Roman drawings and pictures

[P. Clodius Secundus]

Crispvs\\n[quote]"I'm not sure what you are getting at here but what I was meaning was that if you take away the evidence of the Hatra catapult, which, as it is missing its stansions, can be interpreted in a number of ways and Trajan's column, which is completely unreliable as evidence of anything solid, you are left with zero evidence for the existence of 'inswingers', despite the fact the some people in recent years have demonstrated that such an idea is potentially workable.
quote]
If you ignore Hatra with its inconveniently placed cut outs and rear stanchion caps... If you dismiss everything on Trajan's as artistic license... If you're willing to write-off Ammianus as a fool because you can't follow what he says... Anyone else notice a trend here? :wink: Why don't we just throw out what little artillery evidence we have and do whatever we want? That's apparently the method Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey used to reconstruct the onager. He was so slavishly devoted to accuracy that his first published design didn't even have a sling, but it did include such well documented features as wheels, cast-iron spur gears, and a huge vertical buffer frame. With such a sterling example of reasoning and method to follow, it's no wonder modern scholars feel comfortable calling Ammianus "ridiculous". For my part, I'm more comfortable assuming that what few sources we have knew what they were building, describing, or carving. Any confusion is more likely due to errors or a lack of critical thinking on our part. Better to try and find the missing link, like the fact that Roman yoke poles were bent, not straight, (see my "Taming the Onager" thread) and plug that into the formula instead. Try it, you might find some interesting things.
Regards,