Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Hastati

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

HASTA'TI. In general any person armed with spears; but in a more special sense the Hastati were a particular body of heavy-armed infantry, constituting the first of the three classes into which the old Roman legion was subdivided. They consisted of the youngest men, and were posted in the first line of the battle array, at least until the latter end of the republic, when the custom had obtained of drawing up the Roman army in lines, by cohorts; and, consequently, the old distinctions between the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, in regard to the respective positions occupied by each of them, had been abandoned. But their arms and accoutrements appear to have been retained, without any very important change even under the empire; for they are frequently represented upon the arches and columns with weapons of offence and defence similar to those which Polybius ascribes to them at his day; viz. a helmet, large shield, cuirass of chain-mail, sword on the right side, and spear, as shown by the annexed example (Hastati/1.1) from the column of Antoninus. The cuirass of chain armour (θώραξ ἀλυσιδωτός), which was peculiar to the hastati, is indicated by the marking in the engraving, but is more prominently apparent in the original, from being placed in immediate contrast with two other figures, the one in scale armour (lorica squamata), the other plumated (lorica plumata), both of which are detailed with equal decision and distinctness. Varro, L. L. v. 89. Ennius ap. Macrob. Sat. vi. 1. Liv. xxii. 5. Polyb. vi. 23.

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  Hastati/1.1