Manuballista

[D B Campbell]

Dr. Campbell will pop up at a certain point I bet and I am waiting for his answer

I'd better not disappoint then! :wink:

I am curious when the manuballista was used, how often it was used, for what purpose and how it was used, and it's total effectiveness.

You're not asking for much, are you?!

I suppose the problem comes down to terminology, as Jurjen pointed out. Back in 1986, I looked at possible ancient hand-held weapons (in this article).

Marsden had suggested that manuballistae were "small arrow-firers which one man could operate, and very similar indeed to Heron's cheiroballistra" (1969, p. 197). Unfortunately, he had (in my opinion) misinterpreted the cheiroballistra as a small stand-mounted catapult, whereas I agree with Dietwulf Baatz that it was a hand-held weapon. I think it would be true to say that most people would now take "manuballista" as a direct Latin translation of the Greek cheiroballistra. So it comes down to your interpretation of that weapon. Alan Wilkins, for example, still maintains that the cheiroballistra was a stand-mounted catapult, so I suppose logically he must think the same of the manuballista (although he has not explicitly said this, as far as I know).

Vegetius is our source for the term "manuballista". He claims that men called tragularii stood in the battle-line amongst the light-armed troops and "aimed arrows with manuballistas and arcuballistas" (Veg., Mil. 2.15; also mentioned at 3.14).

Total effectiveness? Unknown!