The early history of the crossbow

[Eleatic Guest]

The earliest reasonably reliable date for the crossbow is from the 5th century BC,[3] from the Greek world. The historian Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC), described the invention of a mechanical arrow firing catapult (katapeltikon) by a Greek task force in 399 BC.[4][5] The weapon was soon after employed against Motya (397 BC), a key Carthaginian stronghold in Sicily.[6][7] Diodorus is assumed to have drawn his description from the highly rated[8] history of Philistus, a contemporary of the events then. The date of the introduction of crossbows, however, can be dated further back: According to the inventor Hero of Alexandria (fl. 1st c. AD), who referred to the now lost works of the 3rd century BC engineer Ctesibius, this weapon was inspired by an earlier hand-held crossbow, called the gastraphetes (belly shooter), which could store more energy than the Greek bows. A detailed description of the gastraphetes, along with a drawing, is found in Heron's technical treatise Belopoeica.[9][10] A third Greek author, Biton (fl. 2nd c. BC), whose reliability has been positively reevaluated by recent scholarship,[11][5] described two advanced forms of the gastraphetes, which he credits to Zopyros, an engineer from southern Italy. Zopyrus has been plausibly equated with a Pythagorean of that name who seems to have flourished in the late 5th century BC.[12][13] He probably designed his bow-machines on the occasion of the sieges of Cumae and Milet between 421 BC and 401 BC.[14][15] The bows of these machines already featured a winched pull back system and could apparently throw two missile at once.[7]

From the mid-fourth century BC onwards, evidence of the Greek use of crossbows becomes more dense and varied: Arrow firing machines (katapaltai) are briefly mentioned by Aeneas Tacticus in his treatise on siegecraft written around 350 BC.[7] An extant inscription from the Athenian arsenal, dated between 338 and 326 BC, lists a number of stored catapults with shooting bolts of varying size and springs of sinews.[16] The later entry is particularly noteworthy as it constitutes the first clear evidence for the switch to torsion catapults which are more powerful than the flexible crossbows and came to dominate Greek and Roman artillery design thereafter.[7] Another Athenian inventory from 330-329 BC includes catapults bolts with heads and flights.[16] Arrow firing machines in action are reported from Philip II's siege of Perinth (Thrace) in 340 BC.[17] At the same time, Greek fortifications began to feature high towers with shuttered windows in the top, presumably to house anti-personnel arrow shooters, as in Aigosthena.[18] In Roman times the crossbow became to be known as arcuballista.[19]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow

Two questions:
1. Can we call arrow shooters crossbows as well, particularly in English? I am lead here by terminology designating bow machines as double siege crossbows, etc.
2. Any more evidence for the 5th and 4th c. BC? Archaeological remains, inscriptions, etc.?