Monday, December 05, 2005

Historical tiles: Pyrrhic victory?

Stefanos, HOPLITE14GR on Roman Army Talk, mentioned that tiles were used to good effect by women in Ancient Greece:

An Argive lady seeing king Pyrros of Ipiros about to skewer her son with his lance during a streetfight in hellenistic Argos whacked him with an accuratly thrown rooftile.

This is mentioned in Plutarch:

Pyrrhus By Plutarch (Translated by John Dryden )
Pyrrhus, seeing this storm and confusion of things, took off the crown he wore upon his helmet, by which he was distinguished, and gave it to one nearest his person, and trusting to the goodness of his horse, rode in among the thickest of the enemy, and being wounded with a lance through his breastplate, but not dangerously, nor indeed very much, he turned about upon the man who struck him, who was an Argive, not of any illustrious birth, but the son of a poor old woman; she was looking upon the fight among other women from the top of a house, and perceiving her son engaged with Pyrrhus, and affrighted at the danger he was in, took up a tile with both hands and threw it at Pyrrhus. This falling on his head below the helmet, and bruising the vertebrae of the lower part of the neck, stunned and blinded him; his hands let go the reins, and sinking down from his horse he fell just by the tomb of Licymnius.

More on Greek women and tiles later ...

1 comment:

Gabriele Campbell said...

Hi, another RAT member. The web is a village indeed, you meet the same people all over the place. *grin*

I go by the name of Atrectus there.