06-28-2007, 04:38 PM
Quote:The psychological impact of the use of these weapons would be all out of proportion to their physical effects. ----which reminds me, I think I recall a siege described (in North Italy, perhaps? ) where a Goth (?) was impaled to a tree, and the besiegers fled.......can't recall the incident or source in detail. Anyone recall it, or similar incidents ?This is Procopius, Wars 5.23.9-12, in which, during Vitigis' siege of Rome (AD 536), a Goth was (as you rightly say, Paul) nailed to a tree by a ballista bolt, shot with deadly accuracy.
Project Gutenberg has the English translation (from the Loeb edition): "But this man by some chance was hit by a missile from an engine which was on a tower at his left. And passing through the corselet and the body of the man, the missile sank more than half its length into the tree, and pinning him to the spot where it entered the tree, it suspended him there a corpse. And when this was seen by the Goths they fell into great fear, and getting outside the range of missiles, they still remained in line, but no longer harassed those on the wall."
