Greek Fire.

[Gaius Octavius]

In re 'Greek Fire':

 

What did the Romans call it?

 

Were their ships armed port, starboard, fore, and aft with these 'guns'?

 

Did the infantry and cavalry use the 'grenades'?

 

Did they use 'land mines'?

 

Were these weapons used in 1453 to defend the walls of Constantinople? If not, why not?

[Nephele]

For a blast from the past: topics which may address some of your questions (and which include links to other sources):

 

Greek Fire, Did It Exist?

 

Greek Fire vs Napalm

 

-- Nephele

[Kosmo]

Greek fire appeared in the VII C so clasical romans did not have such weapon. It was a deadly weapon, but it was expensive and hard to use. It's main use was to burn enemy wooden materials such as ships and siege weapons, not to traget infantry. It had a nasty psychological effect, but many modern sources tend to overstate it's importance.

By 1453 it was obsolete because of advances in gunpowder artillery.

[longshotgene]

Greek Fire did save Constantinople on a couple of occassions. I read a paper where they used it on land and sea. The beauty of it on the sea was that it supposedly did not extinguish due to the water. The Ottomans learned this firsthand.

[Northern Neil]

In 1453 the Byzantines did indeed still have Greek Fire, and according to Roger Crowley's Consantinople - The Last Great Seige 1453 - they used it extrensively in its defense. They also had several small artillery pieces, but unfortunately nothing to match the great guns used by the ottomans. As Kosmo says, by then it was quite obsolete, and I fear no longer a secret either.

 

Regarding Roger Crowley's book, it really is a fascinating read, and uses the narrative style and thus reads like a story. It is also a very sad story, full of desparate yet futile heroism, of rising and falling hopes. I recommend it.

Edited March 12, 2008 by Northern Neil

[DecimusCaesar]

Greek Fire was invented in around AD 674 by a Syrian architect and chemist called Callinicus. According to a 13th century military writer, Mark the Greek, the weapon used a mixture of sulphur, saltpeter, gasoline, pine resin and gum resin.

 

It use in battle is difficult to reconstruct. It was often put into shells and fired from catapults and ballistas, but it was also contained in a mechanical pump, which could be used to spray it over a short distance. This flamethrower would be operated by a siphonator , a Fire engineer. The flamethrower pump would be conatined on a towered prow of the battleship called a kastelloma.

 

The flame thrower would be protected in this manner, although the Byzantines would also employ soldiers to defend the siphonator with large shields. A Byzantine writer described the flamethrower siphon being contained inside a wooden structure : "Let there be a false floor above such a flamethrower, made of planks and also enclosed with planks all around..."

[Lost_Warrior]

According to a 13th century military writer, Mark the Greek, the weapon used a mixture of sulphur, saltpeter, gasoline, pine resin and gum resin.

 

Gasoline?

 

I thought gasoline was a modern invention?

[Northern Neil]

In its present form yes, but this name was also given to crude oil. Another name the ancients gave to crude oil was 'Rock oil' to differentiate it from the other commercially available oils which were from plants. Rock oil was not considered to have any commercial value until the 1890's.

[Lost_Warrior]

Ah! I see. Thanks.

[Antiochus III]

Someone mentioned that its use was limited due to the money required. Just how expensive was it to get all of those things? How dangerous was it for the operators? wouldn't there be excessive risk to the faction's own warship if they used greek fire?

 

Antiochus III

[Lost_Warrior]

I don't know about the costs, but Greek fire was very dangerous to the ones using it. I don't know the exact numbers, but IIRC there were many casualties to ones' own troops in using the stuff. Which may be part of the reason why it's use seems to have died out.

[Pavlos]

I wonder if the tide would have turned if the byzantines had used greek fire on mehmets ships BEFORE he crossed them itno the golden horn?

[Kosmo]

To do that they had to leave the safety of the Golden Horn and face a much larger fleet. Greek fire was not enough to win the day against such odds.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, Amici

 

On the use of the ὑγρόν πῦρ againt the Pisans (1100 AD) here comes Anna Commena, The Alexiad, Book XI, cp. X:

 

"As he (the emperor Alexius I Comnenus) knew that the Pisans were skilled in sea warfare and dreaded a battle with them, on the prow of each ship he had a head fixed of a lion or other land-animal, made in brass or iron with the mouth open and then gilded over, so that their mere aspect was terrifying. And the fire which was to be directed against the enemy through tubes he made to pass through the mouths of the beasts, so that it seemed as if the lions and the other similar monsters were vomiting the fire... the whole fleet he put under the command of Landulph ... Landulph himself, first of all, drew close to the Pisan ships and threw fire at them, but aimed badly and thus accomplished nothing but wasting his fire. Then the man called Count Eleemon very boldly attacked the largest vessel at the stern, but got entangled in its rudders, and as he could not free himself easily he would have been taken, had he not with great presence of mind had recourse to his machine and poured fire upon the enemy very successfully. Then he quickly turned his ship round and set fire on the spot to three more of the largest barbarian ships... The barbarians now became thoroughly alarmed, firstly because of the fire directed upon them (for they were not accustomed to that kind of machine, nor to a fire, which naturally flames upwards, but in this case was directed in whatever direction the sender desired, often downwards or laterally) and secondly they were much upset by the storm, and consequently they fled."

Edited June 9, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES