03-07-2014, 04:31 PM
This article here discusses the terms Ballistarii and Tragularii heavily:
The Comitatus reenactment group did reconstructions of mounted crossbowmen, and found that ballistarii would be better as crossbowmen than artillerymen, but still ineffective when coupled with catafractarii due to its slower rate of fire and that it wasn't as powerful as an asymmetric bow.
Quote:Hello,
I just came across [hide]Philological Notes on the Crossbow and Related Missile Weapons[/hide] ("In the following I shall investigate the possible connection of arcuballista and [i]manuballista[/i] with archery and the crossbow.").
So if you are interested in the Roman crossbow, you should have a look at the text.
The Comitatus reenactment group did reconstructions of mounted crossbowmen, and found that ballistarii would be better as crossbowmen than artillerymen, but still ineffective when coupled with catafractarii due to its slower rate of fire and that it wasn't as powerful as an asymmetric bow.
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