¹ This paper owes its conception to the encouragement and advice of Professor Sterling Dow. Professor J. K. Anderson has also been kind enough to discuss the subject with me and to provide numerous helpful references. I am also indebted to the (anonymous) readers of the JHS, who generously offered corrections and additions.

² The basic works on slings and sling bullets are the two articles of G. Fougères, ‘funda’ and ‘glans’ in Daremberg-Saglio, to which the reader may be referred for the history and development of these instruments. See also the well-illustrated general account of Korfmann, M., ‘The Sling as a Weapon’, Scientific American, 229: 4 (October, 1973), 34–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Neolithic bullets: Childe, V. G., ‘The Significance of the Sling for Greek Prehistory’, Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson (St Louis, 1950), I. 1–5Google Scholar, with references to findspots and publications. Childe advanced the theory that the sling may have been a major weapon in prehistoric Greece while the bow played a minor role if any, an idea developed by Korfmann, ‘Sling’ 42. Siege Rhyton: Vermeule, Emily, Greece in the Bronze Age (Chicago, 1964), 100–5 with Plate XIVCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Troy III: Schliemann, H., Ilios (New York, 1881), 437 f.Google Scholar; Troy II: idem, Troja (London, 1889), 118 f. The nature of the Trojan ‘bullets’, made of hematite or diorite and weighing up to 1½ lbs. is uncertain: Fougères, ‘glans’, 1668 f., thought that they are more probably amulets.

⁴ Iliad, 13.600, 716; on these, see the discussion of Lorimer, H. L., Homer and the Monuments (London, 1950), 301Google Scholar.

⁵ Later literary mentions are listed in Fougères, ‘funda’, 1363.

⁶ For the techniques of city-state warfare and its reliance on hoplites, see Adcock, F. E., The Greek and Macedonian Art of War (Berkeley, 1957), 1–13Google Scholar.

⁷ Herodotus VII. 158; for slingers and other lightarmed troops in the west, see Lippelt, O., Die griechischen Leichtbewaffneten bis auf Alexander den Grossen (Weida, 1910), 55–9Google Scholar.

⁸ The importance of these battles for the development of military tactics and techniques is brought out by Best, J. G. P. in Thracian Peltasts (Groningen, 1969), 17–35Google Scholar; cf. Adcock, , Art of War, 14–19Google Scholar. Sicilian expedition: Thucydides VI. 22, 25, 43.

⁹ Fougères, ‘funda’, 1363 f. with illustrations, Korfmann, ‘Sling’ 38.

¹⁰ Fougères, ‘glans’, 1609.

¹¹ Anabasis, III. 3.16.

¹² Ibid., III. 4.15–17.

¹³ Lead sling bullets may have been known to the Minoans. Sir Arthur Evans found two examples in a LM III context at the palace at Cnossus ‘in a medium which excludes any possibility of later intrusion’: SirEvans, A., The Palace of Minos (London, 1928) II. 344 f.Google Scholar The bullets, now visible in the Ashmolean Museum, are larger and more irregularly shaped than the classical examples. They bear a striking resemblance to Roman sling bullets. In the face of Evans's description of their findspot, it is impossible to question their authenticity, but, in any case, they remain an isolated phenomenon, and one which seems to have no connection with the classical development. The remarks of Snodgrass, A., Early Greek Armour and Weapons (Edinburgh, 1964), 167Google Scholar, are somewhat misleading. He noted that there were ‘some’ lead bullets from Cnossus, and that they ‘differed little from specimens of classical date’. Evans was, in fact, concerned to describe the differences between the LM III bullets and classical specimens (loc. cit.). No classical sling bullet which can be dated with any certainty to the period before Tissaphernes has been published. Some bullets were found, for example, at Olympia (Olympia IV. 178), a site noted for its archaic remains. By the time they were published, the excavation had reached Roman levels. Since their context was not described, it seems difficult to attach an early date to them.

¹⁴ Marathon: Fougères, ‘glans’, 1609. A lead bullet in the British Museum is ‘said to have been found on the battlefield of Marathon’: British Museum, A Guide to the Exhibition Illustrating Greek and Roman Life (London, 1929), 94; it is not possible to tell from the illustration (Fig. 96) whether it is inscribed or not. Another, in the Ashmolean Museum and unpublished, is ‘said to be from Marathon’; it bears a beta on one side and an omicron possibly followed by an iota on the other. The inscription will thus be the abbreviation of ΒΟΙΩΤΩΝ (cf. Vischer, note 18 below, 260 no. 25). Even if the provenance of these bullets were certain, there would be no reason to associate them with the battle of Marathon, in which the Greek forces were composed of hoplites. Without specific information, it is not possible to determine the date of these bullets. For sling bullets of which the findspot of Marathon were certain, the most likely historical association would perhaps be with the Chremonidean War, in which fortresses were constructed in the vicinity of Marathon: see McCredie, J., Fortified Military Camps in Attica (Princeton, 1966), 35–46Google Scholar (remains), 102–15 (history).

¹⁵ See the two articles of Fougères (note 2 above) passim for the later history of slings and bullets, with which I am not here concerned.

¹⁶ Shape: Fougères, ‘glans’, 1609; range: ‘funda’, 1366, Korfmann, ‘Sling’ 37.

¹⁷ For illustrations of surviving moulds, see Zangemeister (below, note 19), xi f., Olynthus X. 419 f., 437 with fig. 23 and note 148 for reference to other moulds, and Varoukha-Christodoulou (below, note 19), 333 f.

¹⁸ Symbols: Fougères, ‘glans’, 1610 with illustrations; for further examples and more extensive illustration, see Vischer, W., ‘Antike Schleudergeschosse’ in his Kleine Schriften (Leipzig, 1878), II. 240–84Google Scholar; see also the works cited below, n. 19.

¹⁹ For the inscriptions, see the useful survey of Guarducci, M. in Epigrafia Greca (Rome, 1969), II. 516–24Google Scholar as well as the following publications of inscribed bullets, which I have arranged in approximate order of their importance:

Olynthus: Robinson, D. M., Excavations at Olynthus X: Metal and Minor Miscellaneous Finds (Baltimore, 1941), 418–43Google Scholar (many inscribed bullets datable to 348 B.C.).

Cyprus: Michaelidou-Nicolaou, I., ‘Ghiande missili di Cipro’, Annuario, 31/32 (1969–1970), 359–69Google Scholar (60 bullets, most inscribed and illustrated; dated by letter forms to the late fourth/early third centuries and assigned to the war between Ptolemy I and Demetrius Poliorcetes. They were apparently not used by native troops, for slings seem not to have been a weapon native to Cyprus). My thanks to Dr Miranda Marvin for this reference.

Camirus in Rhodes: Maiuri, A., Nuova silloge epigrafica di Rodi e Cos (Florence, 1925), 249–52Google Scholar (some illustrated, none dated); reproduced with additions in Segre, M. and Pugliese-Carratelli, G., ‘Tituli Camirenses’, Annuario, 11/13 (1949–1951), 274 f.Google Scholar

Louvre: Michon, M. in Bull. Soc. Ant. Fr., 65 (1894), 268–71Google Scholar (some from Eleusis, Athens and Rhodes).

Region of Athens: Varoukha-Christodoulou, I., ‘Symbolē eis ton Chremōnideon Polemon’, Arch. Eph., 1953–1954, part III, 332–4Google Scholar (bullets apparently from the Chremonidean War, 265–63); see 332, n. 13 for reference to other bullets in Greek museums. (Reference from Professor Dow).

Corcyra: IG, IX. 1. 830–44.

Cnossus: I. Cret., I.viii. 43–7.

Macedonia, region of Olynthus: Bates, W. N., ‘Two Inscribed Sling Bullets from Galatitsa’, AJA, 34 (1930), 44–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Athens: Parsons, A. W., ‘Klepsydra and the Paved Court of the Pythion’, Hesp., 12 (1943), 241 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Bullets attributed to the time of the siege of Athens by Sulla).

For other inscribed bullets, mostly obtained in Athens but of uncertain provenance, see W. Vischer (above, note 18), who provides a bibliography of earlier publications. The exclamations on the Greek bullets lack the pithiness of the Latin, where such phrases as peto Octaviani culum are to be found; for them, see Zangemeister, C., Glandes plumbeae latine inscriptae (=Ephemeris epigraphica, VI, 1885)Google Scholar. The inscriptions of the Sicilian clay bullets are also of a different nature, often including the name of the tribe or phratry: see Guarducci, II, 522 f. with references.

²⁰ Olynthus, X, 418–43.

²¹ See above, note 19.

²² Zangemeister (above, note 19), 88–142.

²³ Sigma from Persepolis: Hallock, R. T., Persepolis Fortification Tablets (Chicago, 1969) 2 with note 4Google Scholar, where the editor remarks that the letter is not completely clear. For early lunate sigmas in general, see Guarducci, I. 377 and Wright, J. M., ‘The Origin of the Sigma Lunatum’, TAPA, 27 (1896), 79–89Google Scholar.

²⁴ For them, see Justi, F., Iranisches Namenbuch (Marburg, 1891), 164Google Scholar, s.v. Čiθrafarnā, the Persian form from which the Greek Tissaphernes was derived; cf. Mayhofer, M., Onomastica Persepolitana (Vienna, 1973) 258Google Scholar, no.8. 1885 Zitraparna, and Schmitt, R., “Iranica auf kleinasiatischen Inschriften”, Die Sprache 17 (1971) 177–80Google Scholar (a variant of the same name in the Greek form Sisiphernes).

²⁵ Use of Greek troops by the satraps is briefly discussed by Parke, H. W., Greek Mercenary Soldiers (Oxford, 1933), 14 f., 21Google Scholar, and in more detail for the fourth century, 57–62. The subject is surveyed by Roy, J., ‘The Mercenaries of Cyrus’, Historia 16 (1967) 287–323, esp. 320–3Google Scholar; his whole analysis of the composition and nature of the most famous mercenary army, the Ten Thousand, is of considerable interest. Greek mercenaries in Persian service at the time of Tissaphernes frequently appear in the Hellenica of Xenophon: see e.g. III. 1.13 (in the service of Mania, satrap of Aeolis under Pharnabazus), III. 1.16, 17 (Greek garrisons of Neandria, Ilium, Cocylium and Cebren), and the references below.

²⁶ Thucydides, III. 34.

²⁷ Xenophon, , Hellenica, III. 2.15Google Scholar, Polyaenus, VII. 16.1. Note also Phalinus the Greek, who had risen to high position under Tissaphernes by Cunaxa as an expert in hoplite fighting: Xenophon, , Anabasis, II. 1.7Google Scholar.

²⁸ Xenophon, , Hellenica, III. 5.1Google Scholar.

²⁹ Coins: BMC Lycia, Pamphylia and Pisidia, lxxii f., 95–101; for more numerous and better illustrations, see SNG von Aulock, Pamphylien, Taf. 146–8. The series has been dated by Kraay, C., ‘The Celenderis Hoard’, NC 1962. 14Google Scholar; cf. Kraay, C. and Hirmer, M., Greek Coins (London, 1966), 362 and plate 192Google Scholar. The Greeks, by a prevalent sort of folk etymology, derived the name Aspendos from σφενδόνη, sling, as they did that of the Balearic Islands, another place famous for its slingers, from βάλλϵιν. In fact, the town was called Estwediiys by its natives, and it is this name which appears on the coins. The pun, in other words, would not have been obvious to those who issued the coins, and it is not unreasonable to presume that the type of the slinger reflects the local importance of such troops, rather than appearing as a mere canting symbol.

³⁰ The coins attributed to Tissaphernes do not bear his name: BMC Ionia, 325, Head, B. V., Historia Nummorum (Oxford, 1911), 597, 699Google Scholar. His name appears in the Lycian form Cizzaprñnã in lines 11 and 14 of the north side of the Xanthos stele: Tituli Asiae Minoris (Vienna, 1901), 44. In a fragmentary inscription of c. 410, (IG i² 113, line 39) which apparently records the grant of Athenian citizenship to Evagoras of Cyprus, the name of Tissaphernes has been restored; the stone reads … ΣΑΦΡΕΝΕΝ.