As an example, archers, with the advantage of being stationed on high towers and battlements, would be well able to shoot arrows from 270 to 280 yards. For this reason it was necessary for the safe manipulation of the attacking engines that they should be placed at about 300 yards from the outer walls of any fortress they were assailing.
As a catapult or a balista was required not only to cast its missile among the soldiers on the ramparts of a fortified place, but also to send it clear over the walls amid the houses and people within the defences, it is evident that the engines must have had a range of from 400 to 500 yards, or more, to be as serviceable and destructive as they undoubtedly were.
Josephus tells us that at the siege of Jerusalem, A.D. 70 (‘Wars of the Jews,’ Book V. Chapter VI.), stones weighing a talent (57¾ lbs. avoirdupois) were thrown by the catapults to a distance of two or more ‘stades.’
This statement may be taken as trustworthy, for Josephus relates what he personally witnessed and his comments are those of a commander of high rank and intelligence.
Fig. 3.—A Fortified Town being Bombarded by a Catapult.
Criticism.—The stones thrown by the besieged may be seen falling in the trenches of the besiegers. The catapult depicted is drawn on much too small a scale.
From Polybius. Edition 1727.
Two or more ‘stades,’ or let us say 2 to 2¼ ‘stades,’ represent 400 to 450 yards. Remarkable and conclusive testimony confirming the truth of what we read in Josephus is the fact that my largest catapult—though doubtless much smaller and less powerful than those referred to by the historian—throws a stone ball of 8 lbs. in weight to a range of from 450 to nearly 500 yards.
It is easy to realise that the ancients, with their great and perfect engines fitted with skeins of sinew, could cast a far heavier stone than one of 8 lbs., and to a longer distance than 500 yards.