in the Latin poem "Carmen in Victorium Pisanorum," it says:



"et econtra Agareni concurrunt similiter,

telis, spatis et saggitis hos petunt hostiliter."
--------
"and similarly the Agarens ran against them,

with swords, _____ and arrows they sought them in a hostile manner."



Does anyone have any idea what "spatis" means? I'm assuming it's some sort of weapon, perhaps a spear?

I believe it means spatial distance (spaces). Arrows sought their spaces in a hostile manner....

Dear Grayson,

It seems very likely that in this case spatis means sword. It's almost certainly a variant of spatha (when properly declined).

I believe that the issue here is the gloss of tēlum (appearing here as telis). Lewis & Short gives the primary meaning as "missile weapon", "dart", or "javelin", and contrasts it to arma, which means a weapon used in close combat, such as a sword or a knife. A secondary meaning is "offensive weapon", which could include swords. Elementary Lewis similarly gives the primary meaning as some kind of missile weapon, with other sorts of arms being secondary. (I got these definitions using the Latin dictionary headword search on Tufts University's Perseus Project Web site.)

So your translation

Quote:

and similarly the Agarens ran against them, with swords, _____ and arrows they sought them in a hostile manner.

is correct; and "spears" (or "darts" or "javelins") is, as you suggest, the missing word, but should be the first-listed weapon:

Quote:

and similarly the Agarens ran against them, with spears, swords, and arrows they sought them in a hostile manner.

These are most probably thrown spears.

I hope that this proves helpful.

Best,

Mark Millman

Just wanted to add a bit of a clarification of Mark's post, which is probably what he meant, but I could see how it might be misinterpreted. Spatis would be the ablative of the word spata, spatae; not a declension of the word spatha, spathae, but spata, spatae and spatha, spathae are the same word.

Dear Xan,

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Thanks for providing the clarification.

Grayson, you're very welcome. I'm glad I could help.

Best,

Mark