Gasta

Gasta (incorrectly "hasta", from the Latin. Hasta ) - in the broad sense - the ancient Roman , originally Sabine, spear . The meaning of the name, like a number of other types of Roman weapons, in different periods was different.

Roman poet of the 3rd century BC e. Annius mentions the Gasta in its common sense - as a throwing weapon, from which the Gastats got their name, although the spear of the Triarius was also called “hasta”. But by the time of Polybius, the gastati were already armed with pilums , the name of which was also ambiguous. Gasta (“hasta velitaris”) also refers to the dart of light infantry. The deprivation of the Gasta soldiers meant their demotion in Velita . Today it is believed that at first the Romans were armed with heavy impact spears, which apparently were actually Gastes, and later they began to rearm with light throwing weapons (pilums, Gyzes, etc.) - first, Gastats in the 4th or 3rd century. BC e., then the principles by the end of the 3rd century and triaries at the end of II or beginning of I century. BC e.

The Fetzials symbolically threw a bloody Gastu into enemy territory to declare war. A special gasta without a tip (“hasta pura” - letters. “Clean”) in the early era was a Roman military award, which was also awarded to primipils after the end of the service. There was also “celibaris hasta” - a spear that struck the defeated gladiator , who was used, according to Ovid , according to tradition to cut the bride’s hair. At a public auction, a gasta stuck in the ground symbolically declared the beginning of transactions (“subhastationes”) and also, as usual, stood before the centumvir court (“hasta centumviralis”).