CATAPULTA, in military antiquity, an engine contrived for throwing of arrows, darts and stones, upon the enemy. Some of these engines were so large, and of such force, that they would throw stones of an hundred weight. Josephus takes notice of the surprising effects of these engines, and says, that the stones thrown out of them beat down the battlements, knocked off the angles of the towers, and had force sufficient to level a very deep file of soldiers
CATATROME. See [Crane].
CATERVA, in ancient military writers, a term used in speaking of the Gaulish or Celtiberian armies, denoting a body of 6000 armed men. The word is also used to denote a party of soldiers in disarray; in opposition to cohort or turma, which signify in good order.
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in ancient military history, was a kind of covered shed, sometimes fixed on wheels, and similar to the Vinca and Pluteus of the ancients.
CAVALCADE, in military history, implies a pompous procession of horsemen, equipages, &c. by way of parade, to grace a triumph, public entry, or the like.
CAVALIER, in fortification, is a work generally raised within the body of the place, 10 or 12 feet higher than the rest of the works. Their most common situation is within the bastion, and made much in the same form: sometimes they are placed in the gorges, or on the middle of the curtain; they are then made in the form of a horse-shoe. See [Fortification]. Their use is to command all the adjacent works and country round about it; they are seldom, or never, made but when there is a hill or rising ground, which overlooks some of the works.
Trench-Cavalier, in the attacks, is an elevation which the besiegers make by means of earth or gabions, within halfway, or two thirds of the glacis, to discover, or to enfilade the covert way.
CAVALRY, in military affairs, that body of soldiers which serves and fights on horseback: under this denomination are included,
Horse, that is, regiments or troops of horse. The first English troop of horse was raised in 1660.