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Storia Militare Antica NUOVA RIVISTA INTERDISCIPLINARE DELLA SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DI STORIA MILITARE Fascicolo 6. Marzo 2021 Storia Militare Antica Società Italiana di Storia Militare Direttore scientifico Virgilio Ilari Vicedirettore scientifico Giovanni Brizzi Direttore responsabile Gregory Claude Alegi Redazione Viviana Castelli Consiglio Scientifico. Presidente: Massimo De Leonardis. Membri stranieri: Christopher Bassford, Floribert Baudet, Stathis Birthacas, Jeremy Martin Black, Loretana de Libero, Magdalena de Pazzis Pi Corrales, Gregory Hanlon, John Hattendorf, Yann Le Bohec, Aleksei Nikolaevič Lobin, Prof. Armando Marques Guedes, Prof. Dennis Showalter (†). Membri italiani: Livio Antonielli, Antonello Folco Biagini, Aldino Bondesan, Franco Cardini, Piero Cimbolli Spagnesi, Piero del Negro, Giuseppe De Vergottini, Carlo Galli, Roberta Ivaldi, Nicola Labanca, Luigi Loreto, Gian Enrico Rusconi, Carla Sodini, Donato Tamblé, Comitato consultivo sulle scienze militari e gli studi di strategia, intelligence e geopolitica: Lucio Caracciolo, Flavio Carbone, Basilio Di Martino, Antulio Joseph Echevarria II, Carlo Jean, Gianfranco Linzi, Edward N. Luttwak, Matteo Paesano, Ferdinando Sanfelice di Monteforte. Consulenti di aree scientifiche interdisciplinari: Donato Tamblé (Archival Sciences), Piero Cimbolli Spagnesi (Architecture and Engineering), Immacolata Eramo (Philology of Military Treatises), Simonetta Conti (Historical Geo-Cartography), Lucio Caracciolo (Geopolitics), Jeremy Martin Black (Global Military History), Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina (History of International Law of War), Gianfranco Linzi (Intelligence), Elena Franchi (Memory Studies and Anthropology of Conflicts), Virgilio Ilari (Military Bibliography), Luigi Loreto (Military Historiography), Basilio Di Martino (Military Technology and Air Studies), John Brewster Hattendorf (Naval History and Maritime Studies), Elina Gugliuzzo (Public History), Vincenzo Lavenia (War and Religion), Angela Teja (War and Sport), Stefano Pisu (War Cinema), Giuseppe Della Torre (War Economics). Nuova Antologia Militare Rivista interdisciplinare della Società Italiana di Storia Militare Periodico telematico open-access annuale (www.nam-sism.org) Registrazione del Tribunale Ordinario di Roma n. 06 del 30 Gennaio 2020 Direzione, Via Bosco degli Arvali 24, 00148 Roma Contatti: [email protected] ; [email protected] © 2020 Società Italiana di Storia Militare (www.societaitalianastoriamilitare@org) Grafica: Nadir Media Srl - Via Giuseppe Veronese, 22 - 00146 Roma [email protected] Gruppo Editoriale Tab Srl - Lungotevere degli Anguillara, 11 - 00153 Roma www.tabedizioni.it ISSN: 2704-9795 ISBN Fascicolo 6: 978-88-9295-139-6 NUOVA RIVISTA INTERDISCIPLINARE DELLA SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DI STORIA MILITARE Fascicolo 6. Marzo 2021 Storia Militare Antica Società Italiana di Storia Militare Scutum di Dura Europos, unico esemplare pervenuto. Photo credit: Yale University Art Gallery, licensed in public domain (unrestricted). Wikimedia commons 5 The onager, according to Ammianus Marcellinus: a critical reconstruction by MARC CHERRETTÉ ABSTRACT. - The onager was a special Late-Roman one-armed stone-thrower and totally different from the existing and more common two-armed artillery of that era, the ballistae and catapultae. The name ‘onager’ appeared in Ancient texts of the 4th C.A.D. (Ammianus Marcellinus; Renatus Vegetius). Until now Ammianus’ description (Res Gestae, XXIII, 4) is the only existing technical and accurate re- port of this type of one-armed stone-thrower. Based upon his description, from the 19th century on it has been studied by a lot of scholars and it led nearly all of them to that typical image of the onager, nowadays living a life of its own in many similar replicas. They all usually show the throw- ing-arm hitting a wooden buffer. As to me, I found that modern scholars maybe too quickly passed over some parts of his text, - in my opinion important parts but to them apparently rather uninformative- so their translations could leave room for imagination and speculations. That prompted me to a revision of the Ancient text, combining linguistic and technical considerations and partly based upon my handmade scale-models- call it a kind of experimental archaeology. Hereby the translations and concepts of aforementioned scholars were examined, criticised and contrasted with my alternative ideas. My research concluded with a final con- cept of an onager, to be strained with sinew-ropes albeit for this case, with skeins of horsetail hair. This paper will now focus on that final version. It surely might be controversial since totally breaking with all the prevailing ideas. KEYWORDS: AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, THE LATE ROMAN ONAGER, NERVI TORTI, LIGA- MENTUM NUCHAE, MACHINA SERRATORIA, REPAGULA, GIBBA, FULMENTUM, TORMENTUM, RO- MAN TECHNOLOGY & WARFARE. SUMMARY: 0 Latin text by Ammianus. 1 Status quaestionis. 2 The Latin vocabulary, exam- ined in a different way. 3 Elucidations for the benefit of a new translation. 4 On the way to a final concept of Ammianus’ onager. 5 Overall conclusions. 6 Epi- logue NAM, Anno 2 – n. 6 DOI 10.36158/978889295139610 Marzo 2021 2 6 FASCICOLO 2 / N.6 (2021) - STORIA MILITARE ANTICA liber XXIII, caput IV (4-7): Descriptiones muralium machinarum, ballistae, scorpionis vel onagri, arietis, helepoleos, ac malleoli. Line § 4. 1 Scorpionis autem, quem appellant nunc onagrum, huiusmodi forma est. Dolantur axes duo quernei vel ilicei curvanturque mediocriter, ut 3 prominere videantur in gibbas, hique in modum serratoriae machinae connectuntur, ex utroque latere patentius perforati; quos inter per cavernas 5 funes colligantur robusti compagem, ne dissiliat, continentes. 5. 7 Ab hac medietate restium ligneus stilus exsurgens obliquus et in modum iugalis temonis erectus ita nervorum nodulis implicatur, ut altius tolli 9 possit et inclinari; summitatique eius unci ferrei copulantur, e quibus pendet stuppea vel ferrea funda. 11 Cui ligno fulmentum prosternitur ingens, cilicium paleis confertum minutis, validis nexibus illigatum. Et locatur super congestos caespites vel 13 latericios aggeres. Nam muro saxeo huiusmodi moles imposita disiectat quidquid invenerit subter concussione violenta, non pondere. 15 6. Cum igitur ad concertationem ventum fuerit, lapide rotundo fundae 17 imposito quaterni altrinsecus iuvenes repagula, quibus incorporati sunt funes, explicantes retrorsus stilum paene supinum inclinant; itaque 19 demum sublimis adstans magister claustrum, quod totius operis continet vincula, reserat malleo forti perculsum; unde absolutus ictu volucri stilus 21 et mollitudine offensus cilicii saxum contorquet, quidquid incurrerit, collisurum. 23 7. Et tormentum quidem appellatur ex eo, quod omnis explicatio torquetur; 25 scorpio autem, quoniam aculeum desuper habet erectum; cui etiam onagri vocabulum indidit aetas novella ea re, quod asini feri, cum vena(n)tibus 27 agitantur, ita eminus lapides post terga calcitrando emittunt, ut perforent pectora sequentium aut perfractis ossibus capita ipsa displodant. 1 THE ONAGER: STATUS QUAESTIONIS In contrast to their achievements and treatises about the more common classic artillery, the translations/interpretations of Ammianus’ text by authors like Sir Payne-Gallwey, Oberst E. Schramm, E.W. Marsden a.o. – although trendsetting - struck me as rather M. Cherretté • the onager, aCCording to aMMianus MarCellinus 7 LATIN TEXT BY AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS: 1 THE ONAGER: STATUS QUAESTIONIS n contrast to their achievements and treatises about the more common clas- sic artillery, the translations/interpretations of Ammianus’ text by authors like Sir Payne-Gallwey, Oberst E. Schramm, E.W. Marsden a.o. – although Itrendsetting - struck me as rather uncertain and somewhat deficient. Their ideas were based on recurring common principles and characteristics of the two-armed torsion ballistae and catapultae –more familiar to them. Probably the lack of accompanying Ancient drawings has led to their typical replicas with but weak performances. Invariably, they used two beams (axes duo) interconnected by cross beams, based on the sentence ‘ in modum serratoriae machinae connectuntur’ which they interpreted as a frame-construction, somehow resembling a carpenter’s frame-saw. But that is a somewhat unfortunate comparison, since the tension- ing-rope of that saw is located at the front of it – thus not in the middle which is alas the case in their onagers. The phrase ‘curvanturque mediocrit- er’ meant to them that the beams were fashioned and given a moderate cur- vature. In these beams two large holes (patentius perforati) were bored in each side (ex utroque latere) through which powerful ropes (funes … robus- ti …) were stretched preventing the Fig.1 : A carpenter’s frame- saw structure from falling apart. But further on in their translations suddenly these ropes are considered as the re- silient twists of sinew ropes (nervi torti). Indeed, they then deduced from the sen- tence ‘ab hac medietate restium’ that ‘in’ or ‘from’ those ropes (restium) a stem or sling-arm (stilus) rose up (exsurgens …ita nervorum nodulis implicatur…) So, they had to conclude that these ropes had suddenly too become the sinew-ropes or nervi torti in which the arm was fixed. 8 FASCICOLO 2 / N.6 (2021) - STORIA MILITARE ANTICA Another misapprehension is their translation of ‘cui ligno ful(ci)mentum pros- ternitur’ suggesting the existence of a huge (wooden) buffer (fulmentum) as part of the onager and in front of the arm (cui ligno), fitted with a sack (cilicium) of chaff (paleis minutis) used as
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