Talk:Corvus (boarding device)

Question
Why is this article entitled 'Corvus (weapon)'? Reading the article as a layman, I looked in vain for its use as a weapon. The nearest I got was "a Roman military boarding device", but I could find nothing about the Corvus being a weapon, (unless you count the birdshead spike on the underside of the device). A better title might be simply "Corvus", with the explanation that it is a 'bridge-like aid [my emphasis] to boarding other ships', in the lede.

RASAM (talk) 15:03, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Point well made. I moved the article to "(boarding device)" instead of "(weapon)" since that is a more accurate description.
 * Peter Isotalo 22:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't a weapon at all. In fact it was only used for a very short time before it was attributed to the greatest navel loss of life in human history. It made the ships so cumbersome the Captains couldn't control them. Once when nearly the entire fleet was launced, and ran into bad weather, almost every ship was lost. Over 100,000 live lost at once, without even engaging the enemy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.103.41.92 (talk) 20:53, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Corvus Diagram
Comment to the article's author:

First of all, thank you for taking the trouble of writing this article. It is nice and succinct. I would only like to point out that the illustration (the diagram of the corvus) is incompatible with Polybius's description. It is an old problem and unfortunately widespread: some historians (for reasons beyond my comprehension) reconstructed the corvus with the ladder's end attached to the vertical pole by means of a fulcrum. Please note that in the publication, to which your article refers, Wallinga weighs in against this view. His reconstruction is compatible with Polybius's words.

Sincerely, Ilia