BALIS'TA, or IlAws'mi (Gr. ballein, to throw), was one among the larger kinds of military weapons in use before the invention of gunpowder. The B., the catapulta, the scorpion, and the onager, propelled large and heavy missiles, chiefly through the reaction of a tightly-twisted rope of hemp, flax, catgut, sinew, or hair; or else by a violent move ment of levers. The scorpion was a kind of large crowbar; the B. threw stones; the catapulta threw heavy darts or arrows, and was. somewhat smaller than the B. One man could manage the scorpion, but two•or more needed for the-B. or the cata pulta. There was a good deal of mechanism necessary to bring about the propulsive force. The makers of those machines were very particular in the choice of women's hair, the sinews of a bull's neck, and the tendons of the deer, wherewith to fashion the elastic cord. The onager was a kind of B., which threw a stone by the agency of a Ming instead of a stretched cord. The early chroniclers tell of catapultas that would
throw an arrow half a mile, or hurl a javelin across the Danube; and of a B. which threw a stone weighing 300 lbs. Numerous other weapons of an analogous character were known in the middle ages—such as the mangonel; the trebuchet, which threw a large stone by the action of a lever and a sling; the petrary, which, as its name implies, threw a stone; the robtnet, which threw darts as well as stones; the mate-gmffon and matelanda, both slinging-machines; the tricolle, which hurled quarrels, or square headal arrows; the eipringal or springal, which threw large darts; the ribaudeguin, a large kind of cross-bow; the war-wolf, a stone-throwing machine, etc. The arbalest (q.v.) may be regarded as a small portable arrow-throwing 13alista.