Workshop

As empires expanded so technologies developed to enable attacks on defensive positions and lay siege to large cities. Field engineers became adept in the arts of using whatever resources were to hand to construct catapults, siege towers and battering rams to break down the enemy’s defences. The scorpion, a crossbow-like spear-thrower, the fire-raiser, a burning cauldron attached to a long beam on wheels, and the sambuca, a type of covered troop ladder, were early innovations in siege engineering. Philip V of Macedon used catapults along with field works in his defence of the Aous Valley in 198BC, where the Romans lost many men. Towering, literally, above all these were the huge siege towers needed to assault high walls. The Helepolis used against Rhodes in 304BC stood some forty metres high and apparently required 3,000 men to operate it!