In his extra episode Thor's Angels, Dan says the Chinese had crossbows since ancient times, he doesn't clarify when exactly in ancient times, but I do believe he is referring to the time of the Romans, so my questions is, are there any records of this? Was it effective? Why was this not adopted by the Romans?
Hi there, not to discourage further comments, but you might find the following answers interesting to look into while waiting for an expert to specifically address your question:
http://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7j024y/there_is_little_information_on_chinese_crossbow/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5et3y9/did_medieval_chinese_society_have_a_feudal/
/u/cthulhushrugged also talks about the Qin's use of crossbows as an easy to use weapon for their armies there.
You might be interested to know that the Romans had crossbows too. Vegetius spoke of crossbows in the 4th century, and a handheld 'catapult' was discovered in Xanten, Germany. It would appear that said crossbows were never that popular. I'm certain that someone with more knowledge of Roman period can expand on this, so I'll ask a further question to them, if possible: Would the crossbow not be as popular in Rome due to their use of heavy infantry legions supported by auxiliary troops, and their relative lack of skirmish units in general?
