Scientific American 95

Scientific American 95 THE ",ROMAN ORDNANCE" AT THE SAALBURG. second century B. C. (I. Macc. 6.51) but even in the if the stick is withdrawn a little way and suddenly re BY PROF. RUDOLF SCHNEIDER. eighth century B. C. (II. Chron. 26.15). It seems not leased,. its longer end flies around alld strikes sharply For many years the German government has been unlikely, therefore, that the Greeks merely adopted on the edge of the nutshell, producing a loud sound carrying on a systematic exploration of the ruined and perfected an ancient device of Oriental invention. pleasing to youthful ears. fortifications along the line of the Roman military This plaything, if constructed on a larger scale of frontier (linies imperii Romani), extending from the stronger materials, with a sling attached to the free Danube near Regensburg to the Rhine near Neuwied, end of the stick, would fairly represent the simplest a distance of 340 miles. The work received a new im form of tormentum, the onager, or machine sling (Fig. petus a few years ago when the Kaiser ordered the 3). This machine was employed to hurl great stones restoration of the best preserved fort, the Saalburg against walls and towers for the purpose of shattering on the Taunus ridge near Frankfurt, in order that it them or making a breach. The base of the onager is might serve at once as a model of a Roman fortress formed of two parallel heavy timbers, joined by cross and as a museum for antique objects of interest dis pieces at their ends and pierced in the middle by holes covered in the course of the explorations. In 1904 through which the bundle of fibers passes, to wrap there were mounted at this re-built Roman fortress around pins outside, precisely as in the nutshell snap three pieces of "Roman ordnance" which fully deserve per. From the center of the bundle of fibers, which their post of honor although they are neither Roman tightly fill the holes, rises obliquely a stout wooden nor ancient, and were not found on the old Roman arm ending in a hook from which a sling, carrying a frontier. They are reconstructions made by Major stone, is suspended. When this arm is drawn down Schramm in accordance with ancient descriptions. into a horizontal position by means of a winch, and They are not mere show pieces but practical engines suddenly released, it springs forward and upward in of war, as appears from the following record of their obedience to the torque of the twisted bundle of sinews performances in practical trials. until it is stopped by striking against a buffer, where One of the pieces, the "euthytonon" (Fig. 5) shot a Fig. 2.-1Ulljol' SeIlI'amlll's Conception of the upon the stone leaves the sling and flies onward to dart about three feet long to a distance of 1,200 feet Palintonon. ward its goal. Ancient writers use the most extrava and drove it through an iron-plated shield more than gant expreEsions in describing the power of the onageI', an inch thick with such force that it projected half its The principle of the tormentum is well illustrated by and it may be inferred that its dimensions greatly ex length behind the shield, so that it would have killed a common toy, made as follows: Two holes are bored ceeded those of the reconstruction at the Saalburg. or disabled a human shield bearer. Another piece, the in a half walnut shell, near the edge and opposite each The same concl usion is suggested by a curious passage, "palintonon" (Fig. 4) hurled a stone weighing two other. A horsehair is threaded through the holes, the correct interpretation of which has been reserved Fig. 5.-Euthytonon, Rpconstructed by :l\Iajor Fig. 4_-Palintonon or l\lortar.-l\Iajor Schramm's Fig. a.-The Onager or l\Iitchine-Sling, as Schramm. Restoration. Restored by l\lajor Schramm. pounds to a distance of 600 feet, and a one-pound for Major Schramm. Ammianus says that the leaden bullet 1,000 feet. The third piece, the "on onager was placed on a bed of turf or bricks (that ager" (Fig. 3), threw a one-pound leaden bullet is, on a seft or yielding foundation) because if it 460 feet. were placed on a masonry wall (which is rigid) These results, which far surpass the achieve the wall would be shattered, not by the weight of ments of the earliest cannon, are the more surpris- the machine but by the violent shock (of the re ing because similar experiments, made in 1865, coil). Even in Major Schramm's reconstruction were little better than flat failures, owing chiefly, the initial longitudinal tension of the bundle of as Major Schramm has pointed out, to defective fibers is twelve tons. construction of the apparatus. About the same Far more ingenious than this machine sling, time, the Emperor Napoleon III. had some "an though based on the same general principle, are cient artillery" constructed, which is still to be the two other tormenta, each of which has two Fig. 7.---Tormentum from Fig. 6.-Palintonon Carved seen in the museum at 8t. Germain. But illness parallel bundles of torsion fibers and two revolv Trajan's Column. 011 the TOlllhstonp of a Roman and political cares diverted Napoleon's interest A rtillery Captain. ing arms, and resembles a cross-bow in its action, from the subject and no authentic record exists _ though not in its construction or motive power. of the performance of these pieces. In order to under back and forth, making at each In the onager, as we have seen, the torsion fibers are stand ancient ordnance it is necessary first to get rid passage a turn around a bit of horizontal and the arm moves in a vertical plane. In of the common and erroneous notion that it consisted, hairpin I aid over each hole, the palintonon, on the other hand, the fibers as well essentially, of huge arbalests or cross-bows. As a mat on the outside of the sheII , as the plane of rotation of the arms, which is neces ter of fact it was based on a very different principle. and the ends of the horse sarily perpendicular to the fibers, are sharply inclined, The propulsive force of the cross-bow is furnished, hair are f:lst ened. Then a and in the euthytonon the arms move in an almost chiefly, by the elasticity of the arms of the bow which, match stick is thrust through horizontal plane, while the fibers are nearly vertical. bent backward by pulling the cord, spring forward the middle of the multiple In each of these machines the free ends of the arms when this is released, carrying with them the cord, loop of horse- are connected by a cord. When the middle of this cord ' 0 hair and turn- . FIg. 0.-A erot .onon or which transmits the impulse to the "quarrel," or dart, ed u n til the s t ran d s are is drawn back the arms, which at first diverge widely, Air Gun from Trajan's laid in front of its middle point. The ancient ord twisted tightly Column. together. Now, are pulled together and the two bundles of fiber are, nance, on the contrary, had rigid, in- consequently, twisted in opposite direc elastic arms, moved by the torsional elas tions. Then, when the cord is released, ti:�ity of bundles of animal sinews which, the arms spring apart, carrying forward however, were sometimes replaced by the cord and, before it, the projectile, horsehair or even, in protracted sieges, which proceeds freely on its course whe'J! by the long tresses of women. The Ro the arms are arrested by the stops. m:m writers grouped all of these "cata In the construction of these two-armed pults," as we commonly call them, under catapults Major Schramm followed the tht' generic name tormentum, which descriptions and dimensions given by the means a torsion machine, and applied the Greek writers Hero and Philo, who lived names catapulta, ballista, scorpio, etc., in the third century B. C., and by the to the different varieties rather loosely, Roman Vitruvius, who in the reign of and without clear distinction. The tor Augustus translated and supplemented mentum, then, was not a mere improve their works. Here a difficulty was en ment of the cross-bow but an entirely new countered. The ancient writers dis tin' device. Diodorus Siculus ascribes its in guished two varieties of tormentum by vention, probahly erroneously, to certain name without clearly indicating their dif eminent mechanical engineers whom Diu ferences, concerning which diverse opin nysius, in 400 B. C., summoned to Syra ions have been held by modern commen cuse from all lands to aid him in pre tators. Major Schramm has decided, on paring to make war on Carthage. It is 'a both technical and etymological grounds, significant fact that some of these men that the euthytonon was a direct-firing were Carthaglnians, for Pliny speaks of weapon analogous in function to our tile catapult as a Phrenician invention, rifled cannon, while the heavier palinto· and such machines are mentioned in the Fig. 1.-Three Roman Pieces of Ordnance (Euthytonon, Palintonon. Onager.) non was designed, like our mortars, to Old Testament as in use not only in the THE "ROlllAN ORDNANCE" AT THE SAALBlJRG. throw large projectiles over walls and Scientific American other obstacles. The Saalburg reconstructions were A NOVEL GUN ATTACHMENT. from the incandescent lamp will warm the handle, giv.

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