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I suppose it's too late to get rid of "cheiroballista" which is just a spelling mistake. (Pity it's the Wikipedia headword!)
The little machine described by Heron (or, as some believe, Pseudo-Heron) was called the cheiroballistra. Marsden believed (probably quite correctly) that this was rendered into Latin as manuballista (Greek cheiro becomes Latin manu, "hand"; Greek ballistra becomes Latin ballista, "thrower" or whatever -- the etymology is disputed). So there are really just two names. (... and neither of them is "cheiroballista"!)
The external links are pretty poor. The first one manages to spell it "cheiroballista" and "cheiroballistra" in the same paragraph. The second one timed-out, but the URL looks like Aitor's web site, so that should be okay. The third one, again, misspells the name in the page heading, and includes the painting based on Marsden's outdated reconstruction -- nobody would accept this reconstruction nowadays. And the last one seems to be a gaming site which, again :roll: , manages to misspell the name, and, again :roll: , includes Marsden's inaccurate reconstruction.
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The Wikipedia coverage of ancient artillery is a mess and the closest thing to the stables of Augeas. I once toyed with the idea to make an appeal to all artillery aficionados here to help out there, but this would have been asking too much.
The template was intended to bring in at least a minimum of orientation for the reader. The repeated changes of ancient terminology, such as from scorpion to onager, are better reflected in the articles proper. "Carroballista" is not included as there is no article of its own yet.
I made an official request for the article "cheiroballista" to be moved to "cheiroballist
ra". Forget about the external links, best thing would be to start all over again with most articles. In case, someone is willing to do, I would volunteer to wikify the text and keep an eye on it.
So far, I expanded on the Gastraphetes and crossbow (Ancient Greece section) articles. But given the enormity of the task, I am not planning to do much more. Perhaps the two of you should collaborate on a monograph on ancient artillery, that is an urgent desideratum!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastraphetes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
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Quote:So far, I expanded on the Gastraphetes and crossbow (Ancient Greece section) articles. But given the enormity of the task, I am not planning to do much more. Perhaps the two of you should collaborate on a monograph on ancient artillery, that is an urgent desideratum!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastraphetes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow
Stefan,
I particularly like what you've accomplished with the Gastraphetes description, kudos. Tension weapons aren't my main focus but from what I've seen it certainly surpasses the descriptions of the other weapons. Dane/Auxarcher is more invloved with bow powered machines. I'll ask him to check it out. I really like the leading photo and the manuscript illustration. The second reconstruction photo is iffy. It appears to be a metal bow. (Duncan mentioned that anachronism in the intro to G&R Artillery) If so, I'd suggest replacing or removing that one. The Onager section is better than I remember, but it's been a while since I had last visited it. Perhaps someone else worked on it. There are still a number of innaccuracies. I think Duncan would agree that the De Reffye type should at least be the first image seen. Personally, I'd rather not see the Payne-Gallwey or Schramm types included at all since their vertical buffer frames are nowhere to be found in Ammianus' text. I'm sure that would anger a lot of folks though.
P. Clodius Secundus (Randi Richert), Legio III Cyrenaica
"Caesar\'s Conquerors"
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Quote:It appears to be a metal bow. (Duncan mentioned that anachronism in the intro to G&R Artillery) If so, I'd suggest replacing or removing that one.
I removed it from the article. Unfortunately, removing pics altogether from the Wipikedia image database (called Wikimedia Commons) is very difficult, so one day someone may include it again in the article, but this is rather unlikely considering that the other pic is so much better.
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
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I have to say this is the best read in German on the early history of the catapult for quite some time: Schellenberg, Hans Michael (2006),
"Diodor von Sizilien 14,42,1 und die Erfindung der Artillerie im Mittelmeerraum", Frankfurter Elektronische Rundschau zur Altertumskunde 3: 14–23
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
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I have written the sections on ancient artillery for the new Brill Online Encycolopedia of ancient history (due to be launched soon). My word limits were 500 words for 'ancient artillery' as a whole - and then '1000' words for 'Roman artillery and siege equipment'.
It's probably the hardest thing I've ever had to write - and I must say I relied very heavily on the works of one Mr D.B.Campbell - who managed to explain in simple and coherent terms a very tricky little subject!!
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Duncan,
I actually made the decision to limit my reading (I of course read Marsden etc) - with the insane word limits there's not too much I could do beyond offer an overview. Since the site is pitched at an undergraduate level it should be fine...
