Catapult and torsion ballista
Catapulta de torsión y balista
- Date
- 399 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Syracuse, Sicily, Italy
- Credited to
- Engineers of Dionysius I of Syracuse (gastraphetes); torsion developed under Philip II of Macedon c. 340 BCE
- Field
- Conflict
What it is
A machine that launches arrows or stones by storing energy first in a composite bow (gastraphetes) and later in bundles of twisted sinew (torsion). The first mechanical artillery.
Philo of Byzantium and Heron document the calibration; China independently developed counterweight traction catapults (trebuchets) around the 4th century BCE.
What it led to
- Scientific siegecraft: the siege of cities as an engineering problem (Alexander at Tyre)
- State-funded research (Alexandria, Rhodes) with formulas calibrated to the spring's diameter
- Thicker walls, towers and Hellenistic fortification in response
- A professional corps of military engineers in the Hellenistic and Roman armies
Built on
Made possible
- Polybolos (repeating catapult)c. century III a.C.
- Greek firec. 672 CE
- Onager
- Roman scorpio
- Helepolis siege tower