ALEXANDRIAN OR HELLENISTIC PERIOD 



vellously at that time: and not only the provision of 

 the engines ready made, but also the engineer and 

 work-master himself, that had invented them. 



"Now the Syracusans, seeing themselves assaulted 

 by the Romans, both by sea and by land, were mar- 

 vellously perplexed, and could not tell what to say, 

 they were so afraid: imagining it was impossible for 

 them to withstand so great an army. But when Archi- 

 medes fell to handling his engines, and to set them at 

 liberty, there flew in the air infinite kinds of shot, and 

 marvellous great stones, with an incredible noise and 

 force on the sudden, upon the footmen that came to 

 assault the city by land, bearing down, and tearing in 

 pieces all those which came against them, or in what 

 place soever they lighted, no earthly body being able 

 to resist the violence of so heavy a weight : so that all 

 their ranks were marvellously disordered. And as for 

 the galleys that gave assault by sea, some were sunk 

 with long pieces of timber like unto the yards of ships, 

 whereto they fasten their sails, which were suddenly 

 blown over the walls with force of their engines into 

 their galleys, and so sunk them by their over great 

 weight." 



Polybius describes what was perhaps the most im- 

 portant of these contrivances, which was, he tells us, 

 " a hand of iron, hanging by a chain from the beak of a 

 machine, which was used in the following manner. 

 The person who, like a pilot, guided the beak, having 

 let fall the hand, and catched hold of the prow of any 

 vessel, drew down the opposite end of the machine 

 that was on the inside of the walls. And when the ves- 



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