Lycurgus wrote on May 4
th, 2009 at 2:12pm:
So maybe the Greeks did the helicopter thing?
We may never know for sure.
I'm fairly sure this is a description of the helicopter: Virgil, 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.