Legionaries with slings

[mcbishop]

The question also is, how well trained the normal soldier was with the sling.

What Vegetius actually says (De Re Militari 1.16) is that all soldiers were trained in the use of the sling, which is different from saying they all habitually used it. Hadrian even mentions cavalrymen(!) using them whilst riding on the Lambaesis adlocutio inscription. Anyone can use a sling so that they are at least dangerous (not necessarily to just the enemy!), but it takes a lifetime to make them deadly accurate, a point made by Bill Griffiths in his article on the subject.*

Mike Bishop

*W. B. Griffiths 1989: 'The sling and its place in the Roman imperial army', in: C. van Driel-Murray (ed.), Roman Military Equipment: The Sources of Evidence. Proceedings of the Fifth ROMEC, BAR S476, Oxford 255-79