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Reproductions of ancient Greek artillery, including catapults such as the polybolos (to the left in the foreground) and a large, early crossbow known as the gastraphetes (mounted on the wall in the background) Many attempts were made in modern times to reproduce the ancient artillery pieces, following their ancient descriptions, and to test them.
The enormous transport Syracusia possibly had the largest ship-mounted catapult of the ancient world, an 18-foot (5.5 m) machine that could fire arrows or stones up to 180 pounds (82 kg). [ 2 ] During the Siege of Syracuse (214–212 BCE) , the Greek defenders used a barrage of machines developed by Archimedes , including powerful stone ...
Basic diagram of an onager, a type of catapult. A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. [1] A catapult uses the sudden release of stored potential energy to propel its payload.
The Onager was a Roman torsion powered siege engine. It is commonly depicted as a catapult with a bowl, bucket, or sling at the end of its throwing arm. Trebuchet: 4th Century BC China: Similar to the catapult, but uses a swinging arm to launch projectiles. It is usually considered to be stronger than the catapult. [4] Oxybeles: 375 BC Greece
A trebuchet [nb 1] (French: trébuchet) is a type of catapult [5] that uses a rotating arm with a sling attached to the tip to launch a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weights and further distances than that of a traditional ...
In Old English and other Germanic languages, which were spoken across much of Northwestern Europe, tribal groups often had names that appear to be based upon the names of weapons; for instance, the Angles may have taken their name from the Old English term angul (meaning "barbed" or "hook"), the Franks from the word franca ("spear," or possibly ...
The name comes from the Greek katapeltes (καταπέλτης), because it could pierce or 'go through' (kata) shields (peltas). The design was probably inherited, along with the ballista, from Greek armies. Some versions of the catapulta were portable. Smaller two-armed versions of the catapulta were known as scorpiones.
Arsenal of ancient mechanical artillery in the Saalburg, Germany; left: polybolos reconstruction by the German engineer Erwin Schramm (1856–1935). The polybolos (the name means "multi-thrower" in Greek [1]) was an ancient Greek repeating ballista, reputedly invented by Dionysius of Alexandria (a 3rd-century BC Greek engineer at the Rhodes arsenal, [2] [3]) and used in antiquity.