ABSTRACT
Most Germanic warriors, whether foot or horse, were spear-throwers.1 Unlike Celts and Romans, however, they often had among their weapons a spear with barbs.2 West-and north-Germanic graves from the end of the pre-Roman Iron Age onward yield barbed spears.3 Roman triumphal art such as Caligula’s silver disc from Niederbieber and firstcentury coins also portray Germanic barbed spears and so does a gravestone from the late second century AD showing Quadi warriors:4 Romans, it seems, took barbed spears to be typically Germanic.
