ENGINES OF WAR. The bow was in all probability the earliest "engine" of war devised by man, the sling and the blow pipe being of later date. In any case we know that the bow was used in the South of France and Cantabria by the prehistoric hunter-artists in the loth millennium B.C., and that in the East from the earliest historical times it was a common weapon of war. The idea of a more powerful weapon, especially in siege work, when it was necessary to outrange the hand bow in order to cover by fire the approach of scaling and assaulting parties, probably arose in the East during the 9th or 8th century B.C. In the Bible we read that Uzziah, who reigned from 808-9 to B.C., "made in Jerusalem engines invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal." These engines fall into two main groups, namely, catapults (q.v.) and ballistae which to-day are represented by howitzers and guns, the first being used for high and the second for low tra jectory fire. In both cases the force of propulsion was generated by tightly twisting a skein of rope, hair or sinew, prepared in a manner now unknown, for though in recent years many replicas of both these engines have been constructed the problem of main taining the elasticity of the sinews has remained unsolved. Never theless, sufficient experience has been gained with the indifferent modern machines to prove that the range claimed by classical writers, varying from 40o to Soo yards, is no exaggeration. The projectiles used were of various kinds, such as large arrows, small metal balls, stone balls and large pebbles coated in baked clay which shattering on impact prevented the enemy using them in his own machines. Their weight varied from a few pounds to sixty or even more. The most complete account of the catapult is given by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who says: "In the middle of the ropes (twisted skein) rises a wooden arm like a chariot pole . . . to the top of the arm hangs a sling . . . when battle is commenced a round stone is set in the sling . . . four soldiers on each side of the engine wind the arm down till it is almost level with the ground . . . when the arm is set free it springs up and hurls forth from its sling the stone, which is cer tain to crush whatever it strikes. This engine was formerly called the `scorpion,' because it has its sting erect, but later ages have given it the name of onager, or wild ass, for when wild asses are chased they kick the stones behind them." As a protection against the projectiles thrown, Caesar informs us that curtains woven from cable-ropes were sometimes used.
The origins of artillery among the Greeks probably took place in Sicily where they came into contact with the Carthaginians. Diodorus informs us that engines first came into use in 397 B.C. when Dionysius of Syracuse was waging his Punic War. In any case at a later date the Carthaginians relied very largely on ar tillery. We learn from Livy that when New Carthage was taken by the Romans in 146 B.C., 120 great catapults, 281 small ones, 23 great ballistae and 52 small ones were captured. And it may be noted, that according to Appian of Alexandria, a little previous to this siege the Carthaginians surrendered to the Romans "cata pults for shooting swift bolts and for throwing stones to the num ber of 2,000." It appears that from Sicily these machines were introduced into Greece, for they were certainly made use of by Philip of Macedon, 360-336 B.C. Under his son Alexander a definite body of artillerists was established, ballistae being mounted on carriages, known later as carro-ballistae, and used by this great soldier as field and mountain artillery are today, especially in his cam paigns against the Danube tribes and the Scythians. Under his successors, the Diadochi, it may be said that an artillery age was entered, for not only do we find a frequent use of catapults and ballistae but an ever increasing interest taken in their construction by the scientists of Alexandria. There, in the 3rd century B.C., a certain Dionysius invented the first recorded machine-gun called "polybolos" or "repeater-thrower," which fired a succession of arrows from a magazine. At about the same time Ctesibius, an Alexandrian engineer, geared to the catapult arms pistons "work ing in carefully wrought cylinders." Accounts of these engines and others are given in the works of Heron (284-221 B.c.) and Philo (about zoo B.c.). Among the successors of Alexander, the greatest engineer was undoubtedly the famous Demetrius Poliorcetes, who in 304 B.C. besieged Rhodes, and used all manner of projectile engines, and so important did they become in field and siege opera tions that at the third battle of Mantineia (207 B.c.) we find a counterpart to the modern artillery battle (see Polyb. xi. 12).
In their turn the Romans copied the Greeks, but produced less perfect weapons, such as those depicted on the Trajan Column. The Romans made frequent use of them, having learnt to their cost their value during their siege of Syracuse in 214-212 B.C., in which siege, as Plutarch tells us in his Life of Marcellus, Archi medes "was the informing soul. All other weapons lay idle and un employed, his were the only offensive and defensive arms of the city." Further Plutarch writes : "Archimedes soon began to play his engines upon the Romans and their ships, and shot stones of such an enormous size (about 1 oo lb.) and with so incredible a noise and velocity that nothing could stand before them. The stones overturned and crushed whatever came in their way, and spread terrible disorder through the Roman ranks. . . . At length the Romans were so terrified that, if they saw but a rope or a beam projecting over the walls of Syracuse, they cried out that Archimedes was levelling some machine at them and turned their backs and fled." From this date onwards we find the Romans paying more and more attention to artillery, and especially so in the first century B.C. In the days of Julius Caesar full use was made of catapults and ballistae in the field as is illustrated by his battle with the Bell ovaci in 51 B.C., when he drew up his engines in such a way that they could play upon the enemy's columns. At Dyrrachium his IXth Legion seized a hill and began to fortify it when Pompey's soldiers occupied a neighbouring hill and brought such a concen trated artillery fire to bear on Caesar's legionaries that they were forced to withdraw. Josephus, an eyewitness, informs us that at the siege of Jotapata, in A.D. 67, Vespasian used 16o engines. He says : "The noise of the instruments themselves was very terrible, the sound of the darts and stones that were thrown by them was so also ; of the same sort was the noise that dead bodies made when they were dashed against the wall." From about this date onwards artillery became an established arm in the legion, and according to Vegetius each cohort was equipped with one cata pult, and each century with one carro-ballista, I 1 soldiers being re quired to work the latter machine. The legion, therefore, pos sessed an artillery train of 6o carro-ballistae and ten catapults, 7o engines in all, which corresponds closely to the number of field guns and howitzers in a modern infantry division. See CATAPULT,