Ballista

Definition: The ballista is a type of siege engine and catapault that revolutionized warfare. It was used first in 398 B.C. in the successful siege of Motya, a Phoenician city in western Sicily, by Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse. "Archimedes and the Design of Euryalus Fort," by A. W. Lawrence (The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 66, (1946), pp. 99-107) indicates the ballista was the most monumental invention in warfare before gunpowder. The ballista could be mobile or fixed for defensive purpose of a wall. Originally, the ballista used torsion, which "A Note on the De Rebvs Bellicis," by Revilo P. Oliver (Classical Philology, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Apr., 1955), pp. 113-118) defines as twisted, multiple strands of gut, as the source of the projectile force. Projectiles used on the ballistas could be balls (stones) up to about 45 kg or pointed projectiles like javelins.

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