Res Gestae
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).
Our men noticed that the barbarians were using the same missiles that had been hurled at them. And so it was ordered that the cords by which the barbs were fastened to the shaft should be partly severed before the arrows were shot from the bows; these during their flight kept their whole strength, and when they were fixed in the bodies of the enemy lost none of their effectiveness, or at any rate, if they found no mark, were at once broken.
But an entirely unexpected chance had great influence in the midst of this hot fight. A piece of artillery known as a scorpion, but called a wild ass in the language of the people,[*](Cf. xxiii. 4, 4 and 7.) placed exactly opposite a great mass of the enemy, hurled a huge stone, and although it dashed to the ground without effect, yet the sight of it caused the enemy such great terror, that in their amazement at the strange spectacle they fled to a distance and tried to leave