Roman Ballistae in Modern Popular Culture

[P. Clodius Secundus]

I'm referring to the (obviously speculative) reconstruction in the upstairs gallery, which can be moved around whilst fixed to a pivoting point.

hock: Must've missed it on my visit last month.

Just to clarify, I was talking about the Tullie House Museum. It's in the upstairs 'Borders' gallery, on top of the Hadrian's Wall reconstruction, along with a distressingly heavy scuta (no reenactor I) and a miniature (broken) onager.

I'd love to a picture or illustration of the reconstruction if anyone has one. Is it winched or hand-spanned/belly-cocked. Your description of it as being swiveled on a fixed point would seem to indicate that it is more like one of Alan Wilkins/Len Morgan's winched and stand-mounted versions. Some see the lack of a stand or winch as a gap in the original text. I think Heron's original text is relatively complete and describes a small hand-held and belly-cocked palintone inswinger that was intended to be a modernised version of the gastraphetes and hand-held scorpio minor. I believe that Heron came up with the basic concept of this small machine. At that scale it may not have been suitable for military use, but that is not the only example of his genius that he never saw through to practical application. It is likely that some time after his death another engineer realized the design's potential by scaling it up into a full-sized machine. Because it was an in-swinger, the case, and likewise the base, could be much shorter making it practical for use from the bed of a mule cart or along the top of a rampart. Due to it's new application as the first true field artillery piece it was then re-named the carroballista, combining the word for cart (implying mobility) with ballista (palintone, it's mechanical layout). Although the two tems sound similar they are not really interchangeable, in the same way that a rifle and a rifled cannon are much different items of miltary hardware.