Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Sparum

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. 

SPAR'UM or -US. A weapon, properly speaking, peculiar to the agricultural population (agrestis sparus, Virg. Aen. xi. 682.; telum rusticum, Serv. ad l.), which had a wooden shaft (hastile, Nepos, Epam. 9.), and an iron head with a curved blade attached to it (in modum pedi recurvum, Serv. l. c.), but also ending in a sharp point, to fit it for being discharged as a missile (Nepos, l. c. Sisenn. ap. Non. s. v. p. 555.) It was used in hunting (Varro, ap. Non. l. c.); and sometimes in warfare; but in that case it is not to be regarded as a regular weapon; only such as might be adopted by rude levies of the peasantry, or in sudden risings, where every man arms himself as he best can. (Sall. B. Cat. 59.) The annexed figure (Sparum/1.1) is copied from a bas-relief in the collection at Ince-Blundell, where it is used at a hunt; and as the very peculiar form of its head agrees so characteristically with the description collected from the various incidental passages cited above, it does not appear that any doubts can be entertained respecting the name and quality of the object it was intended to represent.

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  Sparum/1.1