Suchergebnisse

Foreigners joining an army for private gain are mercenaries, those doing so for political reasons are allies. By these criteria, Rome, during the Republic, used mostly allies rather than mercenaries whenever she needed foreign manpower or special fighting skills. During the first two centuries of the Empire, when her own citizens no longer readily bore arms, Rome could rely on the plentiful supply of recruits from the provinces and client states and thus had little need for mercenaries.

On 12th May 2013 the dedication day of Trajan's Column in Rome was celebrated for the nineteen hundredth time. This anniversary provided the perfect occasion to fully appreciate the outstanding significance of this unique monument by means of an international conference, especially from the perspective of the traditional academic disciplines of Ancient History and Classical Archeology, including many disciplines such as Art History, Religious Studies, Epigraphy, Numismatics, Material Culture Studies and Visual Culture Studies. The volume contains the results of the conference. - Am 12. Mai 2013 jährte sich der Tag der Einweihung der Traianssäule zum neunzehnhundertsten Mal. Das Jubiläum bot den geeigneten Anlass, um dieses einzigartige Monument im Rahmen einer internationalen Tagung in seiner herausragenden Bedeutung möglichst umfassend zu würdigen, vor allem aus der Perspektive der traditionellen akademischen Fächer der Alten Geschichte und der Klassischen Archäologie, freilich unter Einbeziehung vieler Forschungsrichtungen und Disziplinen wie der Kunstgeschichte, der Religionswissenschaft, der Epigraphik, der Numismatik, der material culture studies und der visual culture studies. Der Band hält die Ergebnisse dieser Tagung fest.

1. Introduction. An everyday occurrence ; Who is this book for? ; Origin, bias and approach ; What this book is not about ; Chapter outlines -- 2. Argument. Introduction ; An array of urban objects ; Studying partial urban systems ; Art and design perspectives ; Adopting a perspective ; Towards a graphic design stance ; In the name of graphic design ; Graphic design as a spatial practice ; Beyond graphic design ; Summary -- 3. History. Introduction ; The urban graphic object ; What is urban (design)? ; Graphic design's urban history ; Trajan's Column, Rome ; Johnston's 'Underground' typeface ; Emergent 'environmental information systems' ; Summary -- 4. Imageability. Introduction ; An urban-graphic analogy ; The city image and its [graphic] elements ; Problems associated with sign and scale ; Concerning mesographic analysis ; Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo ; City of Westminster street nameplate, London ; Summary -- 5. Pattern. Introduction ; The visual dimension ; Form and context ; Object as pattern ; The road (zebra) crossing ; Ornamentation (as Unification) ; Summary -- 6. Representamen. Introduction ; From typography towards typology ; The semiotic sign ; Object as representamen ; The function of graphic objects ; Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco (1962-7, 1982-4) ; La Défence, Hauts-de-Seine, France (1958-90 and to the present) ; Theater District and Times Square, New York (1967-74) ; Symbolic resources for changing livelihoods ; Summary -- 7. Conclusion.

Intro -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Translator's Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- The state of research -- The iconographic sources -- On armament, equipment, and the buildings -- Basic information on the history and structure of the Roman army -- The Republic -- The cohort legion -- Legions in the Imperial period -- Infantrymen -- Legionary commanders and military tribunes -- Legionary prefects -- Centurions -- Principales and immunes -- Auxiliaries (auxilia) -- Structure -- Nomenclature -- Citizenship -- Numeri -- Guards -- Militias -- The so-called 'military reform' of the 4th century AD -- The Roman navy -- Notes to introduction -- Part I Iconographic sources for the Roman military by Dietrich Boschung -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Republican representations -- The frieze on the monument of L. Aemilius Paullus at Delphi -- The Census Relief in the Louvre -- The Sant'Omobono base (Bocchus Monument) -- 3. The Early Empire: Augustus to Domitian -- The frieze from the Porticus Octaviae -- The silver cup from Boscoreale -- Representations from the Julio-Claudian period -- The Cancelleria reliefs -- 4. Representations from the middle imperial period -- Trajan's Column -- The Great Trajanic Frieze -- The Column of Marcus Aurelius -- A series of reliefs of Marcus Aurelius -- The Arch of Severus -- 5. Representations from the Tetrarchic period -- The Arch of Galerius in Thessaloniki -- 6. Representations from Late Antiquity -- The Arch of Constantine -- Notes to Part I -- Part II General remarks on the Roman army -- 1. Introduction -- Selection of the material dealt with here -- 2. A history of research -- From the Middle Ages to the beginning of critical historical research -- From the 19th century to the First World War -- From the end of the First to the end of the Second World War -- After the Second World War.

Cover -- Book Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: What does it all mean? -- Emperors, Caliphs and Sultans -- 1 The Great Mosque of Cordoba, eighth totenth century -- 2 Carved Ivory Oliphant of the Fatimid Caliphate. Sicily, eleventh century -- 3 Turkish Composite Bows, created by twentieth-century master craftsmen -- 4 The Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar, Merv, Turkmenistan, eleventh century -- 5 The Murder of Nizam al-Mulk from a fourteenth century illuminated manuscript of the Jami al-Tawarikh,the Compendium of Chronicles or World History ofRashid-al-Din Hamadani. Topkapi Palace Museum -- Popes, Kings and Emperors -- 6 Hagia Sophia and the Grave of Dandolo, Istanbul -- 7 The Temple Mount viewed from the Mount of Olives -- 8 The Kiss of Peace depicted in a relief sculpture in the tympanum of the church of Anzy-le-Duc, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy. Probably eleventh century -- 9 The Bayeux Tapestry showing Duke William mustering and leading a charge of his Knights, eleventh century -- 10 William Marshal at a Joust unhorses Baldwin Guisnes, who survives the bout thanks to his chain-mail armour. From the Historia Major of Matthew Paris, c. thirteenth century -- A Youthful Venture -- 11 The Staronová Synagoga, Europe's Oldest Active Synagogue. Josefov, Prague. Completed c. 1270 -- 12 Trajan's Column, Rome, showing Roman siege artillery, 113-117 -- 13 Brass Pen Box showing scenes of Hunting and Falconry. Mamluk Period Syria, probably thirteenth century -- 14 The Catapulting of Ibrahim into the Fire in Edessa. Page from an unidentified Ottoman manuscript c. 1600 -- 15 Plaque from a Portable Altar Showing the Crucifixion and the piercing of Christ's Flank by Longinus' Lance. Germany, Lower Rhine Valley,eleventh century -- La Gerusalemme Liberata.

The Mountains of Majeed is a reflection on the end of 'Operation Enduring Freedom' in Afghanistan through photography, found imagery and Taliban poetry. Edmund Clark examines the experience of the vast majority of military personnel and contractors who have serviced Enduring Freedom without ever engaging the enemy. He distils their war down to a concise series of photographs of the two views they have of Afghanistan: what they see of the country over the walls or through the wire of their bases, and what they see of pictorial representations within the enclaves that they never leave. At Bagram Airfield, the largest American base in Afghanistan, and formerly home to 40,000, the view, both outside and inside, is dominated by the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Set against their looming presence, Clark's photographs from his time spent embedded with the U.S. military, expose the dystopian relationship between the man-made landscape of Bagram and the country beyond its walls. Evoking the intangible, yet intensely felt presence of the mountains beyond, and the unseen insurgents they hide, Clark's quiet and contemplative images portray an alternative narrative to the one ordinarily presented by the media. Clark's photographs capture the visual mirroring of the distant views within the base. Echoes of the surrounding landscape are found in the craters formed by construction work, peaks of refuse-strewn razor wire and the precisely ordered vistas of military tents. Inside the buildings of the base, the landscape is simulated by murals and artworks, representing another view of Afghanistan. On the walls of a dining facility, a series of paintings signed by an artist named 'Majeed' project a romantic vision of its lush mountain passes and lakes. Reflecting on the significance of the paintings' location on an American base, Clark says:"How many tens of thousands of pairs of western eyes have registered the pastoral peace of these mountainscapes? Has anyone considered what they say of the country they are playing a part in occupying?" In this exhibition, Majeed's paintings have been reproduced as a series of picture postcards. Likening them to mementos for souvenir hunters of an idealized touristic landscape, Clark's appropriation of the paintings offers a powerful reminder that the mountains remain out of Western reach. "There is distance between these mountains. Vistas of tranquillity fabricated by hand from canvas, wood and paint. Images from an enclave captured in high resolution by the latest digital technology. Two cultures divided by landscape and time. Ever present mountains forever beyond boots confined for a duration, within walls of occupation, on a ground of gravel and tarmac. And there is convergence. Both are mountains of the imagination. Both are representations of enduring freedom; and in both the mountains belong to Majeed." - Edmund Clark The exhibition features the first installation of 'The Victory Column of Enduring Freedom'. This monument to the notion of victory in the war in Afghanistan is a reference to Emperor Trajan's column in the forum in Rome (a copy of which is in the Cast Courts of the V&A Museum, London). It is a monument to his campaigns in Dacia, modern-day Romania, recording significant events through relief sculpture scenes spiralling up the column. The form of the spiralled column has been re-used and reinterpreted through history as an icon of victory; perhaps most notably for the victory column of Napoleon's Grande Armée in Place Vendome, Paris, made from captured Russian and Austrian cannons. Razor wire and aggregate are materials commonly used for the perimeter security and surface imprint of enclaves of occupation in the War on Terror.

The goal of the paper is to define general types and the evolution of horse armor employed by elite warriors of Sasanian Iran, basing on literary sources and iconographical evidence with minor reference to archaeological finds in wider Eurasian perspective. The horse armor was an important part of cavalry equipment already in the chariot warfare however its re-emergence in mounted combat occurred when heavy cavalry was developed. The article divides Sasanian horse armor into several groups: 1. One-piece body protection, which overall cover mounts body the way modern horse blankets do. Within the group one may find following subgroups: 1.a Caparisons – known from numerous works of art (rock reliefs illustrating scenes of mounted combat at Firusbad and Nakš e Rostam as well as the on so-called Shapur cameo currently held in Louvre) having long Near Eastern and Eurasian tradition. 1.b Scale barding – which in fact is a sort of caparison covered with metallic scales sewn onto textile horse blanket, testified by literary sources, known from archaeological evidence from Dura Europos (despite the fact that these examples belonged to Roman cavalry, it is clear that they were fashioned in Iranian manner). Scale bardings of the type are known also from the works of art like graffito from Dura Europos, Trajan's column, sculpture of Khalchayan and late Parthian Tang e Sarvak frieze. 1.c Chain mail horse armor – lacking strong and direct evidence from Sasanian period, iconography which may depict horses protected with chain-mail is rather crude however despite hypothetical nature, this sort of horse armor is very likely employed in Sasanian warfare. 2. Bardings composed of multiple elements and fragmentary bardings covering a part of the mount. Again these this group can be divided into two sub-groups: 2.a Full lamellar/laminar barding – can be identified on the sculpture of Khalchayan and late Parthian frieze Tang e Sarvak as well as on the seals of Late Sasanian spahbedan. They find numerous Central Asian (Old Turkic) and Far Eastern refernces. 2.b Fragmentary barding, best known from Taq e Bostan sculpture of an equestrian figure but with Central Asian, Chinese and Byzantine references. Following phases of barding development in ancient and early mediaeval Iran can be determined: 1. Late Achaemenid when armored cavalry required some protection for horses after employing shock tactics and subsequent close combat. 2. Mid Parthian, influenced by invasions of the steppe dwellers initiated by Xiong Nu expansion. Developed locally later. 3. Late Sasanian – resulting from contacts with Turkic warriors who transmitted some Eastern military technologies to Iran and through Avar influence to Europe.

British photographer Edmund Clark has spent more than a decade exploring the unseen processes, experiences and sites of contemporary conflict, with particular focus on the so-called War on Terror. The Mountains of Majeed is a reflection on the end of 'Operation Enduring Freedom' in Afghanistan through photography, found imagery and Taliban poetry. Based at Bagram Airfield, the largest American base in Afghanistan, and formerly home to 40,000, Edmund Clark examines the experience of the vast majority of military personnel and contractors who have serviced Enduring Freedom without ever leaving the base. Clark distills their war down to a concise series of photographs of the two views they have of Afghanistan: what they experience of the country over the walls or through the wire of their bases, and what they see through pictorial representations within these enclaves of high technology and occupation. At Bagram Airfield, the view, both outside and inside, is dominated by the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Set against their looming presence, Clark's images from his time spent embedded with the U.S. military, expose the dystopian relationship between the man-made landscape of Bagram and the country beyond its walls. Evoking an intangible awareness of the mountains beyond, and the unseen insurgents hiding within them, Clark's quiet and contemplative images portray an alternative narrative to the one ordinarily presented by the media. Echoes of the surrounding landscape resonate in Clark's photographs of spaces within the walls of the base, finding visual rhymes in the craters formed by construction work, peaks of refuse-strewn razor wire and the precisely ordered vistas of military tents. Inside the buildings, the landscape is simulated by murals and artworks, representing another view of Afghanistan. On the walls of a dining facility, a series of paintings signed by an artist named 'Majeed' portray idealized scenes of mountain passes and lakes, in which Clark questions the influence of Western ideas of romantic or naive painting. Reflecting on the significance of the paintings' location on an American base, Clark says: "How many tens of thousands of pairs of western eyes have registered the pastoral peace of these mountainscapes? Has anyone considered what they say of the country they are playing a part in occupying?" In this exhibition, Majeed's paintings have been reproduced as a series of picture postcards. Likening them to mementos for souvenir hunters of an idealized touristic landscape, Clark's appropriation of the paintings offers a powerful reminder that the mountains remain out of Western reach. Clark says: "There is distance between these mountains. Vistas of tranquillity fabricated by hand from canvas, wood and paint. Images from an enclave captured in high resolution by the latest digital technology. Two cultures divided by landscape and time. Ever present mountains forever beyond boots confined for a duration, within walls of occupation, on a ground of gravel and tarmac. And there is convergence. Both are mountains of the imagination. Both are representations of enduring freedom; and in both the mountains belong to Majeed." The Victory Column of Enduring Freedom is a monument to the notion of victory in the war in Afghanistan. It is a reference to Emperor Trajan's column in the forum in Rome which records his campaigns in Dacia, modern-day Romania, through relief sculpture scenes spiralling up the column. The form of the spiralled column has been re-used and reinterpreted through history as an icon of victory, perhaps most notably for the victory column of Napoleon's Grand Armée in Place Vendôme, Paris, made from captured Russian and Austrian cannons. Razor wire and aggregate are materials commonly used for the perimeter security and surface imprint of enclaves of occupation in the War on Terror. This show coincides with Edmund Clark's first solo museum exhibition in the United States at ICP Museum, New York. Edmund Clark: The Day the Music Died provides a timely and thoughtful exploration of the measures taken by states to protect its citizens from the threat of international terrorism, and the far-reaching effects of such methods of control including issues of security, secrecy, legality, and ethics. It brings together over 100 images, film, official documents, and ephemera exploring the hidden experiences and spaces of control and incarceration in the so-called global war on terror. The exhibition is on view from Jan 26, 2018 – May 06, 2018, www.icp.org.

El objetivo de este estudio ha sido reconstruir y analizar los acontecimientos de las guerras dácicas de Trajano desde cinco puntos de vista diferentes: los antecedentes del conflicto, en busca de las raíces de la contienda y aquellos acontecimientos que condicionaron su curso y desenlace; la geopolítica de la región y su transformación durante la contienda, con el objetivo de descubrir a todas las potencias implicadas y sus motivaciones; la estrategia, los medios que cada potencia dispuso para culminar sus objetivos particulares, los modos en que aplicaron dichos medios y cómo se explotó el escenario y las circunstancias de la contienda; el desarrollo del conflicto, cómo evolucionaron los acontecimientos y en qué medida se vieron condicionados por los antecedentes, la geopolítica y la estrategia propias de esta guerra; las consecuencias directas de la contienda en la región, los cambios en la geopolítica y las estrategias aplicadas por las potencias supervivientes para adaptarse a la nueva situación. Alcanzar estas metas ha pasado por una cuidadosa recopilación y sistematización crítica de las fuentes literarias disponibles para las guerras dácicas de Trajano. Esta sistematización nos permitió reconstruir la distribución, concentración y los movimientos de las unidades del ejército romano en el limes danubiano entre 85 y 119 d.C. Hemos realizado también una recopilación completa de las fuentes numismáticas de los reinados de Domiciano, Nerva, Trajano y Adriano cuyos mensajes propagandísticos estén vinculados o resulten vinculables a las guerras dácicas y los conflictos derivados de las mismas. Otro de los grandes pilares metodológicos de nuestro estudio ha sido el estudio de la geografía y la topografía del escenario del conflicto, concretado en los mapas topográficos a escala 1: 1.000.000 que acompañan a esta tesis. Un complemento esencial de esta perspectiva geográfica ha sido un compendio arqueológico de los asentamientos, ciudades, fortificaciones e infraestructuras militares documentadas en el escenario del conflicto entre 85 y 119 d.C. Esta múltiple sistematización de fuentes literarias, numismáticas y arqueológicas, sumada al estudio de los movimientos y despliegues armados romanos en el limes danubiano y al estudio de la geografía del escenario del conflicto, han sido las herramientas fundamentales para una revisión profunda de las fuentes iconográficas y monumentales (principalmente la Columna Trajana y las metopas del Tropaeum Traiani), así como de las interpretaciones vertidas en torno a las mismas hasta la fecha. De este modo, entre otras múltiples aportaciones, hemos conseguido demostrar que, siguiendo una elaborada agenda político-militar heredada del reinado de Burebista, el Estado dacio consiguió, mediante su influencia político-diplomática, arrastrar a la guerra contra el Imperio romano a potencias como las tribus germánicas centroeuropeas de cuados y marcomanos, a los bastarnos, a los sármatas roxolanos o a ciudades griegas como Tyras y Olbia. Esta expansión del poder dacio desestabilizó la red de seguridad y alianzas de Roma en la zona, obligando a esta a contrarrestar esta circunstancia mediante la movilización de sus propios socios en la región: los yácigos, los aorsos y el reino del Bóforo. Teniendo en cuenta que el escenario del conflicto estuvo presidido por el río Danubio y el Mar Negro, y que implicó a potencias marítimas, hemos demostrado también la necesaria existencia de armadas navales operativas entre las fuerzas de la entente dácica (capaces de oponerse a las classes romanas), sacando a la luz la expansión de la contienda al medio flotante. En este sentido, hemos confirmado la existencia de enfrentamientos navales por el control de las vitales rutas que atravesaban el Danubio, sus afluentes y el Mar Negro, durante las guerras dácicas de Trajano y Domiciano. Finalmente, hemos puesto de relieve que las consecuencias directas de las guerras dácicas de Trajano impidieron a Roma estabilizar la región definitivamente hasta el año 119 d.C. ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to reconstruct and analyse the event of Trajan's Dacian Wars from five different points of view: the antecedents to the war in search of the warfare roots and events that determined its course and conclusion; the geopolitics of the region and its transformation during the war with the objective of finding out all the parties involved and their motivations; the strategy, the means that every party had to reach their particular objectives, the ways in which they implemented said means and how the site was exploited, as well as the circumstances of the warfare; the development of the warfare, how the events unfolded and to what extent they were determined by the antecedents, geopolitics and the strategies of the war; the direct consequences of the war on religion, changes in geopolitics and strategies applied by the surviving parties to adapt to the new situation. In order to reach this aim, available literary resources related to the Trajan's Dacian Wars have been carefully compiled and critically organised. This organisation allowed to reconstruct the distribution, gathering and movements of the Roman army units in the Danube limes between 85 A.D. and 119 A.D. Numismatic sources of the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, Trajano and Hadrian, reigns whose propaganda messages are relevant or linked to the Dacian Wars and warfares arisen from them, have also been fully compiled. Another methodological cornerstone in this study is the study of the geography and topography of the warfare site, specified on 1:1,000,000 scale topographic maps attached to this thesis. An essential complement to this geographic perspective is the archaeological compilation of settlements, cities, fortifications and military infrastructures that have been documented on the warfare site between 85 A.D. and 119 A.D. This multiple organisation of literary, numismatic and archaeological sources together with the study of movements and the arrangement of the Roman army in the Danube limes and the geographic study of the warfare site have been essential tools facilitating an in-depth examination of iconographic and monumental sources (mainly the Trajan's Column and the metopes of Tropaeum Traiani), as well as their interpretations made up to this date. In this way, among various other contributions, it has been proved that the Dacian State, following an elaborated political and military agenda from the Burebista's reign, managed to drag powerful parties such as the Central European Germanic tribes of Quadi and Marcomanni, the Bastarnae, the Roxolani Sarmantians or Greek cities such as Tyras and Olbia to the war to fight against the Roman Empire. This expansion of the Dacian power destabilised the safety net and alliances of Rome in that region, forcing them to compensate for these circumstances by mobilising their own allies in this region: the Iazyges, the Aorsi and the Bosporan Kingdom. Bearing in mind that the Danube and the Black Sea were key elements in the warfare site and that maritime powers were involved in the war, it has also been demonstrated that the existence of the operational naval army among the parties of the Dacian entente (who were able to oppose to the Roman classes) was necessary, by exposing the expansion of the war to the maritime environment. In this regard, it has been confirmed that naval battles did indeed take place, which were fought to gain control of the main vital routes that crossed the Danube, its tributaries and the Black Sea during the Trajan and Domitian's Dacian Wars. Finally, the direct consequences of the Trajan's Dacian Wars that prevented Rome from permanently stabilising this region up to 119 A.D. have been highlighted.

Zrna za praćku iz rimskog perioda, otkrivena na teritoriji Srbije, potvrda su prisustva praćkaša (funditores) angažovanih u rimskoj vojsci, kako odreda plaćenika regrutovanih u oblastima poznatim po upotrebi ovog bacačkog oružja (Sirija, Judeja, Ahaja, Rodos, Baleari), tako i vojnika obučenih u toku redovne obuke regruta. Za projektile od olova, kamena i keramike u najvećem broju slučajeva ne postoje precizniji podaci o mestu i uslovima nalaza. Za nekoliko olovnih primeraka, međutim, potvrđeno je da potiču iz rimskog kastela u Stojniku na Kosmaju, gde su najverovatnije i izrađivani u sklopu intenzivne metalurške delatnosti na eksploataciji srebrne i olovne rude. Otkriće velike ostave keramičkih projektila u rimskom utvrđenju Novae kod Čezave najsigurnija je potvrda prisustva rimskih praćkaša na đerdapskom limesu u periodu I-III v. ; The slingshots from Serbia are exceptional proof of the employment of slingers in this part of the Roman empire. Unfortunately, the provenance of the lead slingshots from the National Museum in Belgrade is mostly unknown but all are of the same type: with circular cross-section and pointed ends. The provenance of a few slingshots (for instance: fig. 2/6) have, however been traced to archaeological explorations of the 2nd century Roman fortress at Stojnik on the Kosmaj mountain (fig. 1). The fortress was built for the control and protection of nearby Roman silver and lead mines. The dimensions and weight of the lead slingshots from the Stojnik fortress, as well as other specimens of the same type from the National Museum in Belgrade, are almost identical. Their weight range varies between 126-138 g which could correspond to five Roman uncia (1 quincunx = 136.44 g) or 30-32 Atic drachmas (1 drachma = 4.336 g). Besides several lead examples from the National Museum in Belgrade (fig. 2), the largest find of clay slingshots originates from Čezava, i.e. the Roman fort Novae (fig. 1). The clay slingshots from Čezava (fig. 3/1-18) were discovered during archaeological excavations of the Roman military fort Novae in the Iron Gates. The castellan was one on the first large fortifications in the gorge, situated at a strategically important site, 100 m away from the river bank, where a port was established. The site was a convenient crossing point of the Danube in the gorge. The clay slingshots from Čezava were found either individually, or in larger numbers. The greatest number of slingshots were found around the southeast rampart, in a tower dated to the 2nd-3rd century, situated between porta principalis dextra and Tower IV (fig. 4). Here a store of 90 examples were discovered. A smaller number of identical shots were uncovered during excavation of Tower V and Tower III (fig. 4). A total of 147 slingshots were found. These concentrations of slingshots are not random. Considering that the effective range of slingshots could have been between 65-200 m, slingers placed on the ramparts and towers could control the road and the river bank, including the port and the river itself. This could have been of great significance had an enemy attempted to cross the Danube. Most slingshots were found in the layers dated on the basis of other finds to the 2nd and the 3rd century. Slingshots were made of refined clay modelled in aerodynamic form, most frequently biconical (pl. I/1a; fig. 3/1-6), oval (pl. I/1b; fig. 3/7-12) or olive (pl. I/1v; fig. 3/13-19) shaped and hard baked. The dimensions and weight of the Čezava shots differ considerably. Their length varies between 5.5-10 cm while the weight fluctuates from 42-259 g. The weight range indicates that clay slingshots were produced in several calibres, that could have been used for different purposes or range. With regard to the ancient metric system the weight range of Čezava projectiles fluctuates from 1S to 9S uncia (43.36-256.6 g), or between 10-60 drachmae (43.36-260.1 g), that is, at a ratio of 1:6. It seems that the coincidence is not accidental, especially in view of the weight of the drachma, the more so if we take into consideration the fact that the most skilful slingshot units in the Roman army were recruited in Greece and in the East. Although seemingly a simple weapon, the sling and its use are described in great detail in classical written sources. Ancient authors emphasize that slingers were utilized in preparations and support of infantry attacks in order to thin the ranks of the enemy and cause disorder. Mercenaries from Syria, Rhodes and the Balearic Islands engaged in the Roman army were commended as the most efficient in the ancient world. However, drilling recruits to use slingshots was part of regular service. For Vegetius, slingshot units belonged to the fifth combat line, together with archers and artillery crews. Moreover, they played a special role in sieges and the defense of fortifications. The same author recommends the deployment of these troops in naval battles, in which they could either support or hinder the landing of troops. Mention is also made of red-hot clay slingshots being used in order to set fire in the enemy camp. The engagement of slingers in the Danube Basin is not confirmed in historical or epigraphic sources. In addition to the finds of slingshots, perhaps the best illustration of their engagement in this territory is the scene from Trajan's column in Rome depicting Roman slingers fighting against the Dacians (pl. I/2). A connection between the finds of slingshots from Stojnik and Čezava and the units settled in the existing military forts is uncertain but not impossible. The fact that there is no direct epigraphic or written proof that a specialized unit of Roman slingers (fundatores) were garrisoned in Moesia Superior, does not seem to be relevant, since such a mentions are rare and late in date. Besides the size of the forts (Stojnik - 5 ha; Čezava - 1.6 ha) and their strategic importance, the Roman units garrisoned in Stojnik and Čezava were confirmed as mixed units - cohortes equitatae. Epigraphic data confirms the presence of such units, both in Kosmaj (Cohors II Aurelia nova milliaria equitata civium Romanorum, Cohors I Aurelia milliaria nova Pasinatum civium Romanorum, Cohors V Callaecorum et Lucensium, Cohors I Ulpia Pannoniorum milliaria equitata) and at Čezava (Cohors I Montanorum civium Romanorum and probably Cohors I Antiochensium). Owing to their mixed composition and numbers, cavalry cohorts were used as universal troops trained for different kinds of combat. They were frequently utilized in war, along with infantry and cavalry in legions. In times of peace they were also used on the borders of the Empire for the defense and control of the limes. As for the interior of the provinces, they were employed for the protection of important strategic points such as mines land and river communication lines, customs stations and larger urban centres. Finally, the presence of lead and clay slingshots in the Roman forts in Stojnik and Čezava can perhaps be explained by the presence of military units whose members were trained to use not only swords and spears, but also this ancient but effective weapon.