Greek Fire, the Most Powerful Weapon of Byzantine Army Essay -- Byzant

war is the father of all things.1 Volkman begins his book, information Goes to War, with this quotation mark from Heraclitus, the classic philosopher. Volkman uses the quote to suggest that many, if not all, scientific advancements owe their hand over to the desire for or the fear of war. Fire is undoubtedly a fictional character of this advancement as Bert Hall points out, Fire is one of the primordial forces of nature, and insurgent weapons have had a place in armies toolkits for almost as presbyopic as civilized states have made war.2 Of all the tools at the disposal of the convoluted Empires military, the so called classical plague was the most important.3 classical fire was a weapon system that allowed Byzantine ships, as early as the seventh century, to spew fire at its enemies. On the ships prow was the point in time of a lion or some other monstrosity, cast in brass or iron. In its mouth was a bronze draw that could swivel back and forth.4 The flaming liquid tha t spewed from this siphon came with the roaring hard and a black stain of smoke. What makes it worse is that it even burns small-arm in water.5 The fear it instilled in enemies sometimes egged men in liberal plate armor to leap in the water, knowing they will be dragged down to the bottom simply because drowning was preferable to being burned alive.6 much(prenominal) an awe-inspiring beast of a weapon was already predisposed to figment and rumor. However, even as cinematic as Greek fire was, its cloud of ambiguity is, frankly, ridiculous. Put as accurately and elegantly as possible, Greek fire was a misnomer wrapped in a misconception, confused in translation, veiled in secrecy, and embellished with apocrypha.7 At one point, one of the Byzantine emperors wrote in a letter to his son that Greek fire was revealed and ta... ...timore The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960. p. 19.Parkington, crowd together Riddick Parkington. Origins and Development of Applied Chemistry. innov ative York Arno Press, 1975.Roland, Alex. Review of A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, by James Riddick Parkington, Technology and Culture, Vol. 41. No. 1 (Jan., 2000).Roland, Alex. Secrecy, Technology, and War Greek Fire and the Defense of Byzantium, 678-1204. Technology and Culture Vol. 33, No. 4 (1992) 655-679.Russel, Bertrand. History of Western Philosophy. London George Allen and Unwin LTD, 1946. p. 60.Stannard, Jerry. Review of A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, by James Riddick Parkington, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 29. No. 4 (Oct., 1962).Volkman, Ernest. Science Goes to War The Search for the Ultimate Weapon, from Greek Fire to Star Wars. New YorkJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002.