page 384 note [c] That catapults, and balistas, and such kind of warlike engines, which had several different names, were in use in the time of our first Norman kings, both in England and abroad, appears from a variety of passages in history; a few of which I shall cite: Lord Lyttelton, in his Life of Henry the Second (vol. iii. p. 466), says, “Saladin assaulted Ascalon, on the side of the Continent, with thirteen “catapults, the great artillery of those times, which threw heavy stones against the “walls;” and this was about the year 1187, above an hundred years after the building of Rochester castle. Camden informs us, “That the strength of “the machines used for throwing stones was incredibly great; and that with “those called mangonels they used to throw mill-stones.” He adds, “ That, “when king John besieged Bedford castle, there were on the east side one petrary “and two mangonels daily applying against the tower; and on the west, “two mangonels battering the old tower; as also upon the south; and another ‘upon the north part, which beat two breaches in the walls.” When Kenilworth castle was besieged by Henry III. the garrison had engines which cast stones of an extraordinary bigness. And bishop Gibson, in his edition of Camden, says, “That near the castle they still find balls of stone sixteen inches in diameter, “supposed to have been thrown in slings, in the time of the Barons wars.” Holinshed (p. 839), tells us, “That Edward I. at the siege of Strively [Stirling] “Castle, caused certain engines of wood to be raised up against the castle, which “shot off stones of two or three hundred weight.”
These kind of engines, however, though continued in use so long as till the introduction of cannon, were of a very early invention, and were even used very frequently by the Romans. And what the effect of them was, we may conceive from two very remarkable accounts given of them, by Josephus and Tacitus. Josephus, in his account of the siege of Jerusalem, says, “That those engines that threw stones were larger “than the rest; and that by means of these the Romans not only repelled the excursions “of the Jews, but drove away those that were upon the walls; and the “stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent (that is above an hundred “weight), and were carried two furlongs and further.” (See Jewish war, b. v. c. vi.). And Tacitus, in describing a battle fought near Cremona, between the army of Vitellius and the army of Vespasian, under Antonius Primus, says, “The soldiers of Vitellius planted their missive engines on the ridge of the Post “humian Way, that thence, with more room, and over clear fields, they might “discharge their deadly contents: and one of amazing bulk, of the sort called “balistæ, belonging to the fifteenth legion, overthrew the enemies ranks, by pouring “upon them great massy stones.” (Tacitus, l. iii.)
