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Do you honestly believe that the pope thought yankee ships were sailing into Charleston harbor, edging up against the city's massive stone walls, and flinging giant pots of boiling sulphuric compounds (almost assuredly with their onboard catapults) over the battlements, with their guardian archers, and onto the civilians from the neighboring serfdoms taking refuge inside?

I have no idea what His Holiness knew about warfare and weapons. He was 70 at the time and had been depending on Austrian and French troops to keep his loyal subjects from running him out of Rome entirely so it is, I suppose, possible that he might have pictured the attack exactly as you described.

The use of the term Greek Fire was a figurative statement that conveyed the exact same thing.

It's a shame that Mr. Mann will never know how lucky he is that we have you to tell him what he was thinking.

I have no idea what His Holiness knew about warfare and weapons. He was 70 at the time

I don't care if he was 120 at the time. That still doesn't make him old enough to have witnessed catapult warfare at the walls of Constantinople!

and had been depending on Austrian and French troops to keep his loyal subjects from running him out of Rome entirely so it is, I suppose, possible that he might have pictured the attack exactly as you described.

You cannot be serious, non-seq. It is an absurdity to suggest that, upon hearing the figurative statement Greek Fire, the pope thought they were referring to catapults flinging pots of sulphuric stuff over the battlements of some medieval fortress! If he was 70 in 1863 that would have made him a boy during the Napoleonic wars that consumed all of Europe, leaving virtually no doubt that he knew of warfare's progression beyond medieval times.

It's a shame that Mr. Mann will never know how lucky he is that we have you to tell him what he was thinking.

Considering that you have already told everyone that he was thinking of catapults flinging pots of boiling sulphur in a medieval seige circa 1863, my offering of meaning to his words is nothing more than a reasonable correction upon the absurdity that you originally assigned to him.

Check out 601. It is in reference to a description given by the Confederates to Pope Pius regarding the yankee seige of Charleston. One of the CSA diplomats described the yankee shelling of the city to him as unleashing "greek fire" from the skies. As you probably know, "greek fire" was a medieval chemical compound from the eastern roman/byzantine empire that they used to light on fire, load into catapults and the sort, and throw on enemy ships to burn them.

Well guess what. Mr. "More Anal Retentive than Wlat" himself, Non-Sequitur, INSISTS that the CSA diplomat was being literal and was actually attempting to decieve the pope into - get this - thinking that Charleston was being seiged by yankee catapults flinging pots of boiling sulphuric compounds ala Constantinople circa 1100 AD!

I asked Non-Seq if he honestly believed "that the pope thought yankee ships were sailing into Charleston harbor, edging up against the city's massive stone walls, and flinging giant pots of boiling sulphuric compounds (almost assuredly with their onboard catapults) over the battlements, with their guardian archers, and onto the civilians from the neighboring serfdoms taking refuge inside."

Here is his response:

"I have no idea what His Holiness knew about warfare and weapons. He was 70 at the time and had been depending on Austrian and French troops to keep his loyal subjects from running him out of Rome entirely so it is, I suppose, possible that he might have pictured the attack exactly as you described."

Yes, you read that right. Non-Seq thinks the Pope was decieved into thinking the civil war, in 1863, resembled some medieval attack on a castle from the 12th century!