Catapult

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 18 February 1858


First published in The New American Cyclopaedia, Vol. IV, 1859
Reproduced from The New American Cyclopaedia
Source : Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 18
Collection(s): New American Cyclopaedia

Catapult (Gr. xcn-d, against, and TTCVWOO, to hurl), an ancient military engine for throwing stones, darts, and other missiles, invented in Syracuse, in the reign of Dionysius the elder. It acted upon the principle of the bow, and consisted of wood frame-work, a part of which was elastic, and furnished with tense cords of hair or muscle. Catapults were of various sizes, being designed either for field-service or bombardments. The largest of them projected beams 6 feet long and weighing 60 lbs. to the distance of 400 paces, and Josephus gives instances of their throwing great stones to the distance of 1/4 of a mile.[1] The Romans employed 300 of them at the siege of Jerusalem.[2] From the time of Julius Caesar it is not distinguished by Latin authors from the ballista, which was originally used only for throwing masses of stone.

  1. ↑ Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War, Book V, Ch. 6. Engels used the German edition, Des Flavius Josephus Geschichte des jüdischen Krieges, Stuttgart, 1856, in which the relevant passage occurs on p. 558.— Ed.
  2. ↑ The siege of Jerusalem by the Roman general Vespasian and later, after he became Emperor, by his son Titus, took place in A.D. 68-70, during the Judaean war (A.D. 66-73) caused by the Jewish uprising against Roman domination. After the capture of the city walls the besieged inhabitants continued fighting for a long time in the Temple of Jerusalem and in the streets.