Plumbata

[Robert Vermaat]

The idea that both the plumbata et tribulata and the plumbata mamillata were innovations comes from Thompson (pp. 67-68) and it is his idea (p. 67 n. 3) that 'this must be distinguished from the plumbati gladii with which almost all soldiers were armed in the time of Vegetius', referring to 2.15. This seems to be a reading of Vegetius' text itself which has (2.15.6 in Reeve's 2004 Oxford edition) 'plumbatis gladiis et missibilibus accinti.' In Stelten (1990) this is 'plumbatis, gladis et missibilibus'. In the translations I have this sentence is translated as: 'lead weapons, swords, and missiles (Stelten); 'lead-weighted darts, swords and javelins' (Milner) and 'loaded javelins, swords and common missile weapons' (Clark). But the two words can be seen to go together so that (perhaps understandably) the ferentarii or light troops would not be expected to engage with swords but would be missile troops alone - this makes much more sense (to me at least) and thus plumbati gladii may be an original phrase.

OK, that makes things more clear. I must say that so far amongst scholars, Thompson’s reading stands alone. I cannot say if he was wrong or not, the reading of Vegetius’ text is indeed read like Stelten and Milner have proposed. That would mean that the unique ‘plumbata gladiis’ is most probably an invention of Thompson, at any rate it is mentioned nowhere else.

Thompson also distinguishes the plumbata mamillata from the mattiobarbulus.

How so?

Re-examining Vegetius, however, it seems possible that the light armed troops version of the plumbatae may have been distinguished from the mattiobarbulus by Vegetius (or his source, and Vegetius has misunderstood the distinction and thus said almost all soldiers are armed that way which may refer to the mattiobarbulus and not the light armed version of the plumbata, and may or may not have been carried on the inside of the shields of the ferentarii). No shield is mentioned in the equipment of the ferentarii and so, perhaps, we are dealing with a different weapon altogether. (A cat among the plumbatae pigeons?) What do you think?

Vegetius surely mentions the carrying of up to 5 plumbatae ‘within the hollow of the shield, but he never said that this was the only method of carrying plumbatae. And since Vegetius also mentions the plumbata as armament for those guarding the wagons and even sailors, I assume that we might think of alternatives for carrying these missiles. Maurikios mentions carrying bags, so I think that’s good enough if no shields are involved.

I read the descriptions of plumbatae by Philip Barker ('The Plumbatae from Wroxeter') in the BAR edition (but did not research too thoroughly anything more recent I am afraid). He notes that the MS illustrations do not include the bulbous head (mamillata) as described by the Anonymous. He also notes that the plumbatae finds from Wroxeter are 'the clearest evidence for the sort of weapon of which the Anonymous' two missiles were adaptations.' If there has been more recent material which argues differently, I am sorry to say I am unaware of it and did not take it into account in my article.

As with Thompson, most studies of the last 3 decades no longer argue that the Medieval image from ‘de Rebus Bellicis’ is different from the plumbatae that have turned up so far in the archaeological record. Indeed, the lead weight seems to be missing from the image, but it is thought that this might have ‘evolved’ as a result of copying – the colours seem to indicate a metal part where the lead should be:


If the ‘mamillata’ was also to have been an innovation, it’s unclear to me in what way it would have been. Therefore I am inclined to interpret the ‘plumbata mamillata’ as the regular plumbata found so far on dozens of sites, and the ‘plumbata et tribolata’ as an innovation by the anonymous which so far has not turned up anywhere.