page_title: Pilum
section_title: Vegetius' commentary
hierarchical_section_title: Pilum / Vegetius' commentary
caption_attribution_description: English: Bent pilum tip (Kempten, Germany). Français&#160;: Pointe de pilum courbée retrouvée à Kempten, Allemagne.
context_page_description: The pilum was a javelin commonly used by the Roman army in ancient times. It was generally about 2 metres long overall, consisting of an iron shank about 7 millimetres in diameter and 60 centimetres long with a pyramidal head. The shank was joined to the wooden shaft by either a socket or a flat tang.
context_section_description: The Roman writer Vegetius, in his work De Re Militari, wrote:
  As to the missile weapons of the infantry, they were javelins headed with a triangular sharp iron, eleven inches [279 mm]  or a foot long, and were called piles. When once fixed in the shield it was impossible to draw them out, and when thrown with force and skill, they penetrated the cuirass without difficulty.
  And later in the same work:
  They had likewise two other javelins, the largest of which was composed of a staff five feet and a half long and a triangular head of iron nine inches [230 mm] long. This was formerly called the pilum, but now it is known by the name of spiculum. The soldiers were particularly exercised in the use of this weapon, because when thrown with force and skill it often penetrated the shields of the foot and the cuirasses of the horse.
  It may be argued that a short iron shaft has very few confirmations from archaeology. Vegetius wrote about a one-foot iron shaft because at Vegetius' time the pilum had disappeared and been replaced by similar shorter weapons such as the plumbatae and the spiculum.
caption: Bent pilum shank
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