Artillery

There are several problems associated with the study of Byzantine artillery, and the question of the degree of continuity maintained across the period from the fourth and fifth centuries into the later Byzantine empire remains to be resolved. It is often taken for granted that Roman torsion-powered artillery continued to be produced in Byzantium, although there is virtually no solid evidence for such a claim. Recent work strongly suggests that two-arm horizontally mounted torsion-powered weapons had dropped out of use by the end of the fifth century (Chevedden 1995), although Prokopios describes the much simpler single-armed vertically mounted torsion-powered onager, a stone-thrower, at the siege of Rome. The tenth-century illuminated manuscript of the treatises on artillery ascribed to Hero of Byzantium copies in many respects archaic exemplars, and it is unlikely that all the engines described existed in more than theory (Sullivan 2000). The bolt-projecting artillery described by Prokopios, employed by the Romans at the siege of Rome by the Goths in 537/8, is tension-powered; and the vocabulary employed in the Byzantine military treatises, where it sheds any light on the matter at all, reinforces this probability.

The Byzantines certainly employed large, fi'ame-mounted tension-powered weapons as field or siege artillery, both manually spanned as well as weapons spanned by means of a windlass. Whether the wagon-mounted carroballista used in late Roman infantry field units continued in use is another problem, since there is litde solid evidence. In the treatise DeAdministrando Imperio (On Administering the Empire), commissioned by Constantine Porphyrogeimetos in the tenth century, a reference to artillery units equipped with cheiroballistrai in the time of Diocletian (284-305) and Constantine I (307-37) seems in fact to be a garbling of the Latin term, and refers to such artillery; but this has no relevance for the middle Byzantine period (Jenkins and Moravcsik 1967: §53.30, 34, 37,133 and comm.). In contrast, however, the Tactica of Leo, in bringing the Strategikon of Maurice up-to-date in the section on field artillery that might accompany infantry units, refers to wagon-mounted artillery, known as alakatia (or eilakHa). The term means literally distaff or pole, but could also be used in later Greek of a winch or windlass, and was presumably its nickname (cf. the late Roman onager, or ‘mule’, a torsion-powered vertically mounted stone-thrower). This machine is described as mounted on carts and swivelling fi'om side to side (Leo, Tact. v. 7; vi. 27; xiv. 83; xv. 27). Other descriptions suggest that they must have been weapons with a slider, a windlass, or similar mechanical spanning device and a trigger release and associated parts, which could be used to project both bolts and stones, similar to the carroballista.

While the simplest form of torsion-powered stone-thrower, the onager, appears to have survived in the Islamic, Byzantine, and medieval western worlds, stonethrowing engines were also employed which were based on neither torsion nor tension. During the late sixth century, the Avars introduced the traction-powered (manually hauled) counterweight lever machine, originating in China, but quickly adopted by the Byzantines. There appear to have been at least two classes of such engines, and their operation clearly involved some technical knowledge and skill. In the twelfth-century Madrid manuscript of the history of John Skylitzes there are two illustrations of a traction-powered lever machine, with clear differences in construction between the two devices (Estopanan 1965:1, fos. 151b, 166). Similar devices appear in western medieval pictures also.

The reasons for the disappearance of most torsion-powered artillery remain imclear, but tension-driven artillery is much cheaper and easier to produce and to maintain, and although less powerftil, was more rehable: maintaining the torsion at equivalent levels in both springs of a two-armed torsion catapult required mathematical and technical skills which appear not to have been maintained into the fifth and sixth centuries. The Byzantine army seems always to have included a number of specialist engineers responsible for the artillery: they are mentioned in most of the treatises as well as in other sources. But Prokopios’ description of the single-armed onager, a vertically moimted torsion stone-thrower {Wars V. xxi.19), shows that the simplest torsion engines continued to be used in the eastern empire well into the sixth century, and probably beyond, since they appear also to have been employed in all the neighbouring cultures thereafter. The advent of traction-powered lever stone-throwers, which were potentially far more powerful, and much easier to construct and to operate, must have affected the need and the desire to construct even this simple torsion-driven device (Haldon 2000; Chevedden 1995).

Perhaps the best-known Byzantine ‘artillery’ device is the hquid fire projector, about which there is still no consensus among those who have studied the sources. It was available as a large-scale projector for use on shipboard and in sieges; but during the later ninth and tenth centuries a smaller, hand-held version (which may not, however, have operated on exactly the same principles) was also employed, described in both Byzantine and Arab sources. While there is some debate as to the fabrication of the projector, it was essentially a type of flame-thrower employing crude petroleum (obtained from the Caucasus and the south Russian steppe region, where the imperial government showed a particular interest in maintaining a diplomatic presence). The Byzantine sources provide evidence of the various component parts and the general effects of the device; and a ninth - or tenth-century Latin accoimt gives a fairly clear account of this arrangement (Haldon 2000: §45,11.141, 157 {., 202). Whether the weapon was as effective as the Greek sources appear to suggest depends on the nature and reliability of the sources which describe it. The Byzantines themselves clearly regarded it as an effective weapon, if only because of its psychological effect (Haldon 2006).

The hurling of combustibles from catapults was universally practised, of course, and it is clear that the empire’s enemies employed this means where relevant or practicable. It has been suggested that the Arabs also possessed the same type of projector as the Byzantines, but the sources are ambiguous and the issue remains open. But it was the device itself, and the form of projection, which differentiates this ‘liquid fire’ from incendiary weapons in general, although confusion was introduced by the indiscriminate use, from the time of the first Crusade, of the term ‘Greek fire’ for any and all such weapons by western knights and chroniclers who had fought in the East (Haldon and Byrne 1977).

References

Babuin, a. 2002. ‘Later Byzantine arms and armour’, in NicoUe 2002:97-104.

Bishop, M. C., and Coulston, J. N. C. 1993. Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome (London).

Bivar, a. D. H. 1955. ‘The stirrup and its origins’ Oriental Art 1.2: 61-5.

-1972. ‘Cavalry equipment and tactics on the Euphrates frontier’, DOP 26: 271-91.

Breccia, G. 2004. ‘L’arco e la spada. Procopio e il nuovo esercito bizantino’, Nea Rome, Rivista di ricerche bizantinistiche 1:72-99.

Chevedden, P. E. 1995. ‘Artillery in late antiquity: prelude to the Middle Ages’, in I. A. Corfis and M. Wolfe (eds.), The Medieval City under Siege (Woodbridge): 131-73.

Dain, a. (ed.) 1938. Sylloge Tacticorum, quae olim Hnedita Leonis Tactica* dicebatur (Paris).

Dawson, T. 1998. "Kremasmata, kabadion, klibanion: some aspects of middle Byzantine military equipment reconsidered’, BMGS 22:38-50.

-2002. ‘Suntagma hopl6n: the equipment of regular Byzantine troops c.950 to c.1204’, in

NicoUe 2002:81-90.

Dennis, G. T. 1985. ‘Anonymi Peri strategias, the Anonymous Byzantine Treatise on Strategy’, in Three Byzantine Military Treatises (Washington, DC): 1-136.

Diehl, C. 1933. Peinture byzantine (Paris).

Dixon, K. R., and Southern, P. 1992. The Roman Cavalry from the First to the Third Century A. D. (London).

Estopanan, C. 1965. Skyllitzes Matritensis, Reproduccionesy miniaturas, I (Madrid).

Haldon, J. 1975. ‘Some aspects of Byzantine military technology from the sixth to the tenth centuries’ BMGS 1:11-47.

-1999. Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 565-1204 (London).

-2000. ‘Chapters II, 44 and 45 of the Book of Ceremonies: theory and practice in tenth-

Century military administration’, TM13:201-352.

-2002. ‘Some aspects of early Byzantine arms and armour’, in NicoUe 2002: 65-79.

-2006. ‘ “Greek fire” revisited: recent and current research’, in E. Jeffreys (ed.), Byzantine Style, Religion and Civilization: In Honour of Sir Steven Runciman (Cambridge): 290-325.

-and Byrne, M. 1977. ‘A possible solution to the problem of Greek fire’, BZ 70:91-9.

Jenkins, R. 1962. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, vol. 2: Commentary (London).

-and Moravcsik, G. 1967. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, vol.

1: Text and translation (Washington, DC).

Kolias, T. 1988. Byzantinische Wajfen (Vienna).

Lazaris, S. 2005. ‘Considerations sur I’apparition de I’etrier: contribution k I’histoire du cheval dans “Antiquite tardive” ’, in A. Gardeisen (ed.), Les equides dans le monde mediter-ranien antique (Lattes): 275-88.

Leo, Tact, Leonis imperatoris tactica, in PC 107, cols. 672-1120; also ed. R. Vari, Leonis imperatoris tactica I (proem., const, i-xi); II (const, xii-xiii, xiv, 1-38) {Sylloge Tacticorum Graecorum III, Budapest, 1917-22).

McGeer, E. 1995. Sowing the Dragon's Teeth: Byzantine Warfare in the Tenth Century (Washington, DC).

Nicolle, D. (ed.) 2002. Companion to Medieval Arms and Armour (Woodbridge).

Nikonov, V. R1998. ‘Cataphracti, catafractarii and cUbanarii: another look at the old problem of their identifiation’, in Military Archaeology: Weaponry and Warfare in the Historical and Social Perspective (International congress, St Petersburg): 131-8.

Nishimura, D. 1988. ‘Crossbows, arrow-guides and the solenarion Byzantion 58:422-35.

Sullivan, D. R 2000. Siegecraft: Two Tenth-Century Instructional Manuals by Heron of Byzantium' (Washington, DC).

ZucKERMANN, C. 1990. ‘The military compendium of Syrianus Magister’, IOB 40:209-24. Further Reading

See also III.18.8 Military texts, in this volume, and the following:

Anastasiadis, M. P. 1994. ‘On handling the menavlion’, BMGS18:1-10.

Bartusis, M. C. 1992. The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 1204-1453 (Philadelphia).

Bishop, M. C. (ed.) 1985. The Production and Distribution of Roman Military Equipment Proceedings of the Second Roman Military Equipment Research Seminar (British Archaeological Reports, int. ser. 275, Oxford).

Bruhn-Hoffmeyer, a. 1966. ‘Military equipment in the Byzantine manuscript of Scylitzes in the BibUoteca Nacional in Madrid’, Gladius 5.

Dixon, K. R., and Southern, P 1996. The Late Roman Army (London).

Nicolle, D. 1995. Medieval Warfare Source Book, vol. 1: Warfare in Western Christendom (London).

-1996. Medieval Warfare Source Book, vol. 2: Christian Europe and its Neighbours

(London).