Permit me to name Bennetts to you...

parthianbow · Post by **parthianbow** » Mon August 30th, 2010, 9:36 am

Welcome to the forum, M.M.!

Carla · Post by **Carla** » Mon August 30th, 2010, 11:01 am

Hello and welcome!

M.M. Bennetts · Post by **M.M. Bennetts** » Mon August 30th, 2010, 4:01 pm

[quote=""parthianbow""]Welcome to the forum, M.M.![/quote]

The Parthians...weren't those the chappies who rode bareback and used the short bow to such devastating effect with something like a 180 degree range of firing? Quite astonishing.

N. Gemini Sasson · Post by **N. Gemini Sasson** » Mon August 30th, 2010, 7:56 pm

Haven't we met before? Those boots look very familiar...

parthianbow · Post by **parthianbow** » Mon August 30th, 2010, 8:13 pm

[quote=""M.M. Bennetts""]The Parthians...weren't those the chappies who rode bareback and used the short bow to such devastating effect with something like a 180 degree range of firing? Quite astonishing.[/quote]
Indeed they were: their compound bows were made of wood, horn and sinew, and were as powerful as many/most English longbows. They were capable of piercing shields and mail to kill the man beneath, as they did at Carrhae.

And in an interesting footnote, the modern term "parting shot" is a bastardisation of the term "Parthian shot", coined from the manner in which the Parthians could turn around while riding forwards and fire arrows backwards.

No slubberdegullions in that time, however!

M.M. Bennetts · Post by **M.M. Bennetts** » Mon August 30th, 2010, 11:06 pm

[quote=""parthianbow""]Indeed they were: their compound bows were made of wood, horn and sinew, and were as powerful as many/most English longbows. They were capable of piercing shields and mail to kill the man beneath, as they did at Carrhae.

And in an interesting footnote, the modern term "parting shot" is a bastardisation of the term "Parthian shot", coined from the manner in which the Parthians could turn around while riding forwards and fire arrows backwards.

No slubberdegullions in that time, however!

[/quote]

I knew it was called a Parthian shot, because it was still referred to like that 200 years ago, which is my period of specialism. I didn't know the compound of their bows. Though I did know that their firing range was spectacular--oddly enough because I was called upon to review a book which featured the argument that the Christian West won at places like Ronceval because they had stirrups which the Muslims hadn't. As an equestrian I knew that one's staying in the saddle abilities have nothing to do with stirrups, but of course, I had to prove it with a historical reference in this case.

Thanks for that about the bows. Well cool.

parthianbow · Post by **parthianbow** » Tue August 31st, 2010, 10:33 am

[quote=""M.M. Bennetts""]I knew it was called a Parthian shot, because it was still referred to like that 200 years ago, which is my period of specialism.[/quote]
Excellent, thanks for that! I didn't know when the misunderstanding of the phrase had led to its modern spelling. It was some time after your period, then. Mad that it lasted 1800 years only to fall out of use, isn't it?

M.M. Bennetts · Post by **M.M. Bennetts** » Tue August 31st, 2010, 4:48 pm

[quote=""parthianbow""]Excellent, thanks for that! I didn't know when the misunderstanding of the phrase had led to its modern spelling. It was some time after your period, then. Mad that it lasted 1800 years only to fall out of use, isn't it?[/quote]

I wonder if it would have been during the Victorian period. Because of their education...before that, through the 18th and early 19th century, a gentleman's education consisted of the classics. Full stop. Everything Latin and Greek--so history, philosophy and literature--and absolutely nothing else. No Shakespeare for example. They didn't necessarily know their own history, but they knew that of the Greeks and the Romans. So anyone with a public school education would have known who the Parthians were. Once education starts including other stuff, British history, English literature, a study of geography and the sciences, the classics lose ground...Sounds plausible, doesn't it?

Ashley · Post by **Ashley** » Tue September 7th, 2010, 2:26 am

Welcome! Enjoy yourself.

annis · Post by **annis** » Tue September 7th, 2010, 5:13 am

Posted by MM

Because of their education...before that, through the 18th and early 19th century, a gentleman's education consisted of the classics

I've always been tickled by the story of the English tourists (presumably ones with a classical education as described) who in 1818 discovered and recognised the ruins of the Lion of Chaeronea, a monument erected by Philip II of Macedon in honour of the Sacred Band of Thebes, who died at the Battle of Chaeronea.

"The Lion of Chaeronea, a nearly 20-foot-tall (6.1 m) funerary monument erected in honor of the Sacred Band, was rediscovered by English travellers. The fragmentary monument was reassembled and installed atop a pedestal at the site of its discovery."

The geographer Pausanias, touring Greece, visited the site 500 years after the Battle of Chaeronea, saw it and described it. In the empty fields overlooking the common grave of the Thebans, before a row of cypresses, was their memorial, a gigantic marble lion.