Did the Romans have tactics, using spears ?? Esp. a bx &/or round formation .

Jack

Sure did!

It kind of reminds me of the bayonet formation used to repel cavalry. Essentially the front rank will kneel with their spears/javelins up at a 45 degree angle with the troopers behind them with their spears/javelins forward also.

I saw a roman re-enactment troop last weekend and I took some shots of this formation. I will upload and post them on this thread later on tonight.

Will

Ave!

You may want to narrow it down--"Roman" covers over a thousand years! I'm not strong on the Late era, but up through the first century AD I'm not familiar with a specific tactic of kneeling in the face of cavalry. Caesar does mention his troops fighting cavalry by thrusting with their javelins, until they saw him approaching with reinforcements, at which point they threw the javelins and charged. No mention of kneeling that I recall.

From the earlier Republic we are told that the triarii, forming the 3rd battle line, would kneel behind their shields while the first 2 lines (hastati and principes) fought. But this was more to allow them to rest (being mostly older guys) and remain steady, and was done no matter what sorts of troops they were facing.

Roman tactics in the late Republic and early Empire were certainly based on flexibility, but the basic line seems to have been the usual basis. Forming squares or circles would allow the enemy to get behind you, which could be bad for your camp and baggage train! A notable exception was Crassus' campaign into Parthia, for which he marched in a hollow square, with the baggage inside. This was mostly to defend against horse archers, of course, though there was a small contingent of Parthian armored lancers (cataphracti).

I think it's Arrian who writes a hypothetical description of a battle between Romans and Alan cavalry, 2nd or maybe 3rd century AD. His arrangement of the Roman infantry is specifically designed to face a cavalry threat, but I honestly don't recall if he mentions the front ranks kneeling or not.

Are there any actual references to Romans kneeling to repel cavalry?

Matthew

Correct. This is just a typical practice for small numbers of reenactors, massing them together like this. However, I'm afraid this particular formation isn't quite convincing, to me. If there is a Roman source which describes something like this, no problem, I will cheerfully eat my words!

Valete,

Matthew

my question regarding use of pila is regarding the characteristics of pila themselves, their thin iron shanks being prone to bending when they impact a target

ive always wondered how well pila would actually perform

my understanding (i once heard) was that another anti cavalry tactic was, again not unlike the redcoat infantry square, instead of muskets though, throwing their pila to blunt the cavalry charge (personally i wouldnt be too keen at the idea of being showered by pila. which unless im mistaken are quite heavy compared to the more typical skirmishers javelin.

one last (and slightly off topic) question regarding pila. a common assertion regarding the pila was that one of the two had a lead weight, and the leadone was always thrown either first or second but i dont know in which order, which is it?

to be completely fair to ridley scott, the germans chant was done apparently on purpose as a tribute to the movie zulu.

the 'game of chicken matthew descibes regarding thrown pila to stop cavalry, is a dilemma faced by rredcoats when in square, the dilemma was de to the rate of fire of the smoothbore musket, 3 shots a minute on average, if the men fire too early they wont do much casualties and wont be able to reload before the cavalry are upon them, but if they fire too late, sure they might pretty much wipe out half or a quarter of the horsemen, but theres a huge risk that a dead man or dying horse will fcrash into the lines of the square, this will disrupt the bayonet hedge presented, and create a gap in the lines that the rest of the cavalry will exploit, chopping up the square from within and without.

and like roman infantry british infantry squares are often arranged in checkerboard array to allow mutually supporting crossfire zones.

if a square is broken up, sometimes infantry fleeing the square will try and find safety in neighbouring squares, to do so they have to push past their comrades andnd if more than a few men do that to the side of a square at once will again create exploitable gaps, that cavalry can exploit, chop up the square from within, cause refugees , which break up and disrupt more squares..

its like a viral infection or a uranium chain reaction meaning one delayed firing order by a square can result in potentially a good portion of the army thrown into complete disarray, if not total ruin, and in either case be badly shaken by the experienceif that had happened to the squares at waterloo history may very well have turned out alot differently from then on

as for the power of javelins, one place this power verses most bows is reflected is medieval 2 total war and even more accurately in the crusader era mod broken crescent. in BC especially most horse archers will do little damage to high armoured units like the commanders bodyguards, cataphracts and other troops which are typically heavily armoured, but mounted javelineers will do a hefty amount of damage against them. one or two batallians using about 2 volleys of javelins will to the same damage as 2-3 times that number of horse archers firing twice the number of arrows each.

One thing I remember is the account in Plutarch's Life of Mark Antony, where the Roman legionaries were ordered to wait for a Parthian cavalry charge and then spring up and counterattack with their pila once the Parthians had drawn very close. What I can't recall is what array they were supposed to wait in; it could have been kneeling, or it could have been a testudo, and my Plutarch is not close at hand (so I can't check it up yet).