Plumbata

The plumbata was a lead-weighted throwing dart with a wooden shaft and fletching, used by ancient Greek forces from around 500 BC and most notably by late Roman and early Byzantine armies from about 300 AD onward. Roman infantrymen carried several plumbatae clipped inside their shields so they could be thrown at range before close combat, a practice described in a fourth-century military treatise by Vegetius and in the Byzantine Strategikon, and confirmed by archaeological finds such as those at Wroxeter.