Abstract
The twelfth book of the military manual, Strategikon, attributed to Emperor Maurice, written about A.D. 600, contains a mini-treatise on the infantry. Although added to the work later, it seems to reflect earlier practices and equipment, some from the time of Justinian. Among the weapons to be carried by the light armed infantry it lists: ‘hollowed out wooden stocks with short arrows in small quivers, which can be fired a great distance with the bows and seriously injure the enemy’. What are these hollowed out pieces of wood, J. F. Haldon hesitantly, but correctly, identified them as crossbows. They were light enough to be carried by individual soldiers, and were clearly different from the revolving ballistae mounted on wagons spoken of in the next chapter (6) of this little treatise.
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