Roman crossbow

[Thomas V.]

His theory is good, but my issue is that the Romans had crossbows - we know the haute-loire relief and others were crossbows because they display a nut. Furthermore, we have 3 finds of nuts from (almost) the Roman era - the earliest one was posted on here earlier and dates to the 5th century.

I also think that the two reliefs depict crossbows (i.e. no arrow-guides). One reason is, as you already stated, the nut-like objekt shown in the relief from Salignac.

Whether or not the Arcuballista was the name for the crossbow, I agree is up for debate.

This is another reason. Even if the medieval "arcuballista" should have been an old term (For a bow? For a bow equiped with an arrow-guide? For a mounted arrow or bolt-shooting engine?) used to describe something new (medieval and thus non-Roman crossbow), this doesn't mean that the crossbow was unknown to the Romans, albeit not beeing called "arcuballista".

The third reason is, that the approach to use the terms arcuballista and manuballista as a template for the classification of arrow-guides only works if you don't consider the manuballista as a type of torsion artillery.

The fourth reason is the quiver of the Saint-Marcel relief. The length of said quiver indicates that arrows of regular length were used. However, the purpose of arrow-guides was the usage of very short arrows.

The fifth reason is the Granada Crossbow. The crossbow resembles the two devices in the reliefs (cf. Harmuth, Richter). The author also mention the similarity; but she considers the possibility that the crossbow might have been an arrow-guide and therefore an indicator for the reliefs depicting arrow-guides. Her consideration is based on the accusation that Harmuth just "missed" to consider the possibility that the Granada Crossbow might have been an arrow-guide and on the claim that "Arabic crossbow" was a misnomer as the Granada Crossbow doesn't have a stirrup. This reasoning is problematic, IMO. Why shouldn't Harmuth consider a crossbow as a crossbow? And: The existence of an Arabic source claiming crossbows were equiped with stirrups doesn't automatically exclude the existence of stirrupless Arabic crossbows (the Granada Crossbow is a good example for a stirrupless Arabic crossbow). As the Granada Crossbow is a crossbow, its similarity to the devices shown in the two reliefs supports the theory that said reliefs depict Roman crossbows.