09-24-2008, 06:36 AM
Quote:This is too much. The ballista was invented in the court of Dionysius I, and every single post 19th century book on artillery will say as much. Inventions don't just appear in a vacuum, they appear from a confluence of scientific influences, such as existed at the court of Dionysius and in Greece at the time generally.
You of course mean every single EUROPEAN and hence WESTERN post 19th century book. Hence the purpose of an "Oriental" source. And yes inventions and civilisation don't appear in a vacuum they are built on the foundation of previous civilisations.
And while common sense suggest that the same people who invented siege towers would naturally have invented catapults and ballistas I will not pass judgment until I have seen the bas releif depicted in Barnett and Falkner 1962: 172, plate 118;
http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl ... i=scholarr
I unfortunatley don't have access to this book in my city so I would ask that someone who attends a major University to please look it up and post it on the forum for us all to judge.
Thanks again people.
