11-06-2009, 03:03 AM
I would for sure buy an issue about tools carried (both entrenching and other tools) by the Legion. You could also have drawings of and discussions on the use of those tools.
Some are mentioned in De Re Militari The two I have outlined in bold I haven't seen discussed. There are some mentions in Caesar's commentaries which may be these tools used as siege tools but I suspect they may be dual purpose tools also used in moving logs and cutting limbs and brush.
" The legion carries with it a number of small boats, each hollowed out of a single piece of timber, with long cables and sometimes iron chains to fasten them together. These boats, joined and covered with planks, serve as bridges over unfordable rivers, on which both cavalry and infantry pass without danger. The legion is provided with iron hooks, called wolves, and iron scythes fixed to the ends of long poles; and with forks, spades, shovels, pickaxes, wheelbarrows and baskets for digging and transporting earth; together with hatchets, axes and saws for cutting wood. Besides which, a train of workmen attend on it furnished with all instruments necessary for the construction of tortoises, musculi, rams, vines, moving towers and other machines for the attack of places. As the enumeration of all the particulars of this sort would be too tedious, I shall only observe that the legion should carry with it wherever it moves, whatever is necessary for every kind of service so that the encampments may have all the strength and conveniences of a fortified city."
Josephus mentions "besides a saw and a basket, a pick-axe and an axe, a thong of leather and a hook"
Caesar mentions the hooks:
"caes.gal.7.22": [7.22] To the extraordinary valor of our soldiers, devices of every sort were opposed by the Gauls; since they are a nation of consummate ingenuity, and most skillful in imitating and making those things which are imparted by any one; for they turned aside the hooks with nooses, and when they had caught hold of them firmly, drew them on by means of engines, and undermined the mound the more skillfully on this account,
AND:
"One thing provided by our men was of great service, [viz.] sharp hooks inserted into and fastened upon poles, of a form not unlike
\\ the hooks used in attacking town walls."
Some are mentioned in De Re Militari The two I have outlined in bold I haven't seen discussed. There are some mentions in Caesar's commentaries which may be these tools used as siege tools but I suspect they may be dual purpose tools also used in moving logs and cutting limbs and brush.
" The legion carries with it a number of small boats, each hollowed out of a single piece of timber, with long cables and sometimes iron chains to fasten them together. These boats, joined and covered with planks, serve as bridges over unfordable rivers, on which both cavalry and infantry pass without danger. The legion is provided with iron hooks, called wolves, and iron scythes fixed to the ends of long poles; and with forks, spades, shovels, pickaxes, wheelbarrows and baskets for digging and transporting earth; together with hatchets, axes and saws for cutting wood. Besides which, a train of workmen attend on it furnished with all instruments necessary for the construction of tortoises, musculi, rams, vines, moving towers and other machines for the attack of places. As the enumeration of all the particulars of this sort would be too tedious, I shall only observe that the legion should carry with it wherever it moves, whatever is necessary for every kind of service so that the encampments may have all the strength and conveniences of a fortified city."
Josephus mentions "besides a saw and a basket, a pick-axe and an axe, a thong of leather and a hook"
Caesar mentions the hooks:
"caes.gal.7.22": [7.22] To the extraordinary valor of our soldiers, devices of every sort were opposed by the Gauls; since they are a nation of consummate ingenuity, and most skillful in imitating and making those things which are imparted by any one; for they turned aside the hooks with nooses, and when they had caught hold of them firmly, drew them on by means of engines, and undermined the mound the more skillfully on this account,
AND:
"One thing provided by our men was of great service, [viz.] sharp hooks inserted into and fastened upon poles, of a form not unlike
\\ the hooks used in attacking town walls."
John Kaler MSG, USA Retired
Member Legio V (Tenn, USA)
Staff Member Ludus Militus https://www.facebook.com/groups/671041919589478/
Owner Vicus and Village: https://www.facebook.com/groups/361968853851510/
Member Legio V (Tenn, USA)
Staff Member Ludus Militus https://www.facebook.com/groups/671041919589478/
Owner Vicus and Village: https://www.facebook.com/groups/361968853851510/
