Friedrich Engels

Catapult

Written about 18 February 1858.

From the English.

["The New American Cyclopædia", Vol. IV]

Catapult (Gr. kata = against and pallein = to hurl) — an ancient military engine for hurling stones, javelins, and other projectiles, invented in Syracuse during the reign of Dionysius the Elder. It worked on the principle of the bow and consisted of a wooden frame, part of which was elastic and fitted with tight cords of hair or sinew. Catapults were of different sizes and were designed either for field service or for bombardments. With the largest, beams six feet long and weighing 60 pounds could be thrown to a distance of 400 paces, and Josephus gives instances of their hurling large stones over a distance of a quarter of a mile. The Romans employed 300 of them at the siege of Jerusalem. From the time of Julius Caesar, the catapult is not distinguished by Latin authors from the ballista, which originally had been used solely for hurling masses of stone.