The Simple, Ingenious Design of the Ancient Roman Javelin: How the Romans Engineered a Remarkably Effective Weapon

As Mike Tyson once put it, with characteristic straightforwardness, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Back in the time of the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire, all of Rome’s enemies must have had a plan until pila punched through their shields. A kind of javelin with a wooden shaft and a sharp iron shank, the pilum came in both long and short lengths. Short pila had the advantage of distance, but long pila had the advantage of power, as well a