12. These cities generally lived in harmony with each other, and when a dispute arose between them respecting Lelantum, they did not even then suspend all intercourse so as to act in war entirely without regard to each other, but they agreed upon certain conditions, on which the war was to be conducted. This appears by a column standing in the Amarynthium, which interdicts the use of missiles. [For with respect to warlike usages and armour, there neither is nor was any common usage; for some nations employ soldiers who use missile weapons, such as bows, slings, and javelins; others employ men who engage in close fight, and use a sword, or charge with a spear.[582] For there are two methods of using the spear; one is to retain it in the hand; the other, to hurl it like a dart; the pike[583] answers both purposes, for it is used in close encounter and is hurled to a distance. The sarissa and the hyssus are similarly made use of.][584]
13. The Eubœans excelled in standing[585] fight, which was also called close fight,[586] and fight hand to hand.[587] They used spears extended at length according to the words of the poet;
“warriors eager to break through breastplates with extended ashen spears.”[588]
The missile weapons were perhaps of different kinds, as, probably, was the ashen spear of Pelion, which, as the poet says,
“Achilles alone knew how to hurl.”[589]
When the poet says,
“I strike farther with a spear than any other person with an arrow,”[590]
he means with a missile spear. They, too, who engage in single combat, are first introduced as using missile spears, and then having recourse to swords. But they who engage in single combat do not use the sword only, but a spear also held in the hand, as the poet describes it,
“he wounded him with a polished spear, pointed with brass, and unbraced his limbs.”[591]