Artillery experts needed !

[Flavius Promotus]

Folks, a friend of mine is currently writing a paper on Roman artillery, and he has asked me to post several questions for which he could not find any answers.

1.) are there any sources (literary or archaeological) for the damage to walls (brick walls or stonewalls) caused by huge stone throwers ? Josephus and Ammianus give some lively examples of the deadly effects on humans (exploding heads or bellies), but I do not know of any sources for the results of impacts on buildings.

Are there any parallel sources about the effects of medieval artillery 'fire' on buildings? (literary sources, experiments).

2.) Does anybody know the present price of horsehair ropes? Or the price of animal tendons? (tricky question - I know)

Dr. Schalles told me they had to spend several thousands of €€€ for the reconstruction of the Xanten hand-held mini catapult, and a large amount of the money had to be spent for ox tendons.

Are there any reliable calculations for the amount of tendons needed for a large piece of artillery (e.g. the Hatra ballista ?), provided they did not use something else for the torsion chambers (horsehair, womens' hair, vegetable fibres)?

Thank you very much in advance,

Florian

[aitor iriarte]

Mmmmh, not easy questions to answer...
The first question perhaps would fall better into Duncan Campbell's field of expertise. Quoting from my mind, Philon (of Byzantium) wrote in his Paraskeuastika (preparatives for suffering a siege) that a wall should be at least ca. 4.5 m thick to stand against Hellenistic stone-throwers' missiles. Unfortunately, I don't own any edition of that book (but I remember that there was a quote on Marsden's first volume... )
About rope, if I recall well, Hibernicus had found a source for horsehair rope. I got mine from Norway (expensive! hock: ) by means of the help of a now dead friend.
The problem with sinew rope is to find somebody able to transform the sinews into rope. Untreated cattle sinew is very cheap to find at any slaughterhause (Nasty and filthy... hey, where has that useful green smiley from the old RAT gone? ) but deer ones will be probably scarce and expensive.
I don't know how much sinew do you need to make a determined rope length of a determined thickness. You can calculate the length of rope needed to fill a spring using Philon's indications. The rope diameter must be 1/3 of the hole's diameter (1/6, if you prefer to follow Marsden's emendation...). Draw the hole at actual size on a paper and fill it with circles depicting the rope (If we are to believe Heron and Philon -why not- sinew rope lost 1/3 of its thickness when pre-stretched). Then measure the 'height' of each rope turn and multiply it for the number of rope strands needed to fill the hole (Don't forget to be generous!!)
Hope that it have been of some help... :roll:

Aitor

[Flavius Promotus]

Hope that it have been of some help...

Certainly !

And see it from the other side - if you don't know more about certain details, it is unlikely that anybody else on this board knows significantly more 8)

Thank you!
Florian

[aitor iriarte]

I am glad that you've find it useful and thanks :oops: but I still think that Duncan would be able to give you more help with the sources!

Aitor

[Spedius]

Ave Florian,

Whilst I can't pretend to be an expert on Roman artillery, in fact I'm not an expert on anything.
One thought did cross my tiny, one cell brain. Have you checked out Mavors 11? The contents are as follows:-

D. Baatz, Bauten und Katapulte des römischen Heeres (Steiner: Stuttgart, 1994)
"Zur Geschützbewaffnung römischer Auxiliartruppen in der frühen und mittleren Kaiserzeit", Bonner Jahrbücher 166 (1966), 194-207
"Keltische Einflüsse auf römische Wehrbauten?" Fundberichte aus Hessen 1 (Marburger Beiträge zur Archäologie der Kelten. Festschrift W. Dehn) (1969), 1-7
"Zur datierung des römischen Militärlagers Hanau-Kesselstadt", Germania 51 (1973), 536-543
"Zur Grenzpolitik Hadrians in Obergermanien", in:
"Das Torsionsgeschütz von Hatra", Antike Welt 9/4 (1978), 50-57
"Recent finds of ancient artillery", Britannia 9 (1978), 1-17
"Ein Katapult der Legio IV Macedonica aus Cremona", Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung 87 (1980), 283-299
"Hellenistische Katapulte aus Ephyra (Epirus)", Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 97 (1982), 211-233
"Quellen zur Bauplannung römischer Militärlager", Bauplannung und Bautheorie der Antike (Diskussion zur archäologischen Bauforschung 4) (Berlin, 1984), 315-325
"Katapultteile aus dem Schiffswrack von Mahdia (Tunesien)", Archäologischer Anzeiger (1985), 679-691
"Hibernacula", Germania 63 (1985), 147-154
"Eine Katapult-Spannbuchse aus Pityus, Georgien (UDSSR)", Saalburg Jahrbuch 44 (1988), 59-64
"Kommandobereiche der Legionslegaten", Germania 67 (1989), 169-178
"Schleudergeschosse aus Blei: eine waffentechnische Untersuchung", Saalburg Jahrbuch 45 (1990), 59-67
"Die römische Jagdarmbrust", Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 21 (1991), 283-290
"Katapultbewaffnung und -produktion des römischen Heeres in der frühen und mittleren Kaiserzeit", in:
"Waffenwirkung antiker Katapulte", in:
"Katapultfunde 1887-1985", in:
"Éléments d'une catapulte romaine trouvée à Lyon", Gallia 39 (1981), 201-209
"Teile spätrömischer Ballisten aus Gornea und Orsova (Rumänien)", Saalburg Jahrbuch 31 (1974), 50-72

I don't have the book, just a link I found some time ago, unfortunately lost and not yet refound.

I do have the two Marsden books and could look stuff up for you, if it would help?

Vale

M. Spedius Corbulo (aka Jim)

[John M McDermott]

I was able to get horsehair rope from Mexico. It came in diameters between 1/2 and 3/4 inches and in 20 foot lengths. The Mexicans seemed unwilling to make it in anything but those dimensions.

Currently, I am trying to weave some of this rope together to make thicker and longer lengths.

[Flavius Promotus]

Spedius,
thank you very much for this list !
Your offer to look things up is very kind, but probably not necessary as we have these books in our library.

I'll tell Robert (not 'our' Robert from Fectio but the student here) to take a look at your list. I'm sure there are a few interesting goodies he doesn't know of (yet).

Greets,
Florian

[aitor iriarte]

The above quoted Baatz's book is a recopilatory one with just a couple (if so) of 'fresh' papers. A very useful compilation, though! 8)
Notwithstanding, he deals more with archaeological finds than with sources or working reconstructions.

Aitor