5 hours ago
https://www.discovermagazine.com/ancient...iege-48851
EXCERPTS: Before Pompeii was engulfed in volcanic ash, its walls may have been battered by an ancient "machine gun" while the city was under siege. With a third of Pompeii still buried beneath volcanic debris from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., archaeologists continue to discover evidence of the city’s turbulent past, including battle damage on its walls.
A study recently published in Heritage proposes a compelling hypothesis to explain several peculiar impact marks along the northern stretch of Pompeii’s fortified walls: This damage potentially came from a barrage of metal-tipped projectiles launched by a polybolos, a repeating ballista that may have been used to slay Pompeii’s defenders during the city's siege in 89 B.C.E.
Most people see Pompeii as an iconic Roman city, but it wasn’t always inhabited by Romans. The Roman Republic took control of the city during the Social War of 91 to 88 B.C.E., when it fought to subdue its Italian allies (or socii) that wanted either full Roman citizenship or independence, according to EBSCO.
[...] The researchers behind the new study believe these marks may have come from a polybolos, which would have fired out a rapid succession of darts powered by torsion. ... The Roman army may have adopted the polybolos from innovations originating on the Greek island of Rhodes, where the engineer Dionysius of Alexandria is said to have invented the weapon several centuries prior to the siege of Pompeii. Not long before the siege, Sulla even served as governor of the province that included Rhodes, known as a hub of “engineering excellence” in ancient times, according to the study... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Before Pompeii was engulfed in volcanic ash, its walls may have been battered by an ancient "machine gun" while the city was under siege. With a third of Pompeii still buried beneath volcanic debris from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., archaeologists continue to discover evidence of the city’s turbulent past, including battle damage on its walls.
A study recently published in Heritage proposes a compelling hypothesis to explain several peculiar impact marks along the northern stretch of Pompeii’s fortified walls: This damage potentially came from a barrage of metal-tipped projectiles launched by a polybolos, a repeating ballista that may have been used to slay Pompeii’s defenders during the city's siege in 89 B.C.E.
Most people see Pompeii as an iconic Roman city, but it wasn’t always inhabited by Romans. The Roman Republic took control of the city during the Social War of 91 to 88 B.C.E., when it fought to subdue its Italian allies (or socii) that wanted either full Roman citizenship or independence, according to EBSCO.
[...] The researchers behind the new study believe these marks may have come from a polybolos, which would have fired out a rapid succession of darts powered by torsion. ... The Roman army may have adopted the polybolos from innovations originating on the Greek island of Rhodes, where the engineer Dionysius of Alexandria is said to have invented the weapon several centuries prior to the siege of Pompeii. Not long before the siege, Sulla even served as governor of the province that included Rhodes, known as a hub of “engineering excellence” in ancient times, according to the study... (MORE - missing details)