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Thread: Hastati Logic

  1. #1

    Default Hastati Logic

    As the title suggests, I've been curious as to the thinking behind giving Roman Hastati a sword instead of a spear. It is my understanding that "Hasta" is the Latin word for spear, hence "Hastati" would refer to men who use spears. This is no criticism, as I'm just wondering what the reasons for it were.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Hastati Logic

    There are a lot of misconceptions about history most of it are lies written by jesuit templar orders. Barbaroi for example means bearded men, but people take from greeco-roman catholic context and say "barbaric" "uncivilised". So another lie. We now find that caledonians and scots and Picts have scythian-sarmato blood groups and probably migrated from Ukraine lands to live there running from something. They were also ruled by Egyptinian princess "Scotta" wich went there by a boat. Hence the scotish tittle origins for people. Many lies about many cultures from roman catholics. "Keltoi" for example from ancient aryan language means "to move by" or " to settle through". You can see this "pathway of migration from Ukraine-Black Sea to Iberian Peninsula. Take notice of gold and jewelry work how simillar in crafting that goes from Scytho-sarmatian crafts to "keltoi" crafts all the way to Britan and Spain. Also notice how all these people are amazing horse lords/riders.( Iberians, Kelto-Iberians, Gauls, Germans, Belgians, Boii,Sarmato- Scythians). Make no mistake all these people and tribes once lived in one place. They are all migrants. According to blood types Greco-romans , Carthaginians are all jews and stem from jewish tribes from Levantine/Tyre city. So a lot of misteries and lies about everything. Don t be surprised when "something does not fit the narrative" about history.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Hastati Logic

    maybe they had a spear when the legions fought in greek style phalanx, sometime later they dropped it but the name stuck. or the name hasta relates to the javelin they were armed with.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Hastati Logic

    Quote Originally Posted by AwkwardDuck View Post
    As the title suggests, I've been curious as to the thinking behind giving Roman Hastati a sword instead of a spear. It is my understanding that "Hasta" is the Latin word for spear, hence "Hastati" would refer to men who use spears. This is no criticism, as I'm just wondering what the reasons for it were.
    They used to be armed with spears in times before EB2's timeline. The primary weapon changed to swords, but the name remained. Tradition, I guess.

  5. #5
    Roma_Victrix's Avatar Call me Ishmael
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    Default Re: Hastati Logic

    Quote Originally Posted by Rad View Post
    They used to be armed with spears in times before EB2's timeline. The primary weapon changed to swords, but the name remained. Tradition, I guess.
    The funny/ironic part is that the Camillan era Principes are armed with spears, but the Polybian era ones simply have swords like their Hastati counterparts. The Triarii are tough little armored guys, but they're so few in number that it becomes a problem fighting against heavy cavalry. That's why the Roman army often needs allied/auxiliary spearmen units to support them on the battlefield.

    Quote Originally Posted by bordinis View Post
    There are a lot of misconceptions about history most of it are lies written by jesuit templar orders. Barbaroi for example means bearded men, but people take from greeco-roman catholic context and say "barbaric" "uncivilised". So another lie. We now find that caledonians and scots and Picts have scythian-sarmato blood groups and probably migrated from Ukraine lands to live there running from something. They were also ruled by Egyptinian princess "Scotta" wich went there by a boat. Hence the scotish tittle origins for people. Many lies about many cultures from roman catholics. "Keltoi" for example from ancient aryan language means "to move by" or " to settle through". You can see this "pathway of migration from Ukraine-Black Sea to Iberian Peninsula. Take notice of gold and jewelry work how simillar in crafting that goes from Scytho-sarmatian crafts to "keltoi" crafts all the way to Britan and Spain. Also notice how all these people are amazing horse lords/riders.( Iberians, Kelto-Iberians, Gauls, Germans, Belgians, Boii,Sarmato- Scythians). Make no mistake all these people and tribes once lived in one place. They are all migrants. According to blood types Greco-romans , Carthaginians are all jews and stem from jewish tribes from Levantine/Tyre city. So a lot of misteries and lies about everything. Don t be surprised when "something does not fit the narrative" about history.

    Uh, do you know how unhinged this post sounds?

    The question was about Roman hastati having spears or swords, not conspiracy theories involving genetics and migratory population movements. In either case, the thing that connects most of the peoples you mentioned are the Indo-European roots of most European cultures, in which genetics plays a more minor role but has been largely static since even the Bronze Age (for instance, population groups in Greece and Italy retain largely the same genome as their ancient Bronze Age ancestors). With that being said, LOL, Scottish people aren't related directly to Iranian speaking Scythians (and certainly not Afro-Asiatic Egyptians), lots of different ancient/medieval cultures had an emphasis on cavalry after the decline of chariots, and just like any similarity that might be found in jewelry it does not mean they were somehow the same culture or directly related. That's just silliness. And no, Greeks and Romans did not descend from Levantine Jews, who were Afro-Asiatic in culture. Phoenicians from Lebanon who became colonial Carthaginians were culturally Semitic like the Jews, but they were not the same exact ethnic group as the Hebrews in Israel. For that matter Semitic Canaanites lived in the Levant well before the arrival of Indo-European groups like the Hittites.

    In short, nobody is lying to you, you're just conflating several things together in a paranoid fashion. It's also common sense that Egypt has no relationship to Scotland. The Princess Scotta myth is quite frankly even more hilarious than the character of Merlin in Arthurian tales (which are also unproven fanciful mythology, largely cooked up by Geoffrey of Monmouth).

    At this point I think I would be very entertained by your opinion on Roman military equipment.
    Let me guess, the early Roman spear was descended from Shang-dynasty Chinese "ji" halberds!

  6. #6

    Default Re: Hastati Logic

    I wouldn t trust akademia historians to too much nowadays especially when new evidence is rising. I wouldn t be surprised if hastati fought with spears instead of swords, their age surely would promote the idea they did not have much combat skills so they most likely fought with spears for safety in battle, and also early hastati most likely used round shields rather than pavise shape ones. Also swords were much more expensive for young poor males drafted into military. But again in history there is at most 5 percent truth told so you can speculate what happened or look for new logical evidence.
    Last edited by bordinis; November 27, 2022 at 02:39 PM.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Hastati Logic

    I probably should have clarified in hindsight that I was referring to Camillan Era Hastati, not the Polybian Era ones. I understand that in the Polybian Era they had moved on to more mobile manipular tactics and this merited moving away from the hoplite esque spear and shield style for everyone barring the Triarii. I was just curious since the Camillan Era was when they were still influenced by Greek ideas of warfare with the spear being king on the battlefield, and it doesn't seem to fit with me that the youngest most inexperienced men would use swords and then switch to spears if they survived and were successful enough to make it to the Princepes. Also this is not a historical question per se, but a question for the dev team on their thinking and reasons for the decision.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Hastati Logic

    Bumping this thread because I'm getting back into EB II and I'm still wondering. Camillan era is still the hoplite era of Roman Warfare, yet the Hastati have swords despite their name indicating a Hasta as a weapon. Aesthetic/gameplay choice or historical evidence that they did use swords before the Polybian Era?

    *EDIT*
    After doing some more reading, I've realized I'm wrong in saying the Camillan reforms are the hoplite era of warfare. His reformations (early 4th century BC) introduced the first iteration of the manipular system to Roman warfare (And we know that Camillus and Marius probably weren't even the sole reasons for their eponymous reforms). And yes, the Hastati, Principes and Triarii all used spears as their main weapon. But by the start time of EB II, 272 BC, the Polybian Era is thought to have started fairly recently (300 or 290 BC) but of course some leeway needs to be given since the historians who tell us these dates were also scores of years or hundreds of years removed from these times themselves when they wrote about them. I've come to the conclusion that giving the Hastati swords is a perfectly acceptable interpretation by the dev team of how the Romans waged war at the time. You could say that the new equipment changes that came along with the updated manipular structure in the Polybian reform (so named after the historian writing about it a hundred years later) started with the young men, doing away with the old way with spears and fighting more like the Samnites with sword and javelin, rather than spear and javelin. Since the Triarii were stubborn and stuck with the old hoplite style to an extent, starting the change with the youngest class of infantry seems appropiate to reflect the nature of the young to challenge the status quo when faced with new, and interesting, ideas. All in all, love all the work you guys have done with the mod. Since this thread went sideways almost immediately, I'm glad I might have answered my own question, though I would love anyone to add their 3 cents (due to inflation) so I don't feel like I'm talking to myself.
    Last edited by AwkwardDuck; July 06, 2023 at 01:30 AM.

  9. #9
    Semisalis
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    Default Re: Hastati Logic

    The term hasta was originally used rather interchangebly to refer to javelins and spears proper. One theory is that, before the so called camillian, reform the hastati were never able to afford an hoplite panoply and thus they fought in a more italic fashion, by throwing haste and then engaging with swords and oval/rectangular scuta. By the time EBII starts the most used melee weapons would surely be italic versions of the greek xiphos and italic version of the la tene b celtic sword. If anything it is camillian principes that should be using swords too, which they carry in EBII but cannot use due to engine limitations.

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