Johnny,

Great picture, the warrior is awe-inspiring. Nice to see my design materialized by your talented hand.

I didn't know the quoted above sources, indeed. The idea was quite casual. That is why I asked Johnny for quoting of Livy in the oryginal topic.

Most probably Hondero is right about the oryginal design of the cestrophendon, though he is an advanced digger of the matter.
But I think that the design sketched above might be probably used in the antiquity too. It was very probable to find out that design, due to the siplicity or maybe an easy modification of a normal sling for glandes (somebody added the cord with the loop, and redy). We will  know all never. Hondero's design is a more probable, but Livus' and Polybius' stories are only small crumbs of the history.

TechStuff,

Quote:


I think the both designs don't guarantee the clear release without a wobblig. If the arrow is rather solid and the cast is dynamic, the cords are strongly tensed. In this case, after the release the release cord usually escapes quicker than projectile, because of the release ending starts escape with the acceleration more than twice biger then the projectile. The springiness of the cord is the reason, it gives the small, additional acceleration of the light cord, thereby loosen that one around the arrow. So the cord hadn't to slide on the shaft always, I suppose.

Jurek

FIRST came the sling.  Could it be that the inventors of the cestros first made the heavy metal head of the cestros shaped like a slim glande.   They might do this to make it fit the pouch of a "standard" sling?

LATER, to make the cestros "easier to manage" in the sling, they added the "tail loop", thus creating the "modern" cestrosphendon described by Livy.

IF this is was the path of development of the cestrospendon, Yurek's layout of the cestrosphendon and Johnny's drawing are pretty accurate.  We need to change the shape of Johnny's illustrated cestros and the design of the Yurek's simple cestrosphendon VERY little to duplicate the ancient device.

Just a thought.   Who will try it??  mgreenfield

PS:  This might just make plumbata "slingable" too.

Thanks Tommy
You'll get hooked on this website, so be carefull!!
Johnny

Johnny, I think you are right, scutale is 'leather thong,' not shield. But in this context I believe they are talking about a 'bight.'

When tieing knots, you either tie with the end of the line or a 'bight'. A bight is a loop.  A bight is where the line changes direction. In a normal sling, you insert the stone into the bight, which often is widened into a pouch shape by some means or other.

My interpretation is that the kestros sling is made of two 'bights' of unequal length.

Nor surprisingly, I think you and possibly Hondero have misinterpreted it. I know, I've promised to post pictures of my Kestros for a year now. I will, when I finish braiding a decent looking one.  Dan

I have got more information on this subject, taken from Bernard Henry, a french author who is an authority in the subject of the sling. Well, the research on cestrosphendon is progressing with the collaboration of Johnny and Dan  , at least theoretically although it is necessary to experiment to validate the theories  8).

B. Henry, when describing the pouch of the Roman sling, refer to the word "scutale". He says that the word is of dark origin and considers three possible origins:
The Roman origin, according to which scutale would come from "scutum" = shield;
The Greek origin, according to which it would come from skytos = thong of leather.
The Etruscan origin (predecessors of the Romans), according to which would come from the root "scu..." and means to contain, to support, and then scutale would be the place where the stone is leaned or put.

He affirm that being dark the origin of the word scutale, finally has concluded that scutale would specifically mean the strap of leather of the sling, but understood like the strap that forms the pouch. This seems to me plausible since to designate simply a leather strap the names of LORUM and HABENA were used normally. Since in all Roman Literature scutale appears only twice, in Livy, and in the context of the sling, it is necessary to think that it is an adapted word or almost invented by him, and therefore is necessary to look for a contextual meaning. Henry analyzes the two texts that contain the word and by its meaning it concludes that scutale talks about the pouch of the sling made of leather, as it seems that it was the Roman sling. That pouch could be of several designs, as the one of an only piece or the one of several braided strips of leather, like was the Achaean sling in his opinion, etc.

As for me, I had bet by the Latin origin, scutum derivative, since I had compared several Latin words with the same root and a meaning with certain similarities:

Scutum = republican shield, made oval and concave
Scutella = cup
Scutula = dish.

All of them talk about a concave and rounded surface.

AM Snodgrass in his book,"Arms and Armour of the Greeks", writes this about the cestrosphendon:
"...propelled by a sling with two loops; it must have been formidable at short range."
It seems Snodgrass believes it has two "loops". One for the finger and one for the dart?
Johnny

I think we all need to make reconstructions. The hardest part will be making the dart. I think I will make mine like Hondero. Take an iron pipe and hammer a point on one end. I may drop a little hot lead in the tip for weight. How about everyone else? We need to find out how this thing works!
Johnny

Johnny, does Snodgrass say anything more about the cestros? I´ll read the book but I can not understand how the second loop works. Maybe this interpretation of cestros has somethink to do with Dan´s one or even Yurek´s one.