TPO 30 – Integrated

Both the lecture and the reading discuss about an ancient weapon called “burning mirror”. The reading states that this weapon is just a kind of myth. However, the lecture casts doubt on what the author mentions and presents some evidence to refute them all.

First, the author argues that ancient Greeks need to have the advanced technology to build this kind of weapon that it is impossible in that period of time. On the contrary, the speaker points out that they assembled small pieces of mirror and shaped them based on their mathematics knowledge. Therefore, they could create this weapon by arranging these small mirrors.

In addition, according to the reading passage, this weapon requires long time to be effective. In facts, even if a wooden ship was stable in a place with distance of 30 meters, this weapon needs 10 minutes to make fire on ship’s body. On the other hand, the professor brings up the idea that there were materials in ships called “pitch” which have been used as the waterproof and they were very flammable. Therefore, they could get fire quickly even if ships were had movements.

Finally, the reading asserts that ancient Greeks already had another effective weapon called “flaming arrows” which had similar function in the same case. As a result, there was no need to build the burning mirror. In contrast, the lecture rejects the issue due to the fact that Greeks had used the burning mirrors to surprise Romans because the burning mirror was more invisible for Roman rather than the flaming arrows.