Ballista
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Ballista (also Ballista , from ancient Greek βάλλειν bἀllein , throw ') or Scorpio was a Greek or Roman catapult, under which one, depending on the era, two very different guns or catapults imagine must.
function
The ballista is a torsion gun . The acceleration is caused by a torque : two ropes or fiber bundles are strongly twisted by a stick pushed in between (torsion). This twist creates a strong preload (static energy). This mechanism is known as the Spanish Winch . If the stick is suddenly released and relieved, a strong torque (dynamic energy) is generated, which causes the stick to move quickly. This movement is transferred to the projectile and used as a throwing movement.
history
From around 400 BC The Greeks began to use torsion guns on a larger scale . These have appeared in the inventory lists of arsenals since the middle of the 4th century BC. One of the oldest and most authentic descriptions of their use can be found in Plutarch about the siege of Syracuse by the Romans. (214–212 BC) In the Hellenistic military literature, a distinction was made between two types of torsion guns, the Euthytona and the Palintona. In modern research, there was initially disagreement about the meaning of these terms. One direction assumed that there was a fundamental constructive difference. The second direction, which prevailed for a long time under Schramm's influence, was of the opinion that the only differences were the proportions of the torsion springs (length to diameter) and the shape of the spring frame. Recently, however, the first opinion has prevailed, especially through the insight that Schramm's reconstruction contradicts the description of the Palintona in Heron of Alexandria in essential points. The terms Euthytona and Palintona are therefore derived from the terminology of bow making: Longbows that bend along a continuous curve are euthyton (simply curved). Recurve or reflex bows, which bend towards the archer in the center but away from him at the limb ends, are palinton (bent back).
Euthytonon / Scorpio
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According to Heron of Alexandria, Euthytona only fired arrows and were "called by some scorpions". Under this name they were still used in the Roman military of the late republic and early imperial times. The torsion springs were fastened in "narrow" clamping frames, that is, they lay directly on the body of the weapon. The wooden frame was covered with bronze sheet metal and had only a small opening as a passage for the projectile. When viewed from above, the limbs protruded from the torsion springs diagonally outwards / backwards, the tendon ran behind the tensioning frame. The swinging paths of the limbs were thus outside of the clamping frame. The clamping frame itself sat at the front end of the body. Euthytona were not used against buildings and fortifications, but against enemy personnel. A major disadvantage of these point target weapons turned out to be the narrow clamping frame, which made it difficult for the gunner to see the target. The technical description of these weapons is contained in Vitruvius' tenth book De architectura libri decem, the English-language specialist literature therefore also speaks of the scorpion as a vitruvian arrow firer . The almost complete stretcher frame of a scorpion was discovered in Ampurias .
In the years 100 to 300, the use of these weapons gradually ceased. The term Scorpio was glossed over by Ammianus Marcellinus as a contemporary name for the one-armed torsion weapon called Onager before his time .
Palintonon / Ballista
The weapon called Palintona by the Greeks was adopted by the Romans under the name Ballista. In contrast to the Euthytona, the Palintona were preferably used to fire stones and large lead balls that could also be filled with Greek fire (cf. incendiary bomb ). However, heavily dimensioned bolts and arrows could also be thrown at an angle of 10 to 45 °. The torsion springs were fixed in "wide" tensioning frames, the distance between the torsion springs was, according to Heron, "a little more than twice the length of a limb". In the rest position, the limbs protruded forward from the torsion springs and the tendon ran in front of the tensioning frame. When cocking the weapon, the limbs swung inward while the string was pulled through between the torsion springs. With this design, the swinging tracks of the limbs were within the clamping frame. The tensioning frame itself was attached in the middle of the body, as the tendon guides the projectile up to a limb length in front of the torsion springs when fired. Another wooden frame with sheet metal fittings was excavated in Hatra. The weapon from the middle of the 3rd century AD, buried in the ruins of the city wall, is likely to have been a permanently installed fortress gun.
An example of a heavy gun from the 1st century BC. BC is designed for round ammunition of 8.5 Roman pounds (= stone balls weighing approx. 2.8 kg) and weighs just under a ton. According to ancient reports and today's calculations, the maximum range for such guns was around 700 m, with the penetration power and accuracy of a shot decreasing sharply with increasing distance. The effective range used in combat was therefore probably around 300 to a maximum of 350 m. During sieges they were always out of the reach of enemy archers and could therefore be set up and operated largely without risk.
For mobile use, an improved model had already been introduced into the Roman army in Trajan's time , which appears several times on the reliefs of the Trajan column . The opinion occasionally expressed in the older literature that the "Trajan column gun" was merely the decorative front of a scorpion has since been refuted by the discovery of components of such weapons in Orşova (Romania), Sala (Morocco) and Lyon (France). On the occasion of the upcoming campaigns against the Dacians , the architect and polio-orceticist Apollodoros had received an order from the emperor to design prototypes of mobile war machines that could easily be reproduced by craftsmen under the guidance of craftsmen. The torsion gun shown on the Trajan's Column shows the variant further developed by Apollodoros, which could be dismantled and transported on a horse-drawn carriage. Instead of a timbered wooden frame, a two-part iron frame was used. The torsion springs were attached to the lower ladder strut, then they were stiffened with the upper arched strut. The characteristic arch shape was supposed to expand the gunner's field of vision and possibly also served as a target aid. The multi-part clamping frame made it easy to dismantle the weapon for transport, storage and repair.
Polybolos
Already in the 3rd century BC Developed in BC by Dionysius of Alexandria , the Polybolus was improved by Philon of Byzantium . In principle, it was an ordinary Euthytonon, but it was upgraded to a semi-automatic rapid - fire gun thanks to a gravity magazine and an automatic loading mechanism . Polyboloi were very heavy and were therefore usually only used as fortress guns. The cadence was about four times that of individually loaded ballista, but the accuracy was lower. It is not certain whether polyboloi were still used after the 2nd century AD.
Cheiroballistra / Manuballista
The technical description of a mechanical hand weapon, which, apart from its smaller size, corresponds to the Trajan column gun, has long been known. The Byzantine text ascribes the basic development of this weapon to Heron of Alexandria and gives it the name Cheiroballistra ( Latinized Manuballista "handballist"). It was believed that this type of weapon came into use at the same time as the Trajan Column Gun. In a gravel pit near Xanten , however, the tenter frame of a Euthytonon was dredged in 2000, which, due to its small size, could not have belonged to a Scorpio. Rather, it must also have been part of a hand weapon the size of a crossbow . This ensures that torsion crossbows were used in the first half of the 1st century at the latest. However, it is likely that the construction of the wooden Euthytona was abandoned in favor of an iron Palintona that could be dismantled at the same time as the guns. This weapon could be carried and operated by one man. The tension ropes were made from animal tendons that were woven with horse or human hair. In tests with replicas, the projectile bolt reached a speed of over 190 km / h when fired.
Tenter frame front of the Roman torsion weapon from Xanten
The back of the stretcher frame of the Roman crossbow from Xanten
Late Roman ballista
The illustrations in the handwriting De Rebus Bellicis by an anonymous author, unfortunately heavily corrupted by medieval copyists, indicate that guns of the Trajan's column type were still used for mobile use in late antiquity.
The assumption that the ballista was an iron bow gun among the Romans in the 4th century, which resembles a modern crossbow and whose power was based on the restoring force of the two steel bars, is the result of an incorrect interpretation of the description of ballists in De rebus bellicis: Before the Oşova artillery parts were found, older editors suspected a leaf spring behind the iron arch, just mentioned , but the illustrations suggest that it was an arched strut as described in Heron's Cheiroballistra and excavated in Orşova.
The descriptions of the actual weapons in De rebus bellicis are so brief that one must assume that the author was referring to ordinary torsion guns as they were well known to his readers. Rather, his main focus of his ballista quadrirotis lies in the carriage: completely rotatable on a wagon, possibly with a protective structure, at least with armored draft animals. In his ballista fulminalis, the focus of the description is on the tensioning method using pulleys and treadmills , which is related to their unusual size. This indicates that Anonymus proposed the ballista quadrirotis tank artillery and the ballista fulminalis, an over-heavy fortress gun. An otherwise historically undetectable detail of the ballista mentioned in De rebus bellicis is the height direction by means of an alignment screw. All other sources, especially Vitruvius's detailed description of the scorpion and the works of Philon and Biton, show that the weapons were mounted on a tripod by means of a universal joint below their center of gravity and were aimed by the gunner through a spur that was rotatable on the tripod and had an adjustable weapon rest. In addition to leveling screws, the anonymous also mentions pivot pins, he seems to have designed a complex carriage , which consisted of a lower carriage with pivot pins for the lateral direction and an upper carriage with alignment screw for the height direction. This is understandable if one assumes that his ballistae were dimensioned much larger than those of the Trajan column type. It is not certain whether these or any other inventions by Anonymous were ever built.
With larger ballistae, numerous men had to tighten the tendons, sometimes with the help of machines. From the range of the ballista fulminalis the anonymous in De rebus bellicis claims that it could shoot over the Danube - but it is not known at which point. Today it is estimated that the largest ballistae achieved a maximum range of up to around 1000 m, the effective range was around half that. However, the effective range of a ballista does not only depend on its resilience, but also on the scope for monitoring the shot. Since, as mentioned, these were point target weapons that fought people with bolts, effective shooting could only be carried out at distances that allowed the impact of the projectile to be observed (without telescopes unknown in antiquity), which is necessary for heights - or to be able to correct the lateral direction. Alan Wilkins (JRMES 6, 1995, p. 54) therefore assumes a maximum combat distance of 200 meters.
Marquardt also wanted to see this type of ballista as a torsion gun, but the contemporary editions of ancient literature contradicted this. The fact that the name Ballester for crossbow has been preserved in some areas of Bavaria to this day can hardly serve to deny the identification of late antique guns as torsion weapons. Rather, this name comes from the Arcuballista, the crossbow that was technically fully developed in the imperial era, as it has been handed down in reliefs from southern France.
middle Ages
Alternative names for ballistae in the Middle Ages were Mange or Tarrant ; the South Tyrolean castle Tarantsberg derives its name from a stationary ballista with which the valley could be ruled. Other medieval names are Notstal , Springolf or Selbschoß . A movable ballista mounted on a single-axle wagon was also called a cart ballista . Such ballistae were commonly pulled by mules .
See also
literature
- Otto Seeck : Ballistarii . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 2, Stuttgart 1896, Col. 2831 f.
- Vitruvius: Vitruvii De architectura libri decem = Ten books on architecture. Translated and annotated by Curt Fensterbusch. 5th edition. Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 1996, ISBN 3-89678-005-0 .
- Alan Wilkins: Roman Artillery (= Shire Archeology. Vol. 86). Shire, Princes Risborough 2003, ISBN 0-7478-0575-X .
- Alan Wilkins: Scorpio and Cheiroballistra. In: Journal of roman military equipment studies. 11, 2000, pp. 77-101.
- Dietwulf Baatz: Catapults and mechanical hand weapons of the late Roman army. In: Journal of roman military equipment studies. 10, 1999, pp. 5-19.
- Alan Wilkins: Reconstructing the Cheiroballistra. In: Journal of roman military equipment studies. 6, 1995, pp. 5-60.
- Bernhard Rathgen: The gun in the Middle Ages. , Berlin 1928, pp. 578-593.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ralph Payne-Gallwey: The Book of the Crossbow. Dover Publications, New York 1995, ISBN 0-486-28720-3 , pp. 259 ff.
- ^ Erwin Schramm: The ancient cannons of the Saalburg, 1918
- ^ Duncan B. Campbell: Ancient Catapults Some Hypotheses Reexamined in: Hesperia 80, 2011, pp. 677-700
- ↑ Polybios : Geschichte , 8, 5, 6 (online)
- ^ Alan Wilkins: Scorpio and Cheiroballistra. In: Journal of roman military equipment studies. 11, 2000, pp. 77-101.
- ↑ Dietwulf Baatz: The buildings and catapults of the Roman army. Steiner, Stuttgart 1994. (Roman Army Researches 11)
- ↑ artillery - I. ROEMERCOHORTE Opladen eV Accessed on 15 July 2020 .
- ↑ Dietwulf Baatz: Catapults and mechanical hand weapons of the late Roman army. In: Journal of roman military equipment studies 10, 1999, pp. 5-19.
- ↑ Burkhard Meißner : The technological specialist literature of antiquity. Structure, tradition and effect of technical knowledge in antiquity (approx. 400 BC - approx. 500 AD) , Berlin 1999, pp. 105, 246–247.
- ^ Alan Wilkins: Reconstructing the Cheiroballistra. In: Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 6, 1995, pp. 5-60.
- ↑ Hans-Joachim Schalles: An early imperial torsion weapon from the Xanten-Wardt gravel pit
- ^ Robert Ireland (Ed.): De rebus bellicis: the text. In: BAR. International series; 63.2, 1979.
- ↑ Joachim Marquardt , Theodor Mommsen : Handbook of Roman antiquities. Volume 5: Roman State Administration. 2nd 2nd edition. Hirzel, Leipzig 1884.
- ^ Hermann Köchly , Wilhelm Rustow (ed.): Greek war writers. Greek and German, with critical and explanatory comments. Volume 1: Aeneias : Of Defense of Cities. Engelmann, Leipzig 1853, p. 408ff. (Reprint. Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück 1969).
- ↑ Dietwulf Baatz: The Roman hunting crossbow. In: Archaeological correspondence sheet. 21, 1991, pp. 283-290.
- ↑ Alfred Geibig: The power of fire - serious fireworks of the 15th - 17th centuries in the mirror of its neuter tradition . Art collections of the Veste Coburg, Coburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-87472-089-2 , p. 227-266 .
- ↑ Cart ballista . In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon 1894–1896, Volume 10, p. 190.