57*3 ANCIENT ARMS. — BATTERING RAM. TABLE FORKS. 
and, upon competitions with rivals for rank and dignities, often de- 
termined the preference in their favour. 
Ancient Arms 
Arms of stone, and even of brass, appear to have been used before 
men made use of iron and steel. Josephus assures us, that the patri- 
arch Joseph first brought the use of iron arms into Egypt, arming the 
troops of Pharaoh with a casque and buckler. What contributed 
most to render the Romans masters of the world, was, that having 
successively warred against all nations, they constantly renounced 
their own methods, arms, &c. whenever they met with a better. Thus 
Romulus, during his war with the Sabines, a bold and warlike nation, 
adopted their broad buckler in lieu of the small Argian buckler which 
he had used till that time. The principal arms of the ancient Britons 
were hatchets, scythes, lances, swords, and bucklers ; the Saxons, &c. 
however, brought in the halbert, bows, arrows, arbalets, &c. By 
the ancient laws of England, every man was obliged to bear arms, 
except the judges and clergy. By act 23, Hen. Vill. it was ex- 
pressly enjoined, that all persons should be regularly instructed, even 
from tender years, in the exercise of the arms then in use, viz. the long 
l>ow and arrows ; to be provided with a certain number of them. The 
ancient arms of our Scots Highlanders are, the broadsword, target, 
poniard and whinyar, or dirk. 
Battering Ram. 
This was an ancient military engine, used to batter and beat down the 
walls of places besieged. It is said tohave been invented by Artemanes 
ofCIazomene, a Greek architect, who flourished B. c. 441. It is thus 
described by Josephus. A vast beam like the mast of a ship, strength- 
ened at the one end w'ith a head of iron, resembling that of a ram, 
whence it took its name, was hung by the middle with ropes to another 
beam, which lay across two posts ; and hanging thus equally balanced, 
it was by a great number of men drawn backwards and pushed for- 
W'ards, striking the wall with its iron head. But this engine did most 
execution when it was mounted on wheels, which is said to have been 
first done at the siege of Byzantium by Philip of Macedon. Plutarch 
informs us, that Marc Antony, in the Parthian war, made use of a 
ram eighty feet long ; and Vitruvius tells us that they were sometimes 
one hundred and six, and sometimes one hundred and twenty feet in 
length; and to this, perhaps, the force and strength of the engine was 
in a great measure owing. The ram was managed by one hundred 
soldiers at a time, and when they were exhausted they were relieved 
by another century : so that it played constantly without intermission. 
Table Forks. 
These instruments, according to Voltaire, Hist Generate^ vol. ii. 
p. 169. edit 1757, were in use on the continent in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries ; but that they were a novelty to England in the 
