09-15-2006, 08:45 PM
Quote:Has anyone made a survey and obtained statistics of roman walls with projecting towers and compared the distance between them and similar towers in medieval forts and castles? AND also compared these typical distances with the effective ranges of faithful reconstructions of defensive weapons used for infilading enemy approaching walls?The quick answer is "not that I know of".
It sounds like the kind of thing that Eric Marsden would have been interested in (but for Greek fortifications, rather than Roman). His Greek and Roman Artillery (Oxford, 1969) has a discussion of "fields of fire", but he was starting from fixed ideas about catapult ranges (rather than starting from the archaeological evidence of tower spacing).
It would certainly be a fruitful area for new research, if anyone's interested!
