Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Cestrosphendone

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

CESTROSPHEN'DONE (κεστροσφενδόνη). A weapon of warfare, first employed by the soldiers of Perseus in the Macedonian war, consisting in a short dart, the head of which was two spans broad, affixed to a wooden stock of the thickness of a man's finger, and half a cubit in length, and furnished with three short wooden wings, similar to the feathers of an arrow. It was discharged from a sling. Liv. xlii. 65. Polyb. xxvii. 9.