Topos of Barbarians Lacking Siege Engines

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I'd thought there were a number of references from the 4th-5th centuries to barbarians being unable to use siege technology, or being taught to do so by deserters and renegades, but from what I can find the Ammianus one that Robert mentioned seems to be the only source.

There is one from the 6th century though - Theophylact Simocatta (2.16.10-11) writes that the Avars captured a veteran named Busas who taught them 'to construct a sort of besieging machine, since they had as yet no knowledge of such implements, and he prepared the siege engine for long-range assaults... [thereby]... giving the barbarians skilled instruction in the technology of siegecraft'.

It seems a little unclear what sort of machine was involved - Busas built a helepolis, either to attack 'from on high' or 'from afar', so it could either have been a tower or a catapult of some sort.

I was going to say, I'm pretty sure this comes up several times in the sources surrounding the 408-410 Sieges of Rome several times.

As for the Theofylaktos Simokattes passage, see here: https://deremilitari.org/2014/06/byzanti...trebuchet/

And also the various papers published by Dennis and a few others on Byzantine Artillery. Ildar Kayumenov sent me a list somewhere. Need to dig that up.