04-18-2006, 12:35 PM
Hello,
was it really a composite bow? Did Heron or any other ancient author write this explicitly? :-) ) I am asking because the other day I had a discussion about exactly that as somebody suggested that the Greeks switched to the torsion principle because they werent aware of the composite bow building technique.
And granted that the gastraphetes was a composite bow and the Greeks engineers soon moved to torsion bows, could we derive from that switch that torsion bows were generally superior in power?
Regards
Quote:Stefanos,
The gastraphetes, as described by Heron, was powered by a composite bow, not by torsion springs.
was it really a composite bow? Did Heron or any other ancient author write this explicitly? :-) ) I am asking because the other day I had a discussion about exactly that as somebody suggested that the Greeks switched to the torsion principle because they werent aware of the composite bow building technique.
And granted that the gastraphetes was a composite bow and the Greeks engineers soon moved to torsion bows, could we derive from that switch that torsion bows were generally superior in power?
Regards
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
