a missile weapon used by the Roman soldiers, and in a charge darted upon the enemy. Its point, we are told by Polybius, was so long and small, that after the first discharge it was generally so bent as to be rendered useless. The legionary soldiers made use of the pilum, and each man carried two. The pilum underwent many alterations and improvements, inasmuch that it is impossible with any precision to describe it. Julius Scaliger laboured much to give an accurate account of it, and would have esteemed success on this head amongst the greatest blessings of his life. This weapon appears, however, to have been sometimes round, but most commonly square, to have been two cubits long in the staff, and to have had an iron point of the same length hooked and jagged at the end. Marius made a material improvement in it; for during the Cimbrian war, he so contrived it, that when it stuck in the enemy's shield it should bend down in an angle in the part where the wood was connected with the iron, and thus become useless to the person who received it.