Free Legions of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins Page B

balls packed in a crate, like apples, in which they were delivered to the firing line from the stone-quarries where they originated. The cheiroballistra was an improved ballista; in service by AD 100, it used a metal frame. Light, sturdy and accurate, it was often mounted on a cart for mobility.
    Four legions involved in the AD 70 Siege of Jerusalem employed more than 200 catapults between them. The 10th Legion built a veritable monster of a ballista for this siege. Josephus records that the balls fired against both Jotapata and Jerusalem weighed around 60lbs (27 kilos) and traveled more than 440 yards (400 meters). To make spotting difficult for the Jewish defenders, Roman artillerymen coated their white ballista stones with black pitch. Incendiaries were also used: stones and arrows dipped in pitch, sulfur and naphtha, and set alight. [Jos., JW , 5, 6, 3]
    Earth mounds were built for the artillery, to gain elevation over the heads of the infantry. To determine range, Roman artillerymen tossed lead weights on lengths of string to enemy walls, and measured back. As a result of this practice, Roman artillery achieved remarkable and frightening accuracy. At the AD 67 Siege of Jotapata, where Josephus commanded, a single spear from a scorpion ran through a row ofmen. A ballista stone took the head off a Jewish defender standing near Josephus; the man’s head was found 660 yards (600 meters) away. [Jos., JW , 3, 7, 23]

    ONAGER CATAPULT
The basic stone-throwing catapult in use for centuries by the Roman military, equipped every legion.
    Ammianus described how, in around AD 363, Roman forces used “fire darts” that had been hollowed out and filled with incendiary material: “oil of general use” mixed with “a certain herb,” which was allowed to stand and thicken “until it gets magic power.” [Amm., II , xxiii, 5, 38] The fourth-century fire-arrow had to be fired slowly, “from a loosened bow,” said Ammianus, “for it is extinguished by swift flight.” But once it landed, it burned persistently. “If one tries to put it out with water he makes it burn the more fiercely, and it can be extinguished in no other way than by throwing dust on it.” [Ibid., 37] As for the “Greek fire” type of incendiary depicted in the feature film Gladiator (based on events of AD 180), this was not developed until the seventh century.
    Legionaries were also trained to build wooden siege “engines” for use when fortresses and cities were assaulted. Mantlets, wooden sheds on wheels, were frequently used to provide cover for battering rams. Other war machines, such as a sling used in the defense of Old Camp in AD 69–70, depended on the ingenuity of individual legions. Siege towers on wheels were common, each with several levels on which artillery was mounted. Elaborate measures to fireproof these towers were not always successful. Siege towers were prominent in the Roman assaults on Jerusalem and Masada in the First Jewish Revolt and in the Siege of Sarmizegethusa during the Second Dacian War.
    Caracalla, for his AD 217 eastern campaign, had two massive siege engines built in Europe which were dismantled and shipped to Syria. Caracalla was assassinated during the campaign, and there is no record of his super siege engines being deployed. By the AD 359 Persian Siege of Amida, Rome’s enemies had turned her technology against her, employing siege machinery built by Roman prisoners.
    By the fourth century, legions were no longer building their own artillery or siege equipment. Nineteen cities in the Roman east and fifteen in the west possessed large government arms workshops by that time, which manufactured catapults and other weapons, armor and siege machinery. Their output was deposited in arsenals in the manufacturing cities and distributed to the military as required. [Gibb., XVII ] As a result, legionaries lost the skills that had previously ensured Rome’s legions were, in a great many respects, self-sufficient.
    VIII.