Just a grammar note, the plural of pilum is pila :)

Quote Originally Posted by ahowl11 View Post
Camillan
Rorarii - Scutum. Did they throw javelins as well as carry spears?
As Maeran pointed out, we simply do not know and it's a matter of guesswork. They belonged to the poorest class and likely they performed similar tasks as the Helots did in classical Greece. That is carrying equipment, tending to the Triarius' well being etc. At some point they might've also performed as missile units of some sorts opening the battle. But this stands on early second century BCE comedies using terms like "shower before the rain"...

Hastati - Scutum, greave, Monteforino helmet. This is where it gets tricky - some mods give them only spears, some like EB give them short swords and pilae
They had just light javelins, there weren't pila at that time. Later writers metion them simply because they were using their contemporary vocabulary...
Their were shortswords, likely taken from the early La Tène Kladion, which had a blade about half that of the gladius hispaniensis...

Principes - Scutum, greave, breastplate, Monteforino helmet. Everywhere I have read the Principes had spears
Yup, thrusting spears is correct.

Polybian
Hastati - Same as above but do they have a breastplate now or do they have chainmail? They would obviously have pilae and a gladius
Whatever the citizen could afford :P
I'd say way less Loricata Hamata (if any!) than the Principes though...

If the Hastati had chainmal, wouldn't they basically look the same as the Principes? In that case instead of having Hastati and Principes, shouldn't they be combined as a Polybian Cohort of some sorts?
That is what eventually happened ^^
In the mid of the second century BCE, less and less people could afford to buy their equipment. And the well off citizens prefered getting richer and tend to their activites...
Roman generals, at that time, had to finance themselves their troops, even bribing people to enlist. The other philosophy was the Gracchian take, about redistributing the land so that poorer classes could support themselves. This would lead to the Marian reform, but for example around 122 BCE, during the war against the Allobroges and Arverni, there was hardly any difference in equipment between Hastati and Principes...