Are Early Artillery Towers Misinterpreted?

[Clavdivs]

It's a small thing, but for the tiro in militaria, such as myself, it's worth pointing out here (in case someone can't find the paper) that the catapult so called is not the stereotypical mediaeval mangonel or trebuchet, even the Roman onager, but a comparatively light tension-powered artillery piece akin in principle to a giant cross-bow, referred to as the gastraphetes or belly-bow. It was devised by engineers in the employ of Dionysios of Syracuse c. 399 B.C.E.

The paper alludes to the these weapons as having a span of 4-9 Greek feet, and although the invention of the torsion catapult by the Macedonians in the 340s, and the presence of heavy torsion engines in the armies of the Diadochi (i.e. post 323 B.C.E) are both mentioned, even the latest towers treated of in the paper do not seem to have been designed for anything but the every lightest torsion artillery -- ''primarily antipersonnel weaponry'' certainly not siege-weapons.

I have advanced the solution of the question posed not a jot, but I hope my notes might warn other tiros that the study of classical artillery needs to be taken as a distinct discipline and shipping in our preconceptions about what a catapult is is dangerous.