page_title: Roman military engineering
section_title: Engineering siege machines
hierarchical_section_title: Roman military engineering / Proactive and routine military engineering / Engineering siege machines
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Römische Carroballista (mobile Feldartillerie) English: Roman carroballista (cart-mounted field artillery)
context_page_description: The military engineering of Ancient Rome's armed forces was of a scale and frequency far beyond that of any of its contemporaries'. Indeed, military engineering was in many ways institutionally endemic in Roman military culture, as demonstrated by the fact that each Roman legionary had as part of his equipment a shovel, alongside his gladius and pila.
  Fabri were workers, craftsmen or artisans in Roman society and descriptions of early Roman army structure attributed to king Servius Tullius describe there being two centuriae of fabri under an officer, the praefectus fabrum.
  Roman military engineering took both routine and extraordinary forms, the former a proactive part of standard military procedure, and the latter of an extraordinary or reactionary nature.
context_section_description: Although most Roman siege engines were adaptations from earlier Greek designs, the Romans were adept at engineering them swiftly and efficiently, as well as innovating variations such as the repeating ballista. The 1st century BC army engineer Vitruvius describes in detail many of the Roman siege machines in his manuscript De Architectura.
caption: Roman carroballista on Trajan's Column, early 2nd century AD
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