Funditores

Description

These slingers are members of the lowest class still subject to military service under the centuriate system established by the Roman king Servius Tullius. They are armed with simple slings and stones, though in practice they are rarely seen in Roman armies on the battlefield. These men can deal moderate damage to enemy troops, but their meagre skill level clearly indicates that they are slingers out of necessity rather than martial ability.

Historical background

Slinging does not have a long history in ancient Italy, and rarely do we read about dedicated slingers in the armies of the Romans and other Italic peoples before the 2nd century BC. Most of the time, the javelin was their skirmishers’ weapon of choice. In the Roman military, the sling appears in Livy’s and Dionysios’ descriptions of the centuriate order of Servius Tullius (ca. 578-534 BC) (Liv. I.43.7; Dion. Hal. IV.17.2). The fifth class was the lowest of those subject to military service, comprising men who owned an estimated property worth 11,000 aeris (Roman bronze coins). They were in the same class as the cornicen and tubicen – horn and trumpet players (Liv. I.43.7) – and were positioned outside of the main heavy infantry battleline (Dion. Hal. IV.17.2).

The slings appear somewhat more often in Dionysios’ narrative than in Livy’s. In 496 BC, after the Romans exiled their king around the turn of the 6th to 5th century BC, a debate broke out in the senate about the lack of manpower it could levy, due to the debts imposed on the lowest classes of citizens. In a speech against relieving the debts of the plebeians in order not to make the citizenry more arrogant, Appius Claudius Sabinus told the senate:

“For those who had the lowest rating in the census […] were posted in the rear in battle and counted as a mere appendage to the forces that were arrayed in the battle-line, being present merely to strike the enemy with terror, since they had no other arms but slings, which are of the least use in action.” (V.67.5), continuing: “For it was far better for [the Romans] to submit to the commands of the Latins, as being more moderate, and not even to try the fortune of war, than by yielding to the pleas of those who were of no use upon any occasion, […] and this when they were merely going to add a body of slingers to their forces for the war.” (V.68.4)

This harsh evaluation of slingers being useless may be a rhetorical device, but especially compared to certain Greek peoples like the Akarnanians, Achaians, and Rhodians, we know of no slinging expertise being present on the Italian peninsula. In the legendary description of the Latin army in Vergil’s (70-19 BC) Aeneid, slings and javelins are the weapons of peasants who follow the legendary founder of Praeneste, Caeculus, who were too poor to be armed with proper weapons and shields (Verg. Aen. VII.679-690). Silius Italicus (ca. 25-100 AD), inspired by the writings of his favourite author and idol Vergil, of course also includes a roll call of Roman allies in the Second Punic War, where the inhabitants of Corfinium and Teate appear armed with hunting spears and slings otherwise used for shooting birds (“omnibus in pugnam fertur sparus, omnibus alto adsuetae uolucrem caelo demittere fundae”; 8.521-22). Its continued framing as the poor man’s weapon of choice or a hunting tool emphasizes its low status among the Italics.

Funditores’ explicit appearances in battle are few and far between. In 487 BC, a war broke out between the Romans and the Hernicians, and in the ensuing battle near the Latin town of Praeneste the first to engage were the light-armed men (psiloi) who attacked each other with “javelins, arrows, and stones from their slings” (Dion. Hal. VIII.65.29). In 465 BC, it came to gruelling engagements with the countless forces of the Aequi, whose repeated assaults on the Roman camp could not be repulsed by showers of “javelins, missiles shot from bows, and stones thrown by slings” (Dion. Hal. IX.63.4).

Rome only properly started to appreciate slingers once it expanded beyond the confines of Italy, and recruited auxiliaries from areas like Crete (Liv. XXXVIII.21.2), Achaia (Liv. XXXVIII.29.6), the Baleares (Caes. BG. II.7.1-2), and other places with a local professional slinger tradition (Liebenam, Funditores in: RE VII, 1 (1910), p. 294-295). During the Late Republican period, heavy infantrymen could be demoted and transferred to the ranks of auxiliary slingers (Val. Max. 2.7.15; Gauthier, Did Velites disappear (2021), p. 77). Even though Gauthier asserts that the archer and slinger evocati (i.e. veterans) of Pompey the Great (106-48 BC) may have been citizens, it is more likely that Rome recruited all its slingers as foreign auxiliaries by that time (Caes. BCiv. 1.27.5, in: Gauthier (2021), p. 76).

Stats

Weapons

Defence

Condition and terrain

In battle: Very good stamina

Who can recruit it

A core roster unit for 5 factions, each able to raise it anywhere they hold the right building:

Italics · Roman Rebels (first civil war) · Roman Rebels (second civil war) · Rome · The Roman Senate