I have just seen a show on Discovery about Alexanders tactics at the Battle of Gaugamela, where he defeated Darius and took Persia. This was where he made a flanking movement with cavalry and peltasts then charged in to a gap in the Persian line while the peltasts screened him from the Persian cavalry.

There was a pretty good section on slingers where their tame expert demonstrated a heavy leather seam-cupped pouch on braided cords. He helicoptered a large stone with it into a straw bale from 5 or 10 yards with a solid throw. In the dramatizations there were lots of helicoptering slingers among the archers and javelin throwers.

Not a bad show, slingwise.

This battle is shown relatively detailed in the Alexander - film of Oliver Stone, too. In a short sequence the slingers defend the spaces between the Makedonian phalanxes against Persian cavalry. Makedonian leaders were aware of these spaces between the regiments of heavy infantry. So light forces had to control these places. I read somewhere that they forgot about this rule at Pydna, with the well known results.

funda iucunda