ROMAN WARS

PRINCIPES & TRIARII

In battle a Roman front would consist of three lines. At the very front came the hastati - young men of some experience and well armed. Behind them came the principes, men in the prime of life and also well armed, but with more experience. The third line was made up of the triarii, the oldest and most experienced men of all. In front of the line at the start of a battle were the velites, acting like light infantry.

This set of princepes and triarii includes eight figures of infantrymen. It is difficult to distinguish which figures are meant to be which troop type, and indeed in reality the appearance of both types would have been little different. However the armament was very different, with the princepes being armed with two pila and the triarii having a spear (hastae). The pilum was about 120-150 cm long and was a kind of javelin, being thrown at the enemy as they approached. The spear of the triarii was around three metres long during the early Roman Republic period, but gradually shortened to about two metres later in the period. Those moulded here are about two metres long, which makes them little different from the pila. The triarii spent the battle kneeling with left leg forward, shield resting on their left shoulder and spear pointing forwards 'like a palisade' as one Roman historian put it. Therefore the kneeling figure, which is a triarius, is not quite right. As well as the spear being upright instead of sloping forward, his shield is incorrectly placed. In fact, this shield, which is separate and attaches with a peg, can only be applied hanging some distance off the ground in a very unnatural position

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