ARTILLERY, in its original signification, was a par ticular name for the bow and arrow; but subsequently extended to all engines for throwing arrows, stones, or other missile weapons. In modern times, the word is usually employed as a generic term for great guns, their ammunition and appurtenances; or as a distinctive name for the troops trained exclusively to their manage ment. Those branches of knowledge which an artillery officer ought to acquire, are sometimes barbarously termed artillery. The field artillery of the ancients ap pears to have been always very simple. It consisted chieflti of the bow and arrow, the sling and the dart. These also seem to have been the only missile weapons used in attacking walled towns during the earlier ages of antiquity.
If the assailants failed in surprising a place, and were prevented, by the nature of the fortification, from burst ing open the gates, or scaling the walls, their only mode of attack was a tedious blockade. Of this we have a memorable instance in the siege of Troy. In Homer's account of the siege, there is no mention of any engines, either to batter the walls, or to enable the besiegers to pass over them. The Greeks were consequently obliged to blockade the place during the long period of ten years.
As society advanced in civilization, science lent her aid to the warrior. The balista, catapulta, onager, and various other engines, were invented for the attack and defence of fortified places. The effects which authors mention as produced by these engines. are fitted to ex cite a high idea of their powers. We are informed, that the ancient artillery discharged immense beams of wood and stones weighing several hundred weight, by which whsle ranks of men were crushed at once, and that the most solid walls, or the best compacted engines, were incapable of withstanding their force. A remark able instance of the efficacy of the ancient artillery oc curred during the siege of Syracuse by the Romans. Archimedes, by the discharge of immense stones, de stroyed. before it could reach the walls, a great machine which Marcellus advanced against the city, and so galled the besiegers by his inventions, that they con verted the siege into a blockade. In estimating the real
value of the ancient artillery, it is not sufficient that we consider the magnitude of the bodies which they threw, and the impetus with which these bodies were dischar ged; we must compare these with the time and labour expended in producing the effect. It is not necessary, towards this comparison that we should here minutely describe the various warlike engines of which the an cient artillery consisted. This subject has been fully discussed in the article Alois.
The ancient engines consisted of two parts, one for shooting the missile weapon, and the other for winding up the former. In most of the balistx, the shooting part consisted of a tapering lever, having its thicker extremity inserted in a powerful spring of twisted cords, by whose torsion the lever, if at liberty, would be made to revolve round the spring as an axis. This, however, was prevented by a cross beam, against which the lever pressed with considerable force. When the machine was to be employed, the Icier was forcibly removed from this position by a rope, having one end attached to its smaller extremity, and the other wound round a capstan. The lever being then suddenly disengaged, flew back with a circular motion to its former position, and discharged, with considerable violence, any body applied to its smaller extremity. The construction of the other kinds of artillery differed but little from that now described, except that a weight was in some sub stituted for the spring of cords; in others, the lever be ing flexible, served the purpose both of a lever and spring. In some, as the onager, the lever acted on the projectile by the intervention of a sling; while in others, as the scorpion and catapulta, the shooting part acted entirely on the principle of the bow, consisting either of a single bow of great strength, or of two distinct levers, whose smaller extremities pointed in contrary dirtc tions, and were united by a cord.