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History
Catapults
were invented about 400 BC in the powerful Greek town Syracus under
Dionysios I (ca. 430-367 BC). The Greek engineers first constructed a
comparatively small machine, the gastraphetes , sort of a
crossbow. The gastraphetes was powered by a specially large composite
bow. The military effect of the new weapon during the siege of Motya
(Sicily) 397 BC encouraged the Greek engineers to enlarge the machine
further. They put a larger gastraphetes on a carriage and added a
windlass to cock the heavier machine. Certain physical barriers
prevented further enlargement of the composite bow. Therefore in
mid-fourth century BC torsion springs were introduced instead of the
composite bow. The torsion spring consisted of a bundle of rope made
from horse-hair or sinew. Such a spring could be enlarged indefinitely.
The new catapults were equiped now with two torsion springs powering
the two arms of the catapult. Very soon the new design superseded the
old gastraphetes machines. Alexander the Great already employed torsion
spring catapults on his campaigns. All Hellenistic armies and all
powerful Greek cities soon owned a park of torsion artillery.
Inscriptions from the Chalkothek on the Acropolis of Athens first
mention torsion spring catapults there about 330 BC. - In the 3rd
century BC the two main types of catapults were standardized:
the euthytonon for shooting arrows and the
palintonon for throwing stone balls. They now could be
built after the standard calibration formulae layed down in
contemporary technical treatises. In this form Carthage and Rome also
adopted the heavy weapons. - This type of Hellenistic torsion artillery
still was employed under Augustus, when Vitruvius wrote his work. About
100 AD the Romans redesigned the torsion artillery, developing quite
different new arrow-shooting machines. They are first shown on Trajan�s
Column in Rome. The new catapult types remained in use until Late
Antiquity.
Representations in Ancient Art
There are only few representations of arrow-shooting catapults in ancient art:
Balustrade relief from the Athena sanctuary, Pergamon; 2nd century BC
(Berlin, Pergamon Museum)
Cupid gem; Late Hellenistic or Augustan (from the Tommaso Cades collection)
Relief from Rome, Armilustrium(?); Flavian (Florence, Palazzo degli Uffizi)
Relief on tombstone of Vedennius, Rome; end of first century AD (Rome,
Musei Vaticani)
Several reliefs on Trajan�s Column, Rome.
Photos
of the reliefs are reproduced in: Schramm 1918
- Marsden 1969 - Baatz 1994 (see bibliography)
No representation of a large, stone-shooting machine is known so far.
Ancient Technical Treatises
From
the 3rd century BC onward Greek and Roman engineers published detailed
treatises describing catapults. Most of them were provided with
technical text figures . They supply basic knowledge for the
understanding and reconstruction of the weapons. The most important
are: Philon, Belopoeica -
Heron, Belopoeica -
Vitruvius, De Architectura vol. X.10-12 Pseudo-Heron,
Cheiroballistra.
The texts are published with English translation in: Marsden 1971 (see bibliography).
Archaeological Finds
The
first find identified was excavated in Ampurias (Spain) and
published in 1914. Only from the seventies of our century onwards
more finds came to light from all over the Ancient World:
Gornea and Orsova (Romania); Sunion and Ephyra (Greece);
Cremona (Italy); Auerberg (Germany); Azaila and La Caridad
(Spain); Bath and Elginhaugh (Great Britain); Lyon (France);
Pergamon (Turkey); Hatra (Iraq); Pityus (Georgia); Mahdia (Tunisia);
Sala and Volubilis (Maroc). The new finds considerably improve our
knowledge and throw light on certain trends of ancient technical
development. For publication of finds see bibliography. |
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