Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Nicholas,

The Scythians are not likely to have introduced anything to the Romano-Britons, much less the post-Roman Britons. They existed a bit earlier in time and did not serve as Roman auxiliaries in Britain. And as to the Sarmatians, what they introduced or not is a matter of pure speculation. We have no way to verify that.

Also I found a new lead in the four-sided spear mystery. Apparently it was a Roman spear called the spiculum (Still need to verify) and was used by Roman heavy infantry thoughout the Empire, I even found pictures, well drawings, of the distinct square holes made by this spear punching through armour and being removed. It could, acording to the article, punch through almost any armour, including leather llamelar and mail. Maybe even scale armour.

Yes, the spiculum is a Late Roman weapon, but that's a little out of my area of expertise so I couldn't tell you if its exact form is well-documented (as for the pilum, for example). But I would be careful about claims of " could...punch through almost any armour", since no thrown or hand-held weapon of the time could be relied on to do that with any regularity. Square holes in surviving pieces of armor could be from something like that, or they could be from a ballista bolt, or even from a big nail!

I agree with Matt.

First of all, we do not know what a spiculum looked like, nor indeed what a verutum looked like. they could be used by heavy infantry, but also by light infantry for that matter.
As to the four-sided holes in armour (indeed, what armour??), those are most likely to be blamed on ballista bolts, which we know had that shape, and would likely be fired at armoured opponents.