[lit-ideas] Re: More places to get catapults
- From: "Simon Ward" <sedward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 20:50:27 -0000
The argument is that once a culture has an advanced weapons technology, it
may lose everything else, but will retain that advanced weaponry. So
cultural achievements may ebb or flow, but weapons will steadily become
more sophisticated.
Your point could be good counter-evidence to Koestler's thesis if the
Anglo-Saxons had the weapons beforehand. Did the Anglo-Saxons ever acquire
scorpions, ballistas, or trebuchets (from the Romans in Britain) and then
lose the technology?
It's not that simple. There is evidence that Anglo Saxons, or at least
Germanic tribes, were present in Britain prior to 410 acting as Feodorati
(mercenaries). Germanic elements were also present in the Legions throughout
the Roman Empire. However to say that they might have acquired Roman siege
technology from the Romans, in Britain or elsewhere, is pushing it. They may
well have used such technology - many late Roman fortifications in Britain
were improved by the addition of towers upon which scorpions (or spear
throwing technology) could be mounted - but trebuchets and ballistas would,
for the most part, have been used to attack a besieged fortification, and
since the late-roman world was mostly about defence, it seems unlikely that
these mercenaries would have had experience of them. In order to 'lose' the
technology, they would have to have possessed it in the first place - this
is doubtful.
Hence...Koestler may have been right in part.
Damn...
Thanks Eric.
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