In
a recent article published in the Chicago Tribune,
James Janega tells about U.S. Army Sgt. Charles Thornton
of Norristown, Pennsylvania, now fighting in Fallujah,
Iraq:
As
his team slept, he used a marker to write "This
is 4 my buddy" on a 40 mm grenade for his M203
launcher.
"His wife lives right across the street from
my wife," he said softly. "I'm all about
fighting."
His buddy was killed in battle a few days earlier.
Sgt. Thornton in marking his grenade was keeping alive
an ancient tradition. Many sling bullets survive from
antiquity, some with inscriptions scratched on them.
The Greek for one of these leaden projectiles is molybdis,
and in Latin they are called glandes plumbeae (literally
leaden acorns). Here are a couple of inscriptions,
from Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, I:
Karl
Zangemeister collected some of these Latin inscriptions
in his Glandes plumbeae latine inscriptae (Rome, 1885)
= Ephemeris epigraphica, VI.
The sling was not a toy in antiquity but a deadly, accurate
weapon, made usually of a strip of leather narrow at
the ends and broader in the middle where the bullet
was held in a kind of pouch. Its Latin name was funda,
and the warrior equipped with a sling was called a funditor.
The Greek equivalents are sphendone for sling and sphendonetes
for slinger.
The most famous slinger of antiquity was of course David,
who slew Goliath with a shot from his sling:
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1
Samuel 17.40: And he took his staff in his hand,
and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook,
and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even
in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he
drew near to the Philistine.
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1
Samuel 17.49: And David put his hand in his bag,
and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote
the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk
into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to
the earth.
Other Biblical references include:
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2 Kings 3.25 (Israelites against the Moabites):
And they beat down the cities, and on every good
piece of land cast every man his stone, and filled
it; and they stopped all the wells of water, and
felled all the good trees: only in Kir-haraseth
left they the stones thereof; howbeit the slingers
went about it, and smote it.
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Judges
20.16 (the Benjamites): Among all this people there
were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every
one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not
miss.
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1
Chronicles 12.2: They were armed with bows, and
could use both the right hand and the left in hurling
stones and shooting arrows out of a bow, even of
Saul's brethren of Benjamin.
One advantage of the sling in battle was its long
range, longer than that of spears or even arrows.
Xenophon makes that clear in these passages from his
Anabasis (tr. Carleton L. Brownson):
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3.3.6-7:
They had not proceeded far when Mithradates appeared
again, accompanied by about two hundred horsemen
and by bowmen and slingers--exceedingly active and
nimble troops--to the number of four hundred. He
approached the Greeks as if he were a friend, but
when his party had got close at hand, on a sudden
some of them, horse and foot alike, began shooting
with their bows and others with slings, and they
inflicted wounds. And the Greek rearguard, while
suffering severely, could not retaliate at all;
for the Cretan bowmen not only had a shorter range
than the Persians, but besides, since they had no
armour, they were shut in within the lines of the
hoplites; and the Greek javelin-men could not throw
far enough to reach the enemy's slingers.
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3.3.16-18:
Hence, if we should propose to put an end to the
possibility of their harming us on our march, we
need slingers ourselves at once, and horsemen also.
Now I am told that there are Rhodians in our army,
that most of them understand the use of the sling,
and that their missile carries no less than twice
as far as those from the Persian slings. For the
latter have only a short range because the stones
that are used in them are as large as the hand can
hold; the Rhodians, however, are versed also in
the art of slinging leaden bullets. If, therefore,
we should ascertain who among them possess slings,
and should not only pay these people for their slings,
but likewise pay anyone who is willing to plait
new ones, and if, furthermore, we should devise
some sort of exemption for the man who will volunteer
to serve as a slinger at his appointed post, it
may be that men will come forward who will be capable
of helping us.
Certain
ancient peoples were well known for their skill with
the sling. Thucydides (2.81.8, tr. Charles Forster
Smith) mentions the Acarnanians in particular:
But
when the barbarians in their flight broke in upon
them, they took them in and uniting their two divisions
kept quiet there during the day, the Stratians not
coming to close quarters with them, because the rest
of the Acarnanians had not yet come to their support,
but using their slings against them from a distance
and distressing them; for it as not possible for them
to stir without armour; and indeed the Acarnanians
are famous for their excellence in the use of the
sling.
Livy
(38.29.3-8, tr. Evan T. Sage) refers to the inhabitants
of three Greek cities on the northern coast of the
Peloponnesus as expert slingers:
A
hundred slingers were recruited from Aegium and Patrae
and Dymae. These peoples were trained from boyhood,
in accordance with a tradition of the race, in hurling
with a sling at the open sea the round stones which,
mingled with sand, generally strew the coasts. In
consequence they use this weapon at longer range,
with greater accuracy, and with more powerful effect
than the Balearic slinger. Moreover, the sling is
not composed of a single strap, like those of the
Baleares and other peoples, but the bullet-carrier
is triple, strengthened with numerous seams, that
the missle may not fly out at random, from the pliancy
of the strap at the moment of discharge, but seated
firmly while being whirled, may be shot out as if
from a bow-string. Having been trained to shoot through
rings of moderate circumference from long distances,
they would wound not merely the heads of their enemies
but any part of the face at which they might have
aimed. These slings prevented the Sameans from making
sallies so frequently or so boldly, to such an extent
that they begged the Achaeans to withdraw for a while
and in quiet to watch them fighting with the Roman
outguards.
centum
funditores ab Aegio et Patris et Dymis acciti. a pueris
ii more quodam gentis saxis globosis, quibus ferme
harenae immixtis strata litora sunt, funda mare apertum
incessentes exercebantur. itaque longius certiusque
et validiore ictu quam Baliaris funditor eo telo usi
sunt. et est non simplicis habenae, ut Baliarica aliarumque
gentium funda, sed triplex scutale, crebris suturis
duratum, ne fluxa habena volutetur in iactu glans,
sed librata cum sederit, velut nervo missa excutiatur.
coronas modici circuli magno ex intervallo loci adsueti
traicere non capita solum hostium vulnerabant, sed
quem locum destinassent oris. hae fundae Samaeos cohibuerunt,
ne tam crebro neve tam audacter erumperent, adeo ut
precarentur ex muris Achaeos, ut parumper abscederent
et se cum Romanis stationibus pugnantis quiete spectarent.
As
Livy mentions in passing, another people famous for
their skill with the sling were the inhabitants of
the Balearic islands (today Majorca and Minorca).
Strabo (3.5.1, tr. Horace Leonard Jones) writes:
They
are spoken of as the best of slingers. And this art
they have practised assiduously, so it is said, ever
since the Phoenicians took possession of the islands.
And the Phoenicians are also spoken of as the first
to clothe the people there in tunics with a broad
border; but the people used to go forth to their fights
without a girdle on — with only a goat-skin,
wrapped round the arm, or with a javelin that had
been hardened in the fire (though in rare cases it
was also pointed with a small iron tip), and with
three slings worn round the head, of black-tufted
rush (that is, a species of rope-rush, out of which
the ropes are woven; and Philetas, too, in his "Hermeneia"
says, "Sorry his tunic befouled with dirt; and
round about him his slender waist is entwined with
a strip of black-tufted rush," meaning a man
girdled with a rush-rope), of black-tufted rush, I
say, or of hair or of sinews: the sling with the long
straps for the shots at short range, and the medium
sling for the medium shots. And their training in
the use of slings used to be such, from childhood
up, that they would not so much as give bread to their
children unless they first hit it with the sling.
This is why Metellus, when he was approaching the
islands from the sea, stretched hides above the decks
as a protection against the slings.
Florus
3.8 (1.43 Rossbach) also mentions the three sizes
of slings:
Each
one fights with three slings. Who would be surprised
at their accurate strikes, since these are the only
weapons of that people, this alone their pursuit from
childhood on?
tribus
quisque fundis proeliantur. certos esse quis miretur
ictus, cum haec sola genti arma sint, id unum ab infantia
studium?
Vegetius
1.16 (tr. John Clarke) gives similar details about
the Balearic islanders:
Recruits
are to be taught the art of throwing stones both with
the hand and sling. The inhabitants of the Balearic
Islands are said to have been the inventors of slings,
and to have managed them with surprising dexterity,
owing to the manner of bringing up their children.
The children were not allowed to have their food by
their mothers till they had first struck it with their
sling. Soldiers, notwithstanding their defensive armor,
are often more annoyed by the round stones from the
sling than by all the arrows of the enemy. Stones
kill without mangling the body, and the contusion
is mortal without loss of blood. It is universally
known the ancients employed slingers in all their
engagements. There is the greater reason for instructing
all troops, without exception, in this exercise, as
the sling cannot be reckoned any incumbrance, and
often is of the greatest service, especially when
they are obliged to engage in stony places, to defend
a mountain or an eminence, or to repulse an enemy
at the attack of a castle or city.
ad lapides vero vel manibus vel fundis iaciendos exerceri
diligenter convenit iuniores. fundarum usum primi
Balearium insularum habitatores et invenisse et ita
perite exercuisse dicuntur, ut matres parvos filios
nullum cibum contingere sinerent, nisi quem ex funda
destinato lapide percussissent. saepe enim adversum
bellatores cassidibus catafractis loricisque munitos
teretes lapides de funda vel fustibalo destinati sagittis
sunt omnibus graviores, cum membris integris letale
tamen vulnus importent et sine invidia sanguinis hostis
lapidis ictu intereat. in omnibus autem veterum proeliis
funditores militasse nullus ignorat. quae res ideo
ab universis tironibus frequenti exercitio discenda
est, quia fundam portare nullus est labor. et interdum
evenit, ut in lapidosis locis conflictus habeatur,
ut mons sit aliquis defendendus aut collis, ut ab
obpugnatione castellorum sive civitatum lapidibus
barbari fundisque pellendi sint.
The
velocity required for a bullet to puncture the skin
is sometimes given as 163 feet per second, to break
a bone 213 feet per second. Modern sling projectiles
have been clocked at about 130 miles per hour, or
approximately 190 feet per second. We have no reason,
therefore, to doubt the testimony of the ancient medical
writer Celsus, who writes (7.5):
There is a
third type of weapon that sometimes needs to be removed,
a leaden bullet or rock or something similar, which
breaking through the skin lodges inside in one piece.
In all of these cases, the wound needs to be opened
a bit wider, and what is inside must be extracted
with pincers along the same pathway by which it entered.
tertium genus telorum est, quod interdum evelli debet;
plumbea glans aut lapis aut simile aliquid, quod perrupta
cute integrum intus insedit. in omnibus his latius
vulnus aperiundum, idque quod inest, ea, qua venit,
forfice extrahendum est.
It
was a common misconception in antiquity, from Aristotle
onward, that bullets propelled by slings travelled
so fast that they became molten. Lucretius makes this
mistake (6.178-179, tr. H.A.J. Munro): "A leaden
ball in whirling through a long course even melts"
(plumbea vero / glans etiam longo cursu volvenda liquescit),
and so does Vergil, Aeneid 9.586-589:
The
hero Mezentius, putting aside his spears, with tightened
thong whirled thrice around his head the whirring
sling and split his adversary's forehead with the
molten bullet and stretched him out flat over a great
stretch of sand.
stridentem fundam positis Mezentius hastis
ipse ter adducta circum caput egit habena
et media adversi liquefacto tempora plumbo
diffidit ac multa porrectum extendit harena.
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