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M. Demetrius:2dz24sh8 Wrote:I buy them all the time on RTW, so I know that they must be real. Along with flaming pigs and wardogs, they're pretty good at breaking the line. Or the wind, I guess.... :roll:

I always carry a unit of flaming pigs when on the march. You have to feed the troops somehow! :lol:

What was the terrain/farming conditions like in Dacia? What was the main crop? If the Falx was derived(as is currently believed) from a farming scythe are there any finds of the proto-falx(?) on farmland or anything?

Quote:several curved blades had been found near Sarmizegetusa Regia. the discoverers are not absolutely sure if the blades were weapons or tools.
lucky Dacians! they only have to carry cheese and storkes (it said to be only the few words inherited in Romanian from Dacian language, so we use them a lot in histoy jokes) feed the troops :mrgreen:

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nina:yxksb2hj Wrote:several curved blades had been found near Sarmizegetusa Regia. the discoverers are not absolutely sure if the blades were weapons or tools.
lucky Dacians! they only have to carry cheese and storkes (it said to be only the few words inherited in Romanian from Dacian language, so we use them a lot in histoy jokes) to feed the troops :mrgreen:

Any links or pictures that you could point out?

Quote: Now, the older rhomphia *did* have 2 edges for about a third of the length of the blade. The rest had a T-shaped section, so the back actually had a rib or ridge, giving strength. But that's a different weapon, more subtle and versatile than the falx.

Valete,

Matthew

Quote:Falx was a Dacian weapon, as Romans back then said so, and at Adamclissi are depicted of course Dacians with falxes.

Quote:nobody then (and even now, excepting you) said that falx is somehow a Bastarnae weapon.

Quote:Salvete Omnes!
Dacian's falx is really effective weapon against well equipped infantry like roman legionary. See the metopes from Traian's triumphal monument in Adamclisi /Romania/:

Quote:Hmm. The first picture from the bottom doesn't look good for the Dacian, the second shows what could be an effective shield parry, the third? hard to know what's going on there, and the fourth could go either way. No doubt about one thing, though, a hard slice on a neck, forearm or leg, and the receiving soldier is out of the fight at best. :|

Quote:In no less than sixteen of the 50 odd metopes, combat is shown between Roman cavalry, legionaries and Auxiliaries and Germanics/Bastarnae. In every single case the Romans are depicted killing, have killed, or clearly about to kill their opponents - who are not always 'falx' armed.

Quote:Not too surprising in a Roman propaganda piece !!

Quote:

Have you forgotten ? “Falx’ means any curved bladed weapon or tool. ANY !! As you can see from Trajan’s column and the Inscriptions of Dacian units in Britain, ALL ‘falxes’/curved blades depicted as used by Dacians are ‘single handed swords/daggers = sicas.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Dacians used the two-handed hedging hook/slashing hook/reed cutter tool as a makeshift weapon – they could afford ‘proper’ swords !

Quote:Quite wrong.

Adolf Furtwangler ( the famous German historian ) considered as long ago as 1897(!!!) that the Adamklissi monument depicted defeat of the Bastarnae people

Sir Ian Richmond ( one of the world’s leading archaeologists) pointed out as long ago as 1960 in a lecture delivered to various prominent bodies, that there were three different ethnic groups portrayed on the crenellations as prisoners – Dacians, Sarmatians and Germanic ( who can only realistically be Bastarnae). He also described the metopes, and that all the fighting scenes showed Romans fighting the ‘Germanic barbarians’/Bastarnae.

Lepper and Frere ( 1988), the current foremost work on Trajan’s column and the Dacian Wars considered all possibilities (including the Romanian archaeologist Florescu, who thought they were Dacians) and concluded that Furtwangler and Richmond were right and that they were Bastarnae.

Since you probably have access to mainly Romanian works, who may have followed Florescu’s ( demonstrably incorrect) line, it is understandable that you believe this. Nevertheless the rest of the German-speaking and English- speaking scholars who have studied the subject have concluded for over 100 years that the Germanic barbarians shown on the Adamklissi monument are almost certainly Bastarnae, and are certainly NOT Dacian.

Quote:Those pictures you have posted, and all the other metopes show the chopper-wielders being slaughtered and they and their families are massacred!

If we go on the evidence of the Adamklissi monuments (more than one) and the small amount of evidence we have of Trajan’s Wars, the Peucini branch of the Bastarnae were heavily defeated and probably suffered Genocide, though they recovered to be a small part of tribal coalitions later against the Romans, in Marcus Aurelius’ reign and later as part of the Gothic coalition.

I am baffled by this assumption that the two-handed-extemporised-tool-used-as-a- weapon, with a curved blade and therefore called in modern times, a type of “falx”/curve blade was “effective”. (There is no evidence that the two-handed thing was given this or any other name by the Romans)

The so-called “Falx” ( a term ONLY used in modern times to refer to the tool used as a weapon on the Adamklissi metopes), going on such evidence as we have, was such an abject failure that, so far as we know, it never appeared on the battlefield again, having been tried just once !!

Quote:Oh, indeed !..... :lol:

As I pointed out....

Quote:Not too surprising in a Roman propaganda piece !!

...but as I also said, the narrative, the location of the monuments and all the other evidence clearly point to a massacre of incoming/migrating Peucini-Bastarnae, as had occurred before IIRC.