Roman Hasta

Origins

The spear was the main weapon of Italian infantry from the Bronze Age. In the early Roman army, which fought in a close phalanx in the Greek manner, the wealthier citizens stood in the front ranks with a round shield, a helmet and a thrusting spear, the hasta. During the fourth century BC, probably during the wars against the Samnites in the hill country of central Italy, the Romans broke their army into smaller, more flexible units called maniples, and most of the infantry gave up the spear for the throwing Roman Pilum and the sword. The name of the front-line troops, the hastati or "spearmen", survived from the older system even after they stopped carrying spears. Only the oldest and most experienced soldiers, the triarii, kept the hasta.

Design & Construction

The hasta was a straightforward infantry spear. Its shaft was usually of ash and about 2 to 2.5 meters (roughly 6 to 8 feet) long, though no complete shaft survives and lengths are estimates. The iron head was usually leaf-shaped with a strong central rib, and heads found on Roman sites vary a great deal in size. A socket fitted over the end of the shaft and was fixed with a nail or rivet. Many spears had an iron butt spike, which balanced the weapon, let it be planted in the ground, and gave the soldier something to fight with if the head broke. The Romans used the word hasta for other spears as well, including the light javelin of the velites, the hasta velitaris, and a headless spear, the hasta pura, given as a military award.

Combat Use

Polybius, writing in the second century BC, described the legion of the Punic Wars as drawn up in three lines. The hastati fought first, the principes second, and the triarii, 600 men in each legion, waited at the back. The triarii were armed like the others with a large Roman Scutum, a Montefortino Helmet and body armor, but carried the hasta instead of the pilum. Livy described them kneeling behind their shields with their spears slanting forward, their butts fixed in the ground, like a bristling fence. If the first two lines were beaten, they fell back through the triarii, who closed ranks and met the enemy with their spears. The Roman saying "it has come down to the triarii" meant that matters had become desperate. At the Battle of Zama in 202 BC Scipio moved his triarii and principes out to the wings to extend his line against Hannibal's veterans, and the spearmen fought in the long, hard struggle that ended when the Roman and Numidian cavalry charged the Carthaginian rear.

Legacy

In the late second century BC the Roman army changed again, and by the time of Marius the three lines had become one kind of legionary, all armed with the pilum and the Roman Gladius. The triarii disappeared, and the hasta left the legion. Spears remained the standard weapon of auxiliary infantry and cavalry under the Empire. By the third and fourth centuries AD the legions themselves had largely returned to the spear, fighting in close formation with oval shields and the long Roman Spatha. The hasta also kept a place in Roman ceremony. A spear was planted at public auctions, and priests called fetials threw one into enemy territory to declare war.