Romans rarely used western style archers during the republic or later. Most of their bowmen during the Republic were composite bow armed cretans, recruited as mercenaries and later auxilaries, since the punic wars.

In the wars and civil wars of the late republic roman generals in the east started to hire horse and foot archers in large contigents for their armies.

Thereafter, in the early principate, when the roman army begun to field greater numbers of their own regular archer and horse archer units almost all were intially enrolled in the eastern and black sea provinces and equipped with eastern style composite bows.

The remainders of such bows have been found in greater numbers in roman forts throughout europe, even in places not occupied by specialised archer units. The roman imperial period was the only era when the eastern style composite bow was dominantly use in western europe.