[George Hill]

I'm adding a bit to this thread via edit rather then making another very close to it.

In short, I'm looking for information on ALL DARTS. Kern darts, Roman Darts,

Anything that can be considered a serious weapon, and is a dart or short javelin. Anyone have any information?

I'm looking for information that will aid in construction and use.




I was looking at the kern dart thread again, and moved on to looking at darts and javelins in general... And I came to the roman dart(s?).

Now, Vegitus says "The exercise of the loaded javelins, called martiobarbuli, must not be omitted...............Every soldier carries five of these javelins in the hollow of his shield. And thus the legionary soldiers seem to supply the place of archers, for they wound both the men and horses of the enemy before they come within reach of the common missile weapons."

I started digging around on google, and I found a number of pages, mostly dealing with table top wargames, which maintain that he's talking about Plumbata, which look like this.

http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/makeplumbata.htm
http://www.fectio.org.uk/groep/posing2003.htm

But I also found this page on late period romans, '

http://www.roman-empire.net/army/legionary-late.html

and what he is holding isn't the same thing. It's longer, has no lead weight, and no fletches. (IT's also not a spear, too small.)

What really fascinates me is the idea of keeping these projectiles in the hollow of the shield. Does anyone know if this practice was used in the middle ages? (I know the Franks used the angon, which was basically a Pilum...)


So, is the martiobarbuli the same as the Plumbata? Did later cultures carry javelins in their shields?

Further, what does Vegitus mean when he calls it a 'loaded' javelin?

[Sean Flynt]

Paging Matthew Amt.

You know, you could certainly do a lot worse, construction-wise, than make your Irish dart heads with a tang rather than a socket. Then you could just cut 'em whole out of sheet. Use a small section of thin-wall steel pipe to make a ferrule to prevent the shaft from splitting, insert the tang (with some glue or a pin through haft and tang) and start chucking. That would be very simple and very cool-looking. This wouldn't be too far from your original idea, but should prove to be more durable.

[Matthew Amt]

Ack, me? Sorry, that's "late" stuff, not my area, really. I know I've seen discussions and debates about the various later weapons, but don't recall the conclusions in detail. I think they're still trying to decide just how long the plumbata was, even.

The folks of Fectio can tell you more. There are a couple other late-period guys over on the Roman Army Talk board, too.

Sorry about that! Vale,

Matthew