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Were the Funditores/slingers still active in the late Roman empire. I know there's one unit of Funditores listed in the Notitia Dignitatum in the Eastern Empire part but were they still a unit used throughout the whole Roman Empire (yes that's the west as well)? I know Vegetius recommends using slingers during siegebattles but was it just a personal advice and a call to the army to use this older unit type or was it a tactical advice while the funditores were still very common during the late empire?
P.S. why can't I see my signiture? :?
Thijs Koelewijn
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Maurikios also recommends that soldiers carry slings. However, I'm not so sure that units of slingers existed. The funditores of old seem to have enhances the pila, but fire power increased a lot since then. So slingers as a separate support uinit may no longer have been needed when archers, javelin-, plumbatae- and others small missile support existed.
You might need to activate your sig first.
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Thijs,
for activating your signature:
- go to your profile,
- in the private profile home, select profile (next to home)
- select profile settings
- select posting
- set "Always attach my signature"to YES.
- select SUBMIT.
gr,
Jeroen Pelgrom
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I would rather have fire storms of atmospheres than this cruel descent from a thousand years of dreams.
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true, but in this case they surely acted as Funditores. I only wanted to know if slings were used in the late Roman period, not necessarily the unit itself specialised in slingers.
Thijs Koelewijn
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skirmishing with slings has occured all throughout history.
However, you want to know if the late period empire supported seperate specalized units of slingers?
Probably not.
If they did, the units were almost certainly mercernary. There were no state standardized slinger units. Most of the support missle troops were archers anyways. In fact, Vegetius reccomended that 1/4-1/3 of all infantry be trained as archers.
-thanks for reading.
Sean