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Flies, Mice, and the Byzantine Crossbow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

George T. Dennis
George T. Dennis*
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America
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Extract

The twelfth book of the military manual, Strategikon, attributed to Emperor Maurice, written about A.D. 600, contains a mini-treatise on the infantry. Although added to the work later, it seems to reflect earlier practices and equipment, some from the time of Justinian. Among the weapons to be carried by the light armed infantry it lists: ‘hollowed out wooden stocks with short arrows in small quivers, which can be fired a great distance with the bows and seriously injure the enemy’. What are these hollowed out pieces of wood, J. F. Haldon hesitantly, but correctly, identified them as crossbows. They were light enough to be carried by individual soldiers, and were clearly different from the revolving ballistae mounted on wagons spoken of in the next chapter (6) of this little treatise.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 7 , 1981 , pp. 1 - 5
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1981

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References

1. Mihăescu, Ed. H., Mauritius Arta Militară (Bucharest, 1970)Google Scholar; new edition by Dennis, G. (Vienna, 1981; CFHB, XVII, series Vindobonensis) Google Scholar, with German translation by Gamillscheg, E.. The structure of the work, manuscript tradition, questions of date and authorship are discussed by Dennis in the introduction. See also Wiita, J., The Ethnika in Byzantine Military Treatises (Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Minnesota, 1977).Google Scholar

2. Book XII, 2, 5…. It may be noted that a folio is missing at this place in the principal manuscript, cod. Mediceo-Laureni. gr. 55, 4, and the text has to be based on the other, slightly later, manuscripts.

3. the Byzantine Crossbow?’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, XII (1970), 155–57.

4. Const. 6, 26. Constitutions 1–14 (no. 38) have been edited by Vári, R., Leonis imp. Tactica, 2 vols. (Budapest. 1917-22)Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Leo, Taktika.

5. Sytloge Tacticorum, ed. Dain, A. (Paris, 1938), 38, 8–9, p. 60.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., translation by Haldon, ‘The Byzantine Crossbow’, 155–56.

7. For the date see Mazzucchi, C., ‘Dagli anni di Basilio Parakimomenos (Cod. Amb. B 119 sup.)’, Aevum, LII (1978), 267–316 Google Scholar; its relationship with the other manuscripts is discussed by Dennis (see note 1).

8. Folio 76v:…

9. Marsden, E. W., Greek and Roman Artillery. Historical Development (Oxford, 1969), p. 49.Google Scholar

10. E.g., Ammianus Marcellinus, ed. Rolfe, J. C., 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 23, 4: II, p. 327 Google Scholar; Procopius, De bellis, ed. Dewing, H. B. (London - New York, 1919), 5, 21, 14–17: pp. 205–6 Google Scholar; Agathiae Myrinaei Historiarum libri quinque, ed. Keydell, R. (CFHB, II: Berlin, 1967), 3, 25, 6: p. 117.Google Scholar

11. Marsden, , Greek and Roman Artillery, p. 2 Google Scholar. Cf. Vegetius, , Epitoma rei militaris, ed. Lang, C. (Leipzig, 1885), pp. 50, 144.Google Scholar

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13. Haldon, ‘The Byzantine Crossbow’, 156.

14. DuCange, C., Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et inftmae graecitatis (Lyons, 1688)Google Scholar, S.V., with a large number of examples; Grégoire, H., ‘Notes sur Anne Comnène’, B, III (1926), 311–17.Google Scholar

15. Polyaenus, Strategemata, ed. Foucault, J. A. de (Paris, 1949), 44, 16: p. 112 Google Scholar. The editor has which had long ago been pointed out by DuCange (loc. cit.) as a corrupt reading.

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18. ed. Heiberg, I. L., Corpus Medicorum Graecorum, IX, 2 (Leipzig, 1924), 6, 88: p. 129.Google Scholar

19. Leonis Tacticae Constituliones. 19, 52, in MPG, CVII, col. 1008; Naumachka, ed. Dain, A. (Paris, 1943), 1, 60: p. 30.Google Scholar

20. Constantini Porph. De caer, aulae byz, I, p. 676.

21. Hunger, H., Der byzantinische Katz-Mäuse-Krieg (Vienna, 1968), p. 68.Google Scholar

22. See DuCange, C., Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis (Paris, 1733-6), s.v.Google Scholar