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The Crossbow   >   Chapter 55   >   Catapult   >   Construction   >  Frame and Arm   > p.290

Table of Contents List of Illustrations Index Appendix

Ancient Siege Engines

The result of this uneven strain was, that the lengths of rope which formed the skein - each 1 1/2 in. thick - broke one by one like rotten thread, owing to the force applied by the winches affecting them in detail instead of collectively.

After a series of experiments with various kinds of cordage, I discovered that the finer the cord used within reason, the more elastic and compact was the skein and hence the less its liability to break.

The fracture of a few strands of a large skein of fine cord is of no consequence, but the breaking of one stout rope amid a skein of a dozen lengths of such rope, means a noticeable loss of power.

The ancients were well aware of this and made the skeins of their catapults of thin cords of twisted hair.1

If horse-hair were not available in sufficient quantity, sinews from the necks of horses or oxen were used ;2 I do not find that ordinary rope was ever employed.

The elasticity of hair is so great, that however tight a large skein of it is twisted its extreme stretching or breaking limit cannot well be reached.

For this reason, there is always sufficient life or spring in the most tightly twisted skein of horse-hair to give the requisite velocity to the arm of the catapult.

It is evident that if the skein of a catapult were twisted up to its extreme limit, it would break under the further strain entailed on it by winding down the arm of the engine.

After testing every kind of material for the skein of a catapult I find that horse-hair rope - 1/2 in. thick - is far the best.

Failing horse-hair, pure flax in the form of sail maker's sewing twine is a fairly good substitute.

If this twine is used for the skein of a catapult it should be spun into a cord 1/4 in. thick.

1 In cases of emergency, woman's hair was made into skeins for catapults and balistas, and of all material nothing was so elastic or enduring for this purpose. When the inhabitants of Carthage commenced the heroic defence of their city (149-146 B.C.) they were forced to hurriedly manufacture weapons of all kinds to replace those which they had recently surrendered to the Roman general Censorinus (see footnote, p. 261). In various modern works we read of how ' the noble matrons of Carthage cut off their long tresses and twisted them into ropes for catapults.'

I can find no authority for any such picturesque writing, as ancient authors simply record the fact ' that women's hair was used at Carthage.' For instance, Florus, in his Roman History, a chronicler who flourished early in the second century, writes ' and the women parted with their hair to make cordage for the catapults.' Again, Zonaras, Byzantine historian, Chronica, ix. 26, says ' for the ropes of the catapults they used the hair of the women.'

At the siege of Salona by Marcus Octavius, one of Pompey's generals, the Roman women cut off their hair that it might be made into ropes for the engines of the besieged. - Ccesar's Commentaries on the Civil War, Book iii. Chapter ix.

2 Ligamentum colli, also known as Ligamcntum nucha;, see note, p. 64.


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