Need some information about Mantinea 207 BCE

[Paullus Scipio]

Duncan said:-

I recognise your source for this, Paul: it's Marsden

...oddly enough, not on this occasion, Duncan! I had in mind a few things:-
1. Billy the mule's description of how the mountain 'screw' gun battery went about it's business in Kipling's "Her Majesty's servants"
2. C.S. Forester's "The Gun" about how to move heavy objects in the pre-industrial age....
3. How the Australian army solved the problem of getting 25 pounders up the Kokoda trail in New Guinea in WW2 ( a perilously steep mountainous jungle track barely wide enough for a man in parts) and its post-war adoption of the Italian 105mm 'Pack Howitzer' as a result.
4. The Naval Field Gun race at the Royal Tournament ( My father took part in these when I was young) where 3 ton guns plus their limbers/caissons are broken down and carried across wide'streams', literally in seconds.... an awesome sight if you've never seen it....
5. Lastly, my own military experiences with 3" and 4.2" Mortars in mountains...

I see you followed Marsden's/Schramm's interpretation of dimensions, some of which they arbitrarily changed, (from the figures given by Biton) as you noted, because they were patently impossible...but I think they should have scaled down all proportions, not just one, because there is clearly something wrong with the numbers (copyists errors, erroneous interpretation of greek dimensions..etc ) which lead to a base suitable for a huge one talent machine -especially if you restore the arbitrarily reduced height. The other alternative (to make the machine mobile) is hollow beams...but this is unlikely given that when beams are hollow, Zopyrus/Biton tells us so...
BTW, the 2 tonnes estimate for the base comes from the cubic metrage of the base, and the known density of oak ( which if anything, will be on the light side, because the figure used was for kiln-dried oak, and the ancient timber was almost certainly 'naturally' dried.......)

See you on another thread, Duncan ! :wink: 8) 8)