The weapons remain where they were thrown, for several hours, until a curious, somewhat greedy Roman archer sees that no one's looking, and steals Vercingetorix's famous shield.
By the time of Procopius's histories and Maurikios's Strategikon, the main effective field arm of Roman armies was cavalry, many of them armed with bows.
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According to the Notitia Dignitatum, most units of sagittarii, especially equites sagittarii, were in the Eastern empire or in Africa.