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Ancient mechanical artillery: Catapults (standing), the chain drive of Polybolos (bottom center), Gastraphetes (on wall) Engraving illustrating a Roman catapult design, 1581 Roman "catapult-nest" in the Trajan's Dacian Wars. The catapult and crossbow in Greece are closely intertwined.
A lithobolos (Greek: λιθοβόλος) refers to any mechanical artillery weapon used and/or referred to as a stone thrower in ancient warfare.Typically this referred to engines that propel a stone along a flat track with two rigid bow arms powered by torsion (twisted cord), in particular all sizes of palintonon.
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 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
Roman 'catapult-nest' on Trajan's Column Ballista bolt heads. After the absorption of the Ancient Greek city-states into the Roman Republic in 146 BC, the highly advanced Greek technology began to spread across many areas of Roman influence. This included the great military machine advances the Greeks had made (most notably by Dionysus of ...
The gastraphetes (Ancient Greek: γαστραφέτης, lit. 'belly-releaser'), also called belly bow or belly shooter , was a hand-held crossbow used by the Ancient Greeks . [ 1 ] It was described in the 1st century AD by the Greek author Heron of Alexandria in his work Belopoeica , which draws on an earlier account of the famous Greek ...
The catapult, the account of which has been translated from the Greek several times, was quadrangular, with a wide base but narrowing towards the top, using large iron rollers to which were fixed timber beams "similar to the beams of big houses", having at the back a sling, and at the front thick cables, enabling the arm to be raised and ...
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.