03-17-2007, 12:39 AM
Tony,
I have handled both your falx and the one made by David Simm which you will no doubt remember from the RoMEC in South Shields. His falx is much heavier and I think that once the blade got going it would be hard to stop it. I found yours much easier to handle but I suspect that the power of the blow would not be as great, whereas his was an intrument of naked brute force (I am sure you will remember the high speed film he showed at the time). I have no doubt however that yours is capable of similar damage to that shown in the Legio XX photos.
I also think that the falx is much more likely to have been used for horizontal and underhand cuts as I think that using it overhand in the way Connolly shows would leave the falxman dangerously (even suicidally) exposed. However, given the fact that the carvers of the Adamklissi metopes seem never to have wanted to show a falxman who was not accompanied by another warrior, I wonder whether it might have been a weapon used not so much by an individual but by a 'squad', one of whom was armed with a falx for maximum shock value and the others with swords and spears who could take advantage of a gap created by the falxman and at the same time cover him as he recovered his swing.
Crispvs
I have handled both your falx and the one made by David Simm which you will no doubt remember from the RoMEC in South Shields. His falx is much heavier and I think that once the blade got going it would be hard to stop it. I found yours much easier to handle but I suspect that the power of the blow would not be as great, whereas his was an intrument of naked brute force (I am sure you will remember the high speed film he showed at the time). I have no doubt however that yours is capable of similar damage to that shown in the Legio XX photos.
I also think that the falx is much more likely to have been used for horizontal and underhand cuts as I think that using it overhand in the way Connolly shows would leave the falxman dangerously (even suicidally) exposed. However, given the fact that the carvers of the Adamklissi metopes seem never to have wanted to show a falxman who was not accompanied by another warrior, I wonder whether it might have been a weapon used not so much by an individual but by a 'squad', one of whom was armed with a falx for maximum shock value and the others with swords and spears who could take advantage of a gap created by the falxman and at the same time cover him as he recovered his swing.
Crispvs
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