Incendiary, Aquatic and Poison Warfare

[D B Campbell]

Yes, I've read Duncan's "Auxiliary Artillery Revisited" and I disagree with him on the matter.

Wow, Ildar ... you're taking me back, now: 1986, wasn't it? I wrote a few things in that paper that I wouldn't necessarily agree with now!
But I can't imagine what Arrian meant, if they're not some kind of crossbow-type weapon. Do you have an alternative idea?

there might conceivably be something in one of the manuals about small catapults

It seems that the tunnels used in undermining operations were sometimes bigger than we might imagine. Often there was full-scale warfare under the ground (e.g., Lucullus at Themyscira).
So there's no need to limit our thinking to crossbows. Philon recommends the 2-mina stone-projector for use in tunnels!

(P.S. I've just read your onager ideas, Ildar. Very interesting, indeed.)

[aitor iriarte]

Kate,
Many thanks! It was too good to be true!

Duncan,
A 2-mina shooting inside a tunnel! hock: I've missed that quote! :oops: (Perhaps one day somebody will decide to publish a good edition and English translation of Philon's Poliorketika and Paraskeuastika... but... have your seen 'Philon and Heron: Artillery and Siegecraft in Antiquity. Ed. James G. DeVoto'?)

Aitor

[Ildar]

Wow, Ildar ... you're taking me back, now: 1986, wasn't it?

Yes, it was the 1986, Bonner Jahrbueher.

But I can't imagine what Arrian meant, if they're not some kind of crossbow-type weapon. Do you have an alternative idea?

Firstly, you have done the great work on research of the word's 'μηχανή' meanings in the various texts of Arrian! But it seems that you have misused his historical works: 'Alexandri anabasis' and 'Historia Indica'. Arrian has written them using sources and most likely he didn't hesitate to simply copy this term. If we'll turn to original treatises of Arrian, namely 'Acies contra Alanos' and 'Periplus ponti Euxini', then we'll see that stationary catapults are implied by this word. Secondly, reloading of a crossbow on horseback without stirrups and special devices such as 'goat's foot' lever or cranequin was practically impossible. Thirdly, stone reliefs from Polignac and Saint-Marcel are much later artifacts. We have no any evidence that something similar was used in Arrian's time. Well, and all-important, we can't assert that cavalrymen practised to shoot with these machines while mounted. There is no Arrian's direct evidence of this. Moreover, in the same paragraph Arrian tell that horseman must learn to hurl slingshots. I don't remember that such hurling ever made while mounted. On the contrary, cavalrymen have always dismounted thereto (for example, De vel. bell., X).

Thus, we have no good reasons for any valid version. Personally I think that cavalrymen have learned to throw light javelins and sling bullets and shoot with machines as their place in the battle formation was beside light infantry and catapults.

P.S. I've just read your onager ideas, Ildar. Very interesting, indeed.

Would you like to comment these ideas via e-mail?

Perhaps one day somebody will decide to publish a good edition and English translation of Philon's Poliorketika and Paraskeuastika...

I've already told you that I can scan and send 'Exzerpte aus Philons Mechanik B.VII und VIII' by E. Schramm and H. Diels to you.

have your seen 'Philon and Heron: Artillery and Siegecraft in Antiquity. Ed. James G. DeVoto'?

I got this book. It contains only artillery treatises of Heron and Philon. But, in my opinion, DeVoto's translation of these treatises is more accurate than Marsden's.

[aitor iriarte]

Ildar,
With Duncan, Bernard and you on the forum I don't feel the lonely artilleryman anymore!!
I rather agree with you on the mechané but what tthe heck were they to deserve being pinpointed as 'special' weapons? :?
About Philon, I remember your offer but the key word on my phrase was 'ENGLISH' roll: (Thanks! )
So, do you think that DeVoto's book is worth being pruchased? Only English translation (No edition of the Greek texts) I suppose...
Are the diagrams interesting?
Thanks :wink:

Aitor

[D B Campbell]

But, in my opinion, DeVoto's translation of these treatises is more accurate than Marsden's.

De Voto has gone for a literal translation, which is certainly helpful.
There's at least one place where he has missed a line, though, which throws the whole enterprise into doubt.

Only English translation (no edition of the Greek texts) I suppose...

Amazingly not only English -- but his Greek text is photographically reproduced from Köchly und Rüstow, so he doesn't have the Wescher line numbering for Heron or the Thévenot line numbering for Philon.

And, returning to Arrian ...

... we can't assert that cavalrymen practised to shoot with these machines while mounted.

Unfortunately for us, Arrian's clear statement, that cavalrymen shot missiles "not from a bow but from a machine" (43.1), falls in the middle of his discussion of their mounted exercises. All the others are conducted from horseback, so why not this one?
I agree with you, Ildar, that we can't "assert" that the machine was used while mounted, but it seems likely. If Arrian meant that his cavalrymen dismounted to use a regular catapult, he would surely have said so.
Our problem is to try and identify a likely "machine" for the cavalrymen to be using. I simply thought a crossbow-like weapon might be reasonable.
(And I notice that the Late Sassanian Savar-Framandar on the cover of the Osprey Sassanian Elite Cavalry book is managing to operate his machine well enough ... )

[Eleatic Guest]

http://www.wissenschaft.de/wissenschaft ... 99414.html
http://www.epoc.de/artikel/978909&_z=798890

An English archaeologist believes he has found sufficient evidence for the use of poison gas at the Sassanid siege of Dura-Europs in 256 AD.