Cestrosphendon

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Cestrosphendon

“They suffered (the Romans) mainly from the cestrosphendons, a novel kind of weapon invented during the war. It consisted of a pointed iron head of two palms long, fastened to a shaft made of pinewood, nine inches long and as thick as a man´s finger. Round the shaft three feathers were fastened as in the case of arrows, and the sling was held by two thongs, one shorter than the other. When the missile was poised in the center of the sling, the slinger whirled it round with great force and it flew out like a leaden bullet. Many of the soldiers were wounded by these and by missiles of all kinds. “

The weapon then had an iron point of two palms (15 cm) and a shaft of nine inches of the thickness of a finger. In the middle of the shaft there were three fins. The translation to english says that the sling consisted of two thongs of different length. however, the latin text of Livius says that in the middle of the sling there were two different “scutalia”. Again the famous word “scutalia” and the confusion that implies, because the translator interprets it like strap of the sling, whereas Livius literally says that in the middle of the sling were the two scutalia. This suggests that there were two different pouches to hold the dart between both. This interpretation is consistant with the one of the achaean sling, which was formed by a triple pouch or pouch of three sewn pieces, like the text of Livius suggest speaking of "triplex scutalia".

Semantics investigations aside, there we have the cestrosphendon that would be a dart of about 35,5 cm in length with three fins in the middle of its shaft. The dart would be held between two small pouches of different form and whirled around in the the habitual way. One of the pouches would be a small leather circle to support the point and the other a loop to introduce the end of the shaft, over the fins. The dart would be held between the pouches not horizontal but with an angle and the thongs would be of different length.

It is remarkable that the dart would have a weight ten times greater then a conventional arrow, possibly around 200 grams. As a result, its power of impact, together with its penetration, was terrible. Such a weight only could be thrown to great distance with a sling.