Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Lancea

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. 

LAN'CEA (λόγχη). A lance; a very long light spear, with a broad flat head, serving both as a pike and a missile (Virg. Aen. xii. 374.); commonly used by the Greek cavalry (Polyb. vi. 23. Festus, s. v.), and by huntsmen. (Apul. Met. viii. p. 156.) It had a leather loop (nodus) attached to the shaft (Sil. Ital. i. 318. Isidor. Orig. xviii. 7.), and intended for the purpose of enabling the horseman to mount. (Xen. R. Equest. vii. 1.) It is singular that we should have no good or undoubted representation of this weapon. The spear used by Alexander and those of the Greek cavalry in the Pompeian mosaic, representing the battle of Issus (woodcut, p. 200.), are not furnished with the particular appendage above mentioned, and their prodigious size is more characteristic of the contus than the lancea. In the engraved gem of the Stosch cabinet, which represents a Greek horseman mounting from his spear (Wink. Mon. Ant. Ined. 202.), the spear is not fitted with a loop, but with a projecting rest, or small platform, apparently of wood, standing out from the lower end of the shaft. But in a mutilated bas-relief published by Stuart (Antiq. of Athens, v. 3. p. 47.), containing a representation of two shields, and what appears to be part of the shafts of three spears, each of these has a loop affixed to them, similar to what is seen in the illustration (Lancea/1.1) here annexed, representing a broken spear lying on the foreground of the Pompeian mosaic above mentioned; and as the head of it is turned towards the Persians, it is quite clear that the artist intended it for a Greek weapon; the probability of its being a lancea is only inferred from the thong which surrounds its shaft.

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  Lancea/1.1