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The Greeks and Romans both made extensive use of artillery for shooting large arrows, bolts or spherical stones or metal balls. Occasionally they also used ranged early thermal weapons. There was heavy siege artillery, but more mobile and lighter field artillery was already known and used in pitched battles, especially in Roman imperial period.
The Romans used three main siege techniques to seize enemy cities: by starvation (it took more time, but less loss of life on the part of the attackers), by creating all around the besieged city a series of fortifications (an inner [4] and sometimes an outer contravallation, [5] as in the case of Alesia) [6] that would prevent the enemy from obtaining supplies (of food and even water, by ...
The scorpio or scorpion was a type of Roman torsion siege engine and field artillery piece. It was described in detail by the early-imperial Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius [1] in the 1st century BC and by the 4th century AD officer and historian Ammianus Marcellinus.
Roman artillery was very efficient at that time, and during a siege the Romans would attack the weakest area of their enemy's defenses and attempt to breach the walls at that point. To support this effort, artillery attacks commence, with three main objectives: [ 3 ] to cause damage to defenses, casualties among the opposing army, and loss of ...
A Roman carroballista from the time of Trajan. Carroballista was an ancient, cart-mounted ballista, a type of mobile field artillery.According to the Roman author Vegetius (Epitoma rei militaris II.25), each legion had 55 carroballistae (one per centuria) which were arrow/bolt-shooter of the cheiroballistra (Greek: χειροβαλλίστρα) type.
The military of ancient Rome was one of largest pre-modern professional standing armies that ever existed. At its height, protecting over 7,000 kilometers of border and consisting of over 400,000 legionaries and auxiliaries, the army was the most important institution in the Roman world.
Roman Empire Trajan 117A. The strategy of the Roman military contains its grand strategy (the arrangements made by the state to implement its political goals through a selection of military goals, a process of diplomacy backed by threat of military action, and a dedication to the military of part of its production and resources), operational strategy (the coordination and combination of the ...
Roman military tactics evolved from the type of a small tribal host-seeking local hegemony to massive operations encompassing a world empire. This advance was affected by changing trends in Roman political, social, and economic life, and that of the larger Mediterranean world, but it was also under-girded by a distinctive "Roman way" of war.