MILITARY ENGINES. Ill 



penetrated, and then the stones broken out. The first borers consisted 

 {pi. 33, fig. 11) of a spindle with a sharp iron head, which was laid upon 

 trestles and turned by means of a winch. Later, the borer was placed in a 

 rolling frame (fig. 10), and forced forwards by a screw against the wall. 

 These wall augers being too slow and tedious, however, and their effects 

 too imperfect, it was soon found better to crush, shatter, and knock out the 

 stones, than laboriously to extricate them in this manner. For this purpose 

 the ram was invented. The rams were long, heavy beams, frequently from 

 fifty to one hundred feet in length, which, at the foremost end, were 

 strongly plated with iron, this plating being usually in the form of a ram's 

 head. From this and the butting motion of the machine it received its 

 name. Yet there were rams also which were mounted with one or more 

 points. These beams were suspended in equilibrium from the top of a 

 lofty frame by ropes (fig- 12), brought up close to the wall by means of 

 rollers on the frame, and then, by one or several ropes attached to the 

 hinder end, were set into a swinging motion, and thus made to strike 

 against the wall, which by degrees was shattered and overthrown. This 

 kind of machine was called the swinging ram, and the simplest form is 

 shown in pi. 35, fig. 8. In another form of construction used when the beam 

 was very long, it was laid upon a carriage with numerous rollers (pi. 33, 

 fig. 13). This carriage ran upon a frame constructed for that purpose, and 

 supported on a scaffold, in which frame it was pulled backwards and forwards, 

 by means of ropes from each end passing over rollers at the ends of the 

 frame, and thus the beam was made to strike against the wall. The 

 battering-ram which Demetrius Poliorcetes used at the siege of Rhodes was 

 106 feet long ; and Vespasian had, in the war against the Jews, a ram which, 

 though only 50 feet long, was armed with a mighty iron butt of twenty- 

 five points, each of which was as thick as a man, and two feet apart. The 

 counter- weight at the hindmost end amounted to 1075 cwt., and 1500 men 

 were required to work this machine. For transportation, the rams were 

 loaded on small carriages (fig. 14), on which also they were sometimes used 

 when the walls were weak. 



c. Machines of Transport. In order to bring troops upon the wall of 

 a besieged city, or at least to bring them on a level with the breast-works 

 and thus render an encounter with the garrison practicable before the walls 

 were destroyed, machines of transport were employed, of a magnitude such 

 as it is now scarcely possible for us to conceive. To these machines of trans- 

 port belong, first, the draw basket (pi. 35, fig. 10), which served to convey 

 a larger or smaller number of soldiers upon the hostile wall, and thus perhaps 

 enable them to surprise some unguarded place. For this object a mast 

 was planted in the ground, and at its summit a cross-beam suspended in 

 equilibrium, after the manner of the draw-well. To the foremost end of 

 this beam a large basket, or rather a platform with a railing, was attached, 

 in which the warriors mounted, when, by drawing down the hinder end of 

 the beam, the platform was elevated to the height required. To bring 

 greater numbers of men upon a level with the battlements of the wall, and 

 enable them to mount thereon, or to fight with the defenders at the same 



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