Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Archaeological findings for wider area of: "ATTICA, EAST Prefectural seat ATTIKI" .
MARATHON (Ancient demos) ATTICA, EAST
Collection: Athens, National Archaeological Museum
Collection: Berlin, Antikenmuseen
Funda (sphendone), a sling. The light troops of the Greek and Roman armies included
a certain proportion of slingers (funditores, sphendonetai). In the earliest times,
however, the sling appears not to have been used by the Greeks. It is not mentioned
in the Iliad; for in the only passage (Il. xiii. 600) in which the word sphendone
occurs, it is used in its original signification of a bandage. But in the times
of the Persian wars slingers had come into use; for among the other troops which
Gelon offered to send to the assistance of the Greeks against Xerxes, mention
is made of 2000 slingers (Herod. vii. 158); and that the sling was then familiar
to the Greeks is also evident from allusions in literature (Archil. fr. 3; Aesch.
Agam. 1010; Eurip. Phoen. 1142; Aristoph. Av. 1185). At the same time it must
be stated that we rarely read of slingers in these wars; the use of the sling
was a barbarian rather than a Greek accomplishment, and found in the highest perfection
among Egyptians and Persians, as later among the Spaniards and Baleares. Among
the Greeks the Acarnanians, a backward people, attained to the greatest expertness
in the use of this weapon (Thuc. ii. 81); and at a later time the Achaeans, especially
the inhabitants of Aegium, Patrae, and Dyme, were celebrated as expert slingers.
The slings of these Achaeans were made of three thongs (scutalia) of leather,
and not of one only, like those of other nations (Liv. xxxviii. 29). To the same
period, the days of the Achaean league, is ascribed the invention of the kestrosphendone
(cestrosphendone, Liv. xlii. 65), described below.
In the early Roman army, slingers formed a part of the fifth or lowest
Servian class (Donys. iv. 17; Liv. i. 43); but in the great days of the Punic
and Macedonian wars they were no longer to be found in the legions, and the Balearic
slingers of Hannibal were opposed by Greek, Syrian, and African auxiliaries. The
people who enjoyed the greatest celebrity as slingers were the natives of the
Balearic islands. Their skill in the use of this weapon is [p. 884] said to have
arisen from the circumstance that, when they were children, their mothers obliged
them to obtain their food by striking it with a sling (Veget. de Re Mil. i. 16;
Strab. iii.). Most slings were made of leather, but the Balearic were manufactured
out of a kind of rush. The manner in which the sling was wielded may be seen in
the figure of
a soldier with a supply of stones in the sinus of his pallium, and with
his arm extended in order to whirl the sling about his head (Verg. Aen. ix. 587,
588; xi. 579). Besides stones, bullets, called glandes (molubdides),
of a form between acorns and almonds, were cast in moulds to be thrown with slings
(Lucret. vi. 176 ; Ovid, Met. ii. 727, vii. 777, xiv. 825, 826). They
have been found on the plain of Marathon and in other parts of Greece,
and are remarkable for the inscriptions and devices which they exhibit, such as
thunderbolts, the names of persons, and the word DEXAI, meaning Take this. The
ridiculous notion that these bullets melted in the air was widely diffused in
the ancient world, and not confined to poetry (Lucret. l. c.; Verg. Aen. ix. 588;
Ov. Met. ii. 727, xiv. 826): even the father of science maintains it (Aristot.
de Caelo, ii. 7: hoion kai epi ton pheromenon belon: tauta gar auta ekpuroutai
houtos hoste tekesthai tas molubdidas). It may have arisen, as Pauly points out,
from the flattening of the soft metal when it strikes a hard surface. Another
missile was called kestros, a particular kind of bolt with an iron head six inches
long, attached to a wooden shaft nine inches long, and the thickness of a man's
finger; it was furnished with three short wooden wings, resembling the feathers
of an arrow, and was discharged from a sling with two scutalia, called kestrosphendone
(Liv. xlii. 65; Polyb. xxvii. fr. 9 ap. Suid. s. v. kestros: Livy here evidently
translates Polybius).
Besides slings, stones thrown with the hand alone were likewise used
in ancient warfare: the Libyans carried no other weapons than three darts and
a bag full of stones (Diod. Sic. iii. 49). The Athenian psiloi annoyed the Spartans
in Sphacteria, toxeumasi kai akontiois kai lithois kai sphendonais (Thucyd. iv.
32), where lithoi seem to be hand-thrown stones; petroboloi are mentioned, Xen.
Hell. ii. 4,12. We find them also among the later Romans (Veget. i. 16, ii. 23).
From the resemblance to a sling, funda also means (1) a casting-net, amphiblestron
(Verg. Georg. i. 141); (2) a purse or money-bag, from the way it was slung (Macrob.
Sat. ii. 4,31); (3) the bezel of a ring, i. e. the rim in which the gem is set,
and which holds it as a sling does its stone (Rich): praestantiores [iaspides]
funda cluduntur ut sint patentes ab utraque parte nec praeter margines quicquam
auro amplectente, a good description of a setting a jour (Plin. H. N. xxxvii.116;
cf.126).
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Saggita (hoistos; Herod. toxeuma), an arrow. The account of the arrows of Hercules
(Hesiod, Scut. 130-134) enumerates and describes three parts, viz. the point,
the shaft, and the feather. Pollux (i. 137) says that the feathered end was called
the head of the arrow.
I. The point was denominated ardis (Herod. i. 215, iv. 81), whence the instrument,
used to extract arrow-heads from the bodies of the wounded, was called ardiothera
(see Forceps).
Great quantities of flint arrow-heads are found in Celtic barrows throughout the
north of Europe, in form exactly resembling those which are still used by the
Indians of North America. Nevertheless the Scythians and Massagetae had them of
bronze (Herod. ll. cc.).
A large number of flint arrow-heads, some of them finely shaped, have
also been found in Italy, in deposits of the Stone age. Specimens may be seen
in the prehistoric galleries of the British Museum. The Aethiopians in the army
of Xerxes tipped their arrows with a sharpened stone, which they also used for
engraving gems (Herod. vii. 69). Mr. Dodwell found black flint arrow-heads
in the large tumulus of Marathon, and concludes that they had belonged
to the Persian army. Those used by the Greeks were commonly bronze, as is expressed
by the epithet chalkeres, fitted with bronze, which Homer applies to an arrow
(Il. xiii. 650, 662). Herodotus, however (vii. 69), speaks as if iron was the
natural material to be employed.
The Homeric arrow-head was three-tongued (triglochis, Il. v. 393)
and had barbs (onkoi, Il. iv. 151, 214). Its form is shown by the annexed
woodcuts.
The two smaller, one of which shows a rivethole at the side for fastening
it to the shaft, are from the plain of Marathon. The third specimen
was also found in Attica. Some of the Northern nations, who could not obtain metal,
barbed their arrowheads with bone.
The use of poisoned arrows (venenatae sagittae) is always represented
by the Greek and Roman authors as the characteristic of barbarous nations. It
is attributed to the Sauromatae and Getae (Ovid, Trist. ii. 10, 63, 64; de Ponto,
iv. 7, 11, 12); to the Scythians (Plin. H. N. xi. 53,115), and to the Arabs (Pollux,
i. 138) and Moors (Hor. Od. i. 22, 3). When Ulysses wishes to have recourse to
this insidious practice, he is obliged to travel north of the country of the Thesprotians
(Hom. Od. i. 261-263); and the classical authors who mention it do so in terms
of condemnation (Hom. Plin. ll. cc.; Aelian, H. A. v. 16). The poison applied
to the tips of arrows having been called toxicum (toxikon), on account of its
connexion with the use of the bow (Plin. H. N. xvi. 10,20; Festus, s. v.; Dioscor.
vi. 20), the signification of this term was afterwards extended to poisons in
general (Plaut. Merc. ii. 4, 4; Hor. Epod. xvii. 61; Propert. i. 5, 6).
II. The excellence of the shaft consisted in being long and at the same time straight,
and in being well polished (Hes. Scut. 133). The arrows of the Carduchi were more
than two cubits long, and were used as javelins by the Greeks (Xen. Anab. iv.
2). But the shaft often consisted of a smooth cane or reed (Arundo donax or phragmites,
Linn.: cf. Plin. H. N. xvi. 36, 65), and on this account the whole arrow was called
poetically either arundo in the one case (Verg. Aen. iv. 73, v. 525; Ovid. Met.
viii. 382), or calamus in the other (Verg. Buc. iii. 13; Ovid, Met. vii. 778;
Hor. Od. i. 15, 17; Juv. xiii. 80). In the Egyptian tombs reed arrows have been
found, varying from 34 to 22 inches in length. They show the slit (gluphis, Hom.
Il. iv. 122; Od. xxi. 419) cut in the reed for fixing it upon the string.
III. The feathers are shown on ancient monuments of all kinds, and are indicated by the terms alae (Verg. Aen. ix. 578, xii. 319), pennatae sagittae (Prudentius, Hamart. 498), and pteroentes oistoi (Hom. Il. v. 171), but it is doubtful if the Homeric epithet has any reference to the feathers. The arrows of Hercules are said to have been feathered from the wings of a black eagle (Hes. l. c.).
Besides the use of arrows in the ordinary way, they were sometimes
employed to carry fire. Xerxes captured the Acropolis in this manner (Her. viii.
52). Julius Caesar attempted to set Antony's ships on fire by sending bele purphora
from the bows of his archers (Dio Cass. l. 34; cf. Pollux, i. 137). A head-dress
of small arrows is said to have been worn by the Indians (Prudentius, l. c.),
the Nubians, and the Aethiopians of Meroe (Claudian, de Nupt. Honor. 222; de III.
Cons. Honor. 21; de Laud. Stil. i. 254).
In the Greek and Roman armies the sagittarii, more anciently called
arquites, i.e. archers, or bowmen (Festus, s. v.), formed an important part of
the light-armed infantry (Caesar, Bell. Civ. i. 81, iii. 44; Cic. ad Fam. xv.
4). They belonged, for the most part, to the allies, and were principally Cretans.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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