432 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1936 



Returning to the crossbow itself: most modern historians assume 

 that the catapult developed from it. However, there is only one bit 

 of historical evidence supporting this belief. This is to be found 

 in a work on the manufacture of darts written by Heron of Alex- 

 andria, who lived perhaps sometime between 285-222 B. C, or else 

 during the second century B. C. He ascribes the invention of a 

 certain weapon to one Zopyrus, who, he indicates, lived in Tarentum 

 about the beginning of the fourth century B. C. This weapon 

 Heron called the gastrapTietes or "stomach bow", because it was 

 spanned by pressing the butt of the stock against the stomach. 

 From his description it appears to be a crossbow, and he considered 

 it an evolutionary step between the bow and the catapult. What- 

 ever this weapon was, it is never mentioned by classical military 

 writers and apparently played no part in warfare. 



The great column of Trajan, erected in Rome between 105 and 

 113 A. D., has scores of battle and camp scenes depicting Roman and 

 Dacian soldiers using all kinds of arms — swords, axes, slings, bows, 

 catapults, etc. — but does not show one crossbow.^** The first classi- 

 cal writer on military affairs specifically to mention its use as a 

 military weapon is F. Vegetius Renatus (fl. A. D. 386). In his "/>e 

 Re MilitarV'' (II, 15; III, 14; IV, 21, 22) he mentions crossbows and 

 crossbowmen as a regular part of the Roman army, but he does not 

 describe them, apparently because they were already well known. 

 It appears, therefore, that sometime between the beginning of the 

 second century and 386 A. D. the crossbow first became a regular 

 part of Roman military equipment. The first actual representations 

 of Roman crossbows now extant are seen on two monuments in 

 France dating, perhaps, from the fifth century A. D. One is on a 

 tomb column at Polignac sur Loire, and the other is figured in a 

 painting from the walls of a Roman villa at Puy. 



Thus, we see that siege engines resembling the crossbow are re- 

 ported in the West about 400 B. C., and a weapon which may well 

 have been a crossbow is mentioned by a writer in Alexandria who 

 lived during the third or second century B. C. Crossbows are first 

 definitely mentioned as a regular weapon in the Roman army toward 

 the end of the fourth century A. D. We are faced, then, with three 

 historical possibilities: The crossbow was independently invented 

 in the two regions of China and the classical world ; it was invented 

 only once, and spread from China to the west, or, less probably, in 

 the other direction; and, finally, it may have been invented in a 

 third region somewhere between the two and then been diffused in 

 both directions, to be eagerly seized upon in China and almost 

 neglected in the west. 



*<» Compare : Froehner, op. cit., plates. 



