Cat-castle (double-purpose siege tower)

[Eleatic Guest]

Ever heard of a "cat-castle"? Sounds like a curious term to me, but anyway, Chevedden's description is pretty straightforward. My question is do we have more ancient literary references to the employment of such double-purpose siege towers?

The cat-castle built by Raymond of St. Gilles was a combination of a “cat” or mantlet and a “castle” or mobile siege-tower. Inside the “cat,” expert sappers loosened “the tower at its foundations with iron instruments,” while above on the “castle” other soldiers battered the wall and fought with defenders. Because Greek, like Arabic, had no word for this composite device, Anna calls it both a “tower” and a “tortoise.” This instrument of war was not unknown in antiquity. In 211 B.C., Philip V of Macedon besieged Echinus with a cat-castle (Polybius, Histories 9.41).

Paul Chevedden: The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet. A Study about Cultural Diffusion, DOP 54 (2000), p.83

[Sean Manning]

I've seen ancient and medieval references, but frustratingly I don't recall where.

In the original text of Polybius, he mentions that the towers also contained stone-throwing engines like Demetrius' heliopolis. He doesn't seem to call them cat-castles, so maybe the phrase is a coining of Cheveddin's.

[P. Clodius Secundus]

In J.H. Pollen's Desctiption of Trajan's Column he proposes that the three "mysterious engines" seen just outside the walls of a Dacian fortress near the end of the Second Dacian War served just such a purpose. He suggested that the curved blades at one end of each axle were rotated using the projecting prongs and were intended to dislodge the stones at the base of the wall. The barrels on logs were supposedly raised so that attackers could shoot over the walls and supress the defenders allowing the sappers below to work. I can dig up and post his exact text if you'd like, but for what it's worth, IMHO it's total nonsense.
Duncan Campbell champions Otto Lendle's proposal that they were Ship's Prow Tortoises used to deflect barrels being rolled down at the attackers. If that is correct, then they were "cats" but not "castles". You'd have to ask Duncan if he or Lendle shared Pollen's explanation that the curved blades were used like Cheveddin's "iron instruments".
I disagreed with both explanations and came to an entirely different conclusion as to their origin, design, and purpose. My views are posted on my Dacian Reaper thread in this forum. I later found out that my conclusion was nearly the same as the views of Karl Tittel and Conrad Cichorius so I think I'm in pretty good company.
In any event, Duncan is probably the best person to ask about historical sources for compound engines of the type you're interested in.

[D B Campbell]

Ever heard of a "cat-castle"?

I haven't made a study of medieval siege machinery, Stefan. But your "cat-castle" sounds like the classic Hellenistic (not Roman) design of ram-tortoise, best exemplified by Hegetor's Tortoise. You can see my version (ultimately derived from the late Otto Lendle's elucidation of Athenaeus/Vitruvius) on the cover of my Greek and Roman Siege Machinery. In general, you have a turret (Chevedden's "castle") mounted on top of a tortoise (Chevedden's "cat").

He's quite right that Polybius describes such a device at Echinus. I'm intrigued that Chevedden had realised this, as no classics scholar ever has! (I presented a paper on this to the Second International Conference on Hellenistic Warfare (Valencia, 2005), which has never been published.)

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I've often wondered how the ram works on that contraption Duncan.
It looks very exposed to countermeasures to me.

[Eleatic Guest]

Ever heard of a "cat-castle"?

You can see my version (ultimately derived from the late Otto Lendle's elucidation of Athenaeus/Vitruvius) on the cover of my Greek and Roman Siege Machinery. In general, you have a turret (Chevedden's "castle") mounted on top of a tortoise (Chevedden's "cat").

I was envisioning some arrangement like this. A standard siege tower brought up close to the walls, with miners sapping the foundations, while the crew of the tower gives them protection.

[D B Campbell]

I've often wondered how the ram works on that contraption Duncan.
It looks very exposed to countermeasures to me.

Me too! Basically, I was determined to follow the (sometimes obscure) descriptions of Athenaeus and Vitruvius as exactly as possible, to see what would result. The turret would surely be boarded in -- the painting shows parts of the machine in "cutaway" -- but the battering ram was supposed to be adjustable up and down (for no clear reason!), so the supporting framework had to be quite open. (By the way, there's no clear proof that Hegetor's tortoise was ever used in battle.)

I was envisioning ... a standard siege tower brought up close to the walls, with miners sapping the foundations, while the crew of the tower gives them protection.

Well, that looks fairly workable. (But, as I said, I'm not a medieval expert.) I should have explained that the positioning of a turret on top of a tortoise -- not only on the rather fantastical Hegetor's tortoise, but also on the more believable version attributed to Diades -- was clearly for the same reason as your "cat-castle".

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Adjustable up and down.....ah-ha!

So it could be boarded in all around, except for a slot to alow it to be lowered and raised!
Or posibly just alter the angle of attack? I can't recall, but was it operatoed on a pully system?

[D B Campbell]

So it could be boarded in all around, except for a slot to alow it to be lowered and raised!

Not so fast, Byron. We're talking about armchair Hellenistic design at its very best! Athenaeus claims that "the machine" (by which he means the battering ram itself, not the tortoise -- that's clear from the context, trust me) could make six movements: forwards and backwards (okay, so that's the standard ramming movement), to the sides (okay, so maybe it's supposed to knock material out of the sides of a breach to make the hole wider?), and upwards and downwards (whaaaat?! okay, so maybe it's supposed to gradually open a squarish breach so that it becomes doorway-shaped?). This was obviously a key feature of Hegetor's tortoise because Vitruvius mentions it as well (and he's normally the sensible one in all of this).

As I said, we don't know whether this machine ever actually rocked into battle. If it didn't, it's surprising that Vitruvius doesn't mention the fact. ("Look at THIS machine, everyone. I mean, how stupid can you get?!")

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

LOL, yes I suppose we can only guess. No mention of a rotating turret then?? :mrgreen: (ducks and runs)