Balearic Slingers

 

Here are some Companion Miniatures Balearic slingers that I've just finished painting. I have a few other ranges of these in 28mm, the Warlord ones with cloaks based on Trajan's Column, and Crusader and Gripping Beast figures as well, but these are my favourite.

According to Diodorus Siculus (Book V Chapter 18):

Their equipment for fighting consists of three slings, and of these they keep one around the head, another around the belly, and the third in their hands. In the business of war they hurl much larger stones than do any other slingers, and with such force that the missile seems to have been shot as it were, from a catapult; consequently, in their assaults upon walled cities, they strike the defenders on the battlements and disable them, and in pitched battles they crush both shields and helmets and every kind of protective armour. And they are so accurate in their aim that in the majority of cases they never miss the target before them. The reason for this is the continual practice from childhood, in their mothers compel them, while still young boys, to use the the sling continually; for there is set up before them as a target a piece of bread fastened to a stake, and the novice is not permitted to eat until he has hit the bread whereupon he takes it from his mother with her permission and devours it.

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5A*.html

Below are some old Minifigs 15mm Balearic slingers that I painted probably about forty years ago!