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So much answers, that´s awesome 
I think i drive to Xanten and Nijmegen to take some pictures from the Originals and Reconstructions (and from the Coolus-D in Nijmegen, from which i have a copy ). With that, maybe it´s possible for me to make my own Manuballista.
Marcus Iulius Chattus
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Marcus, make sure you don't drive to Xanten and Nijmegen for manuballista. They aren't there! The reproduction is in the Rheinisches Landersmuseum in Bonn (in the exhibition 'Hinter das Silberen Maske'). The original WAS in the same museum in the exhibition 'Krieg und frieden', but that one isn't there anymore, so I don't know where the original is gone to.
But, if you're comming to Nijmegen, let me know, maybe we could meet and have a drink at the museum.
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@ Jurjen.
Thank you very much for this important information. At the end of August, it´s possible that my group is in Nijmegen on the Kops-Plateau. But it´s not sure, the museum ask us and we make an offer but have not yet an answer. I hope we will be invited, because, i was 2 times with my old group in the Heilig Landstichting!
Marcus Iulius Chattus
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About the Nijmegen festival. I know you were asked, because it was me who asked . I got the offer and are working on the programm right now, so I hope to get back to your group soon!
About the Heilig Landstichting. Nice place isn't it. (I'm a volunteer there since 2000. Maybe we already meet each other there, some years ago), when I wasn't into roman military re-enactment, yet.
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That´s Funny .
Yes, maybe we meet us when i served as Miles under Theodorus Andela.
Marcus Iulius Chattus
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I saved a time ago Aitor Iriarte´s web about the manuballista , so if anybody wants the full version, please PM me with a e-mail.
I will post the pictures later, too tired now.
-This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how
sheep´s bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
![[Image: escudocopia.jpg]](http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc320/iagoba_f/escudocopia.jpg) Iagoba Ferreira Benito, member of Cohors Prima Gallica
and current Medieval Martial Arts teacher of Comilitium Sacrae Ensis, fencing club.
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Excuse me for being usually MIA lately, but I have too many uninteresting things to do and cannot devote myself to the interesting ones so much as I did formerly... :oops:
Kurt Suleski's (Darius Architectus) stormthewalls site is gone, probably forever  Kurt warned me in due time, but I had some vague memory of having saved the hmtl files some time ago and I did nothing... but it was only true for the opening page and false for the cheiroballistra three pages (Where is that emoticon banging his head against a brick wall when I need it?)
Conclusion: Though the raw materials are not lost, all the work should be re-done before the pages are re-hosted elsewhere... Sorry
About the Xanten catapult, all of us are eagerly waitng for the final publication containing all the measurements. In the meantime, we don't even know its exact calibre but, I can tell you the I am very doubtful about it being a manuballista. Even though it looks tiny, its springs are thick enough as to need, when fully twisted, a windlass to cock the machine and, if we need a windlass, maybe we'de need a stand too... :?
Aitor
It\'s all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever.
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If anybody wants to download the Aitor´s article on Inswinging theory of the "Gladius" magazine, now is it avalaible for free download:
[url:2t4e50fc]http://gladius.revistas.csic.es/index.php/gladius/article/download/47/48[/url]
And more articles from Gladius at:
[url:2t4e50fc]http://gladius.revistas.csic.es/index.php/gladius/issue/archive[/url]
-This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how
sheep´s bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
Iagoba Ferreira Benito, member of Cohors Prima Gallica
and current Medieval Martial Arts teacher of Comilitium Sacrae Ensis, fencing club.
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Quote:About the Xanten catapult, all of us are eagerly waitng for the final publication containing all the measurements. In the meantime, we don't even know its exact calibre but, I can tell you the I am very doubtful about it being a manuballista. Even though it looks tiny, its springs are thick enough as to need, when fully twisted, a windlass to cock the machine and, if we need a windlass, maybe we'de need a stand too... :?
Aitor, hello. I came to these boards after your last active period, so it is good to see your words here.
I wrote to the museum in Bonn yesterday, to see if perhaps they can help me with measurments. I too am not sure, but it is such a small machine, it had to at least easy to tote about where it was needed. Perhaps a tiny crew served weapon with portable stand? Ship or defensive position engine? I will be making my ropes from horsehair, and that may tell us something of the power this small machine can generate, which may of course bring up more questions.
I am committed to eventually making sinew ropes, and have some feelers out now from a comrade about a university vetrenerian facility for large animal sinew. I'll approach slaugtherhouses as well, and as stomach-turning the idea of putting on rubber boots and extracting that much sinew from dismembered legs is, I am willing to try. Human hair is entirely possible, but that is for the more distant future.
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![[Image: Back1.jpg]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/tribunus/Back1.jpg)
Well, here is my interpretation of Pseudo-heron's Cheiroballistra. Nothing to do with the earlier Xanten catapult, as you can see, but I cannot lose the opportunity for this shameless plug :wink:
Dane,
It's for me always a pleasure to cha with other artillerymen, specially now that I'm a little 'out of business' due to lack of time...
Given the findspot of the Xanten catapult, I think that it could well have been mounted on the bow of some patrol boat and, anyway, the need of windlass and stand wouldn't preclude a detachable windlass and foldable stand 8)
Horsehair gives a good idea of a machine's power. When mi machine wasfully twisted, even with its small springs, one of the arms' mild steel reinforcing bars bent  hock:
I know a man here capable of making sinew rope and I have a sample, but it is TERRIBLY expensive. From my sample, I can tell that it recovers far better than harsehair!
Aitor
It\'s all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever.
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Aitor, what a splendid machine! I wish I had the metalworking skills to construct such a machine, but am happy sticking to wooden varieties. It must be terribly fun to shoot. I saw the video on your group's site, and was impressed (and wished for more footage with closeups). The sound the larger scorpios makes when it fires is beautful music, is it not?
Sinew is not cheap, indeed. That is why I will be, I suspect, forced to harvest it myself, a sloppy and stinky job. I expect to wear clothing I will be able to toss after  ) Share the misery, eh?
What comes to mind for me is a windless such as used in later medieval crossbows, the hugely powerful 200 - 400 lb. monsters. They would slip them over the end of the stock and crank away. Is there any research or archeological or pictorial evidence that we know of that point in that direction in the Roman world?
I expect I can somehow mount my little scorpio minor / manuballista (I've named him "Sharp Little Teeth") on the stand I am building (nearly done with it), but the scale will look odd. A small, folding stand would not be too difficult to pull of. But how far out are we going speculating along those lines?
Probably mentioned it before, but in the next year or two, I want to build a Greek gastraphetes. I'd build it with a true composite bow, rather than a steel one such as Schramm did. And another small scorpion with a 2" diameter spring frame will have to follow down the road, as well.
Artillary is so much fun And to think I was an infantryman in my service to my country's armed forces. "Red Legs" have fun toys, it turns out.
Dane Donato
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I thought the Xanten catapult was a scorpion, wich is different than a manuballista?
** Vincula/Lucy **
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Oh Dane, I didn't construct the machine by myself. I left that work for specialists. I'm only a designer with limited manual skills :wink:
Lucy,
I agree with you on Xanten machine being rather a 'lesser scorpion' than a 'handballista'.
Ancient terminology is inconsistent when not openly contradictory :evil: and we've got no actual Romans at hand to ask them...
Anyway, the term 'manuballista' only appears at later times. If an arrow-shooter is called 'ballista', that probably inidcates that it was a metallic-framed (inswinging  ) catapult and, therefore, not earlier than the end of First century AD. Of course, wooden-framed machines smaller than the Xanten one did exist, as the Ephyra 6 (34 mm) and Elginhaugh (35 mm) detached washers prove, but we cannnot dub them properly 'manuballistae'.
Aitor
It\'s all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever.
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Just the designer? Without the designer, no machine, I think
Then perhaps the terminology should be altered for the wooden framed small Xanten machine? Who decided to call it a manuballista?
I have used the term lesser scorpio for the one I am building. In any case, it is a small machine the shoots bolts / arrows. It will, for certain, look great in future parades with my legio.
So, what do you propose calling it, Aitor?
Dane Donato
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Quote:Then perhaps the terminology should be altered for the wooden framed small Xanten machine? Who decided to call it a manuballista?
I have used the term lesser scorpio for the one I am building.
LONG LECTURE WARNING.
Aitor and others have been scrupulous in referring to the Xanten "catapult" or the Xanten "scorpio", as this would undoubtedly have been what 1stC Romans would've called it. (We know this, because it's similar to the catapulta or scorpio described by Vitruvius.) It is a timber-framed catapult with a small aperture, which ancient authors tell us was suitable only for shooting arrows.
So you're quite right to call your machine a scorpio, Dane.
(By the way, none of the German sources that published the Xanten catapult have ever called it a manuballista.)
There seems to be a temptation to call small catapults "manuballistas", because this (late Roman -- it's from Vegetius) term probably implied a hand-held weapon. We know this because "manuballista" is the Latin translation of the Greek word "cheiroballistra", which is described by Heron (late 1stC/early 2ndC) as a very small iron-framed arrow-shooter. (Both words literally mean "hand ballista".)
So, by the time of Trajan, "ballista" probably denoted an iron-framed bolt-shooting machine, which came in various sizes from hand-held up to stand-mounted. But in Vitruvius' day, a ballista was a robust timber-framed machine primarily used as a stone-projector. We're not absolutely certain what happened to these timber-framed stone-projecting ballistas. It could be that, during the 2ndC, they were supplanted by the single-armed onager, although we don't really hear too much about this machine until the 4thC (Ammianus Marcellinus and Vegetius).
Here endeth the lecture ...
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