10-07-2012, 10:10 PM
"Use light wood, soft and large-enough padded tips, shafts covered with tape to limit splinters. Train people to cover their heads with shields to avoid head injuries."
Well, this is all very well, but we are surely talking about pila here. As the pilum was designed to either pass straight through a shield and into its carrier, or to stick into the shield so as to make it so unmanageable that it would probably have to be cast aside, I can't see how your suggestion would demonstrate anything at all about the pilum, other than that it was a weapon to be thrown. The distinctive features of the weapon (ie: the reason for its adoption and continued use over several centuries) would have to be rubbed out of existence. Nothing would be demonstrated to the public and nothing would be learned.
As I said earlier in this thread, if you are going to have a 'bash' then fine - have fun. Don't, on any account, try to tell the audience though, that they are watching anything even remotely like what would actually have happened, because they won't be! Even if we knew how the Romans actually fought (and we don't) we still couldn't do it in a way which allowed the public to take away a lesson from it. Pila and arrows were not designed to bounce off shields.
I stand by everything I said on page five of this thread.
Byron, as a former mountaineer who has lost friends to the dangers of that pursuit, I take your point entirely.
Crispvs
Well, this is all very well, but we are surely talking about pila here. As the pilum was designed to either pass straight through a shield and into its carrier, or to stick into the shield so as to make it so unmanageable that it would probably have to be cast aside, I can't see how your suggestion would demonstrate anything at all about the pilum, other than that it was a weapon to be thrown. The distinctive features of the weapon (ie: the reason for its adoption and continued use over several centuries) would have to be rubbed out of existence. Nothing would be demonstrated to the public and nothing would be learned.
As I said earlier in this thread, if you are going to have a 'bash' then fine - have fun. Don't, on any account, try to tell the audience though, that they are watching anything even remotely like what would actually have happened, because they won't be! Even if we knew how the Romans actually fought (and we don't) we still couldn't do it in a way which allowed the public to take away a lesson from it. Pila and arrows were not designed to bounce off shields.
I stand by everything I said on page five of this thread.
Byron, as a former mountaineer who has lost friends to the dangers of that pursuit, I take your point entirely.
Crispvs
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers. :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:
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