John McCaul

“ No sling-bullets have, so far as I am aware, been discovered in Great Britain. There are, however, peculiar leaden objects, bearing devices and inscriptions, which have been found at Felix-Stowe, in Suffolk, and at Brough-upon-Stanmore, in Westmoreland. ”

“ From the foregoing pages it appears that many of the inscriptions on the Greek and Latin sling-bullets may be read and explained without much difficulty. There are a few, however, particularly those consisting of merely initial letters, of which no probable interpretation can be offered. Of those, which are doubtful, the most remarkable is one that has frequently been found at Perusia. It is given by Mommsen, n. ”

“ The bullets, which we are considering, were cast in a mould, and bore letters or devices, or both, on two sides or on only one. In form they were more like an almond than an acorn, but many are pointed at both ends; in size, they are generally about one inch and a half in extreme length, and under one inch in extreme breadth ”

“ This specimen was found lodged in the Cyclopian walls of Samé in Cephalonia. The determination of its date must depend on the degree of probability which may be attached to the supposition that it was deposited there by one of the Achæan slingers from Ægium, Patræ, and Dyme, of whom there were one hundred in the army with which the Roman consul, M. Fulvius, reduced that place, after a siege of four months, B.C. 189.— (Livy, xxxviii. 20.)
The siege of Same took place, as is well known, at the end of the Ætolian war, in which Phæneas, ΦΑΙΝΕΑΣ, took a prominent part, as Prætor of the Ætolians. ”

“ Hawkins, Archæol. p. 105, observes: “Specimens of sling-bullets with Roman characters, are far more scarce than those with the Greek letters. The largest number have been found at Florence, where (as conjectured) there was formerly a Roman arsenal.” I am not aware of the authority on which these statements have been made. A considerable number have been found in Tuscany, at il Castellare, not far from Pisa. See Targioni Tozzetti, viaggi in Toscana, i. p. 352. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Mommsen, Corp. ”

“ Another of these Sicilian bullets is inscribed with the words ΝΙΚΗ ΜΑΤΕΡΟΣ, from which we may derive confirmation of the statement of Cicero, Verr, iv. 44, that there was a temple of the Magna Mater amongst the Enguini.
The inscriptions, classed under (6) , are generally addresses to the missile or to the enemy. FERI, “strike,” is as a direction to the glans not to miss. Mommsen aptly cites, in illustration, a passage from the Marcellus of Plutarch, c. ”