounds rather like a 'plumbata' ,though no mention of the 'plumb', doesn't it ? (the lead, as well as increasing range would also turn a 'bird-killing' weapon into a lethal weapon of war).............
The earliest reference to the origins/ancestry of the plumbata?
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff