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the remnants of the defeated Roman force at Kalkriese also included dagger parts: bronze rivets from the hilt of a weapon as well as a fragmentary iron blade. Iron daggers and their sheaths have been found in Britain, too – from Copthall Court, London (de la Bédoyère, 2001: 213; Feugère, 2002: 128) and from Exeter (I.R. Scott, 1991: 263 and fig. 120). Rarer, perhaps, was the beautifully decorated sheath that was found with the body of a Roman at Velsen in the Netherlands, discussed in detail below.
    In addition to blade weapons, the Roman soldier used projectiles to deadly effect. Following the reforms of their commander, Marius, in the later years of the second century BC , infantrymen were each provided with a heavy throwing spear or pilum , The 2m-long pilum was formed from a heavy wooden shaft into which a long thin iron spear tang with sharp point was attached. A pointed iron ferule completed the weapon. Two methods of attaching the iron head to the wooden shaft were used: ‘Some of the iron heads ended in a socket, the joint reinforced by an iron collet fitting over the top of the wooden shaft, but the majority had a wide rectangular tang which slid into a groove in the wood and was fastened into place by two rivets’ (Goldsworthy, 2003: 132). By all accounts, the metal tang of the pilum was designed to bend on impact rendering the weapon useless and either preventing the enemy from throwing it back or encumbering him should it stick in his shield. This weapon was in use until the third century AD and had, according to Goldsworthy, a range of c. 15m requiring close discipline in its use ( ibid. : 132). Smaller spears could also be used to provide a lethal barrage.
    Archaeologically, it is only fragments of these pila that have been recovered. A pilum head and a couple of collets have been found at Kalkriese (Schlüter, 1999: 138; Cowan, 2003a: 25–6) in addition to several other iron spears. Feugère points to a number of other pilum finds from elsewhere in the Empire, including several shafts from the valley of the Saône in France, and others from Oberaden, Germany, with collets recovered from Hod Hill in Dorset (Feugère, 2002: 130). A socketed iron pilum head, 241mm long, was also part of the assemblage in the hoard from Corbridge discussed below (Allason-Jones and Bishop, 1988: 9). Forty-six throwing spears were also present in this hoard, many of which had been bound together and were fused when excavated, as were three catapult bolts and several ferrules and sockets illustrating the throwing arsenal available to the legionary ( ibid. : 10–17). As with other pieces of the infantryman’s equipment, spears were sometimes inscribed by their owners and thus we have traces of names of those who fought to maintain the Roman Empire. One first-century example from Bucklersbury House, London, proclaimed it was the ‘(property) of Victor in the century of Verus’ (Collingwood and Wright, 1991: 51).
    Although not part of the standard legionary equipment, slings were used effectively in sieges and add colour to the picture of Roman warfare. The shot from these was often of baked clay or lead and some Roman examples from the second and first centuries BC , like their Greek predecessors, bore inscriptions. This subset includes invective aimed at the enemy – for example, the sardonic avale or ‘swallow this’ (Feugère, 2002: 160). Under battle conditions, sling shot could be manufactured with relative ease. At Velsen, in the Netherlands, a soldier poked his finger into local sand to provide a simple mould for the lead that would make the shot. In so doing, a cast of his finger, complete with nail, was preserved. These lead projectiles ( glandes plumbeae ) were also among the weapons available to the ill-fated soldiers at Kalkriese in AD 9 (Schlüter, 1999: 138).
    ARMOUR
    In addition to countless portrayals on gravestones, triumphal arches and sculptures,