''Plumbatae'' or ''martiobarbuli'' were

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

-weighted

darts Darts or dart-throwing is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small sharp-pointed missiles known as darts at a round target known as a dartboard. Points can be scored by hitting specific marked areas of the bo ...

carried by

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...

men in Antiquity and the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

History

The first examples seem to have been carried by the

Ancient Greeks Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

from about 500 BC onwards, but the best-known users were the late Roman and Eastern Roman armies. The earliest and best written source for these weapons refers to a period around 300 AD, though the document was composed around 390–450 AD.''De Re Militari'', Book I: The Selection and Training of New Levies
/ref> A second source, also from the late 4th century, is an anonymous

treatise A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions." Tre ...

titled ''

De rebus bellicis ''De rebus bellicis'' ("On the Things of Wars") is an anonymous work of the 4th or 5th century which suggests remedies for the military and financial problems in the Roman Empire, including a number of fanciful war machines. It was written af ...

'', which briefly discusses (so far archaeologically unattested) spiked ''plumbatae'' (''plumbata tribolata''), but which is also the only source that shows an image of what a ''plumbata'' looked like. The image shows what looks like a short arrow with a weight attached to the shaft. Although only later copies of the original manuscript exist, this is confirmed by the remains which have so far turned up in the archaeological record. A third source is the late 6th century '' Strategicon'', written by the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

emperor

Maurice Maurice may refer to: People * Saint Maurice (died 287), Roman legionary and Christian martyr * Maurice (emperor) or Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus (539–602), Byzantine emperor *Maurice (bishop of London) (died 1107), Lord Chancellor and ...

, who wrote about the ''martzobarboulon'', a corruption of its Latin name ''martiobarbulum''. ''Plumbatae'' etymologically contain ''plumbum'', or

, and can be translated "lead-weighted

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

. ''Martiobarbuli'' in this translation is ''mattiobarbuli'' in the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

, which is most likely an assimilation of ''Martio-barbuli'', "little barbs of Mars". The barb implied a barbed head, and

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

was the god of war (among other things). Archaeology gives a clearer picture of ''martiobarbuli''. The reference listed has an illustration of a find from

Wroxeter Wroxeter is a village in Shropshire, England, which forms part of the civil parish of Wroxeter and Uppington, beside the River Severn, south-east of Shrewsbury. '' Viroconium Cornoviorum'', the fourth largest city in Roman Britain, was site ...

identified as the head of a ''plumbata'' and a reconstruction of the complete weapon: a fletched dart with an

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

head weighted with lead. The reconstruction seems entirely consistent with Vegetius' description. War darts were also used in Europe later in the

Notes

References

Primary sources

* Anonymous, ''De Rebus Bellicis'': On matters of war. * Maurice, ''Strategikon'': On Strategy. * Vegetius, ''Epitome Rei Militari'': Epitome of Military science.

Secondary sources

* Barker, P., ''The plumbatae from Wroxeter'', in: Hassall and Ireland 1979, De Rebus Bellicis, BAR Int. Ser., vol. 63 (Oxford), part 1, pp. 97–9. * Connolly, Peter, ''Greece and Rome at War'', Greenhill Books, 1998, * Degen, R., Plumbatae: Wurfgeschosse der Spätantike, in: Helvetia Archaeologica 1992, vol. 23, pp. 139–147. * Ireland, Robert, ''De Rebus Bellicis'' (anon.), in: BAR International Series 63 (Oxford), part 2. * Dennis, George T., ''Maurice's Strategikon. Handbook of Byzantine military strategy'', University of Philadelphia Press 1984, . *Keszi, Tamás: ''Plumbata, the Roman-Style Darts. A Late Antique Weapon from Annamatia.'' Hungarian Archaeology 2018. Spring, 21-32. https://www.academia.edu/36798885/Plumbata_the_Roman-Style_Darts._A_Late_Antique_Weapon_from_Annamatia * Milner, N.P., ''Vegetius: epitome of military science'', Liverpool University Press 1993, . * Völling, T. (1991): ''Plumbata - Mattiobarbulus - Martzobarboulon? Bemerkungen zu einem Waffenfund aus Olympia'' in: Archäologischer Anzeiger, pp. 287–98.

External links