The Balustrade of Athena Polias Nikephoros in Pergamon

[Laran]

Thanks,Chris!

Indeed, your website is great. Nice to see it back.

[sitalkes]

> Along with the Harpe you might want to mention the Spartan xyele. Are >you familiar with this?

No, thanks for bringing that to my attention, Paul! However a quick look at some web sites shows that it is possibly a tool, or a Spartan version of the strigil. It also seems very difficult to see a picture of it. Do you have a picture?

[sitalkes]

Duncan Head also discusses the drepanon a fair bit, here's a picture (Plate 7) from his marvellous Montvert Persian book:

[Duncan Head]

Perhaps you can tell me, are the simmilar sword/sickle combination weapons commonly seen in depictions of Perseus pure fantasy or did something like them exist?

I've never seen any evidence for the sword-with-a-sickle-prong other than depictions of Perseus, so I'd suspect fantasy. (Though some Perseuses, like the one on Chris' page http://home.exetel.com.au/bmboats/rhomph_similar.htm , carry sickles that could be "realistic" Anatiolian drepana.)

[hoplite14gr]

A curved blade is mentioned in Perseus myth, yes.

But the link with the pottery image of a dorydrepanon adds to the possibility of existing in reality.

Kind regards

[PMBardunias]

No, thanks for bringing that to my attention, Paul! However a quick look at some web sites shows that it is possibly a tool, or a Spartan version of the strigil. It also seems very difficult to see a picture of it. Do you have a picture?

In Sekunda's Osprey title on Sparta he shows an image of one that looks very much like a rhomphaia, but I don't know where he got the image. The only surviving examples I have seen are from the temple of Artemis Orthia:

http://efts.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eo ... object=328

There has been debate on whether this was a strigil or a sickle, but the name would seem to tie it to wood working, not oil scraping. As for it being a weapon, we do know of at least one person killed by a blow from a Xyele- a spartan was exiled for this act.

My guess is that it was the utility knife of spartans. You can see the historical connection to the ritual of giving Spartan boys Xyeles at a certain age- now they could whittle their own spears and javelins for the hunt and war. Although it is ulikely that Spartiates made their own spears, their ancestors surely did.

[PMBardunias]

The dorudrepanon is a spear with a sickle-head below the spearhead, possibly to cut rigging in naval battles.

When I first read that it sounded pretty obvious, if I recall ceasar jury-rigged such weapons to take on the Gallic ships off the northern coast of France, but didn't mediterranean warships in this period take down their rigging prior to battle?

It made me wonder if the weapon was used primarily on non-combat vessels and thus a specialized tool for piracy.

[Duncan Head]

The dorudrepanon is a spear with a sickle-head below the spearhead, possibly to cut rigging in naval battles.

When I first read that it sounded pretty obvious, if I recall ceasar jury-rigged such weapons to take on the Gallic ships off the northern coast of France, but didn't mediterranean warships in this period take down their rigging prior to battle?

The Sekunda article that Chris linked to quotes Pollux and Plato on the dorudrepanon being used to cut rigging, as well as Strabo using the word for Caesar's weapons.

Plato, Laches: "For example, this very Stesilaus, whom you and I have just witnessed exhibiting in all that crowd and making such great professions of his powers, I have seen at another time making, in sober truth, an involuntary exhibition of himself, which was a far better spectacle. He was a marine on board a ship which struck a transport vessel, and was armed with a weapon, half spear half scythe; the singularity of this weapon was worthy of the singularity of the man. To make a long story short, I will only tell you what happened to this notable invention of the scythe-spear. He was fighting, and the scythe was caught in the rigging of the other ship, and stuck fast; and he tugged, but was unable to get his weapon free. The two ships were passing one another. He first ran along his own ship holding on to the spear; but as the other ship passed by and drew him after as he was holding on, he let the spear slip through his hand until he retained only the end of the handle. The people in the transport clapped their hands, and laughed at his ridiculous figure; and when some one threw a stone, which fell on the deck at his feet, and he quitted of the scythe-spear, the crew of his own trireme also burst out laughing; they could not refrain when they beheld the weapon waving in the air, suspended from the transport."

It might be significant that the target's a transport rather than a warship.

[Laran]

In the 'Battle of Cunaxa illustration' thread, I promised to try and find that Lykian warrior stele (inspired by Duncan Head's words that it might not be lost), as soon as I find a chance to go to Konya. So, last Sunday I went there on a day trip with our university's archaelogical society, of which I'm also a member. And I found that stele or at least what seems to be it. :lol: It looks slightly different from that 19th c. drawing. Perhaps, it was slightly damaged since that time. But the sickle sword is still distinguishable. Photos below.

detail


Well, these are not the only interesting things I photographed there. :wink: I'm planning to post them all later in a separate thread.

[hoplite14gr]

http://efts.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eo ... object=328

Though Demeter (Cerres) is the most well known agricultural goddess -in Sparta Kore(Persephone) or Artemis Orthia were revered as goddeses combining the attributes of Gaia the plant-grower. The stele testifies to land rights and the sicle is simply the symbol of the "farming godess".

Kind regards

[Duncan Head]

In the 'Battle of Cunaxa illustration' thread, I promised to try and find that Lykian warrior stele (inspired by Duncan Head's words that it might not be lost), as soon as I find a chance to go to Konya. So, last Sunday I went there on a day trip with our university's archaelogical society, of which I'm also a member. And I found that stele or at least what seems to be it. :lol: It looks slightly different from that 19th c. drawing. Perhaps, it was slightly damaged since that time. But the sickle sword is still distinguishable.

That's marvellous, Laran: laudes! I can see most if not all of the differences from Teixier's drawing that Adrian Nayler pointed out in the Slingshot article. Very interesting indeed.