The Roman historian Arrian wrote in 136 AD about cavalry exercises:
"There follow various shooting exercises with light javelins, or with arrows shot not by their bows but by crossbows, or with stones hurled by hand or by sling against a target set up between the two already mentioned. And here, too, it is a fine thing when the soldiers crush the target with stones, which is not easy to do."
This quote is from the book,"Riding For Caesar, The Roman Emperors' Horse Guards" by Michael Speidel. I mainly got this book looking for information about Eastern Horse archers(I'm working on several horsebows) and came across this juicy bit of information. So now we know that Roman horsemen could and did sling from the saddle. I just hope I can find some info on the sling and horse in battle!!

Great, Johnny, you have finally found the evidence of slinging from the horse. I´m going to read Arrian text. Have the book you have read a precise quote of it?

Hondero
I do not have the book with me(I left it at work). I will check the source and see which text of Arrian this came from. I think it was something like,"cavalry exercises".
Johnny

great I have been wondering about this lately
And have been doing some strange slinging
from a car and from a bike
acurcacy sucked but it was pretty easy over all exspecialy from my moutain bike

can you reload form horse back? I am also thinking that it would be hard for the rock to stay in the pouch with all that bouncing. Unless they stop to shoot and reload and shoot agin.

There is a previous topic called "Slinger on a horse". You may want to check it out.

Foner

it's likely a quote from Arrian's "Order of battle against the Alans", a military handbook on the best tactics in a war against horse nomads (partly surviving) or his book on tactics which was a gift to Emperor Hadrian, of which only the calvary section survives.

couldn't find any of the texts online....

A detour, of course, but I wonder how they reload a crossbow on horseback...  ::)

I'll bet the reloading depends a lot on how well your horse is trained.  I know some horses are trained to respond to knee signals, leaving both hands free.  I think the crossbow question depends on the pull of the crossbow -- a lighter one could be cocked with both hands, using your stomach as a brace.

the reloading of the cross bow sound like it might take practice is all stirup on crossbow. stirrup un saddle hmmm

most crossbows i've used could be braced on the hip to cock them. so as long as you can ride without reins for a few seconds.....