Improved projectiles.
The transition from portable projectiles to those of a heavier class was obvious enough. Change to heavy projectiles.Enormous javelins and darts were hurled by cross-bows of corresponding size, termed Catapulta.Catapultæ, ([plate x.]), and stones, &c., were thrown by Balistæ.Balistæ ([plate ix.] and [xii]); and secondly, Sling principles.instruments formed on the principle of the sling.
Projectiles used with Catapulta.
These machines threw not only large darts and stones, but also the bodies of men and horses. Athenæus speaks of a Catapulta which was only one foot long, and threw an arrow to the distance of half a mile. Other engines, it is said, could throw javelins from one side of the Danube to the other. Balistæ threw great beams of wood, lances twelve cubits long, and stones that weighed three hundred pounds.
Millstones, &c., used in England.
Our forefathers used to cast forth mill-stones. Holinshead relates that when Edward I. besieged Stively Castle, he caused certain engines to be made, which shot off stones of two or three hundred weight.
The first intimation of trees being cut down “to build bulwarks against the city till it be subdued,” occurs in B. C. 1451.Deut. xx., 19, 20, but the earliest precise mention of Artillery is in B. C. 809.2nd Chron., xxvi, 15, where we are told that Uzziah “made in Jerusalem engines invented by cunning men, to be upon the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal;” and Josephus relates that Uzziah First mention of Artillery.“made many engines of war for besieging cities, such as hurl stones and darts with grapplers, and other instruments of that sort.” He must therefore be considered the inventor of them, and from that time they began to be employed in attacking and defending towns.
Balistæ at Regium, B. C. 388.
The earliest instances of projectile machines in profane history appear to be at the siege of Regium and At Motya B. C. 370.Motya by Dionysius, where, having battered the walls with his rams, he advanced towards them towers rolled on wheels, from whence he galled the besieged with continual volleys of stones and arrows, thrown from his Balistæ and Catapultæ.
At Rhodes B. C. 303.