page_title: Ballista
section_title: Roman weaponry
hierarchical_section_title: Ballista / Roman weaponry
caption_attribution_description: English: Replica of Roman Ballista in the Hecht Museum, Haifa
context_page_description: The ballista, plural ballistae, sometimes called bolt thrower, was an ancient missile weapon that launched either bolts or stones at a distant target.
  Developed from earlier Greek weapons, it relied upon different mechanics, using two levers with torsion springs instead of a tension prod. The springs consisting of several loops of twisted skeins. Early versions projected heavy darts or spherical stone projectiles of various sizes for siege warfare. It developed into a smaller precision weapon, the scorpio, and possibly the polybolos.
context_section_description: After the absorption of the Ancient Greek city-states into the Roman Republic in 146 BC, the highly advanced Greek technology began to spread across many areas of Roman influence. This included the great military machine advances the Greeks had made (most notably by Dionysus of Syracuse), as well as all the scientific, mathematical, political and artistic developments.
  The Romans 'inherited' the torsion-powered ballista, which had by now spread to several cities around the Mediterranean, all of which became Roman spoils of war, including one from Pergamum, which was depicted among a pile of trophy weapons in relief on a balustrade.
  The torsion ballista, developed by Alexander, was a far more complicated weapon than its predecessor and the Romans developed it even further, especially into much smaller versions, that could be easily carried.
caption: Reconstructed small Roman ballista
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