Sambuca ( siege engine ) The sambuca was a ship - borne siege engine which was invented by Heraclides of Tarentum and were first used unsuccessfully by Marcus Claudius Marcellus during the Roman siege of Syracuse in 213 BC . Polybius describes usage of the machine : As well as these vessels he had eight quinquereme s in pairs . Each pair had had their oars removed , one on the port and the other on the starboard side , and then these had been lashed together on the sides thus left bare . On these double vessels , rowed by the outer oars of each of the pair , they brought up under the walls some engines called “ Sambucae , ” the construction of which was as follows : A ladder was made four feet broad , and of a height to reach the top of the wall from the place where its foot had to rest ; each side of the ladder was protected by a railing , and a covering or pent - house was added overhead . It was then placed so that its foot rested across the sides of the lashed - together vessels , which touched each other with its other extremity protruding a considerable way beyond the prows . On the tops of the masts pulleys were fixed with ropes : and when the engines were about to be used , men standing on the sterns of the vessels drew the ropes tied to the head of the ladder , while others standing on the prows assisted the raising of the machine and kept it steady with long poles . Having then brought the ships close in shore by using the outer oars of both vessels they tried to let the machine down upon the wall . At the head of the ladder was fixed a wooden stage secured on three sides by wicker - shields , upon which stood four men who fought and struggled with those who tried to prevent the sambuca from being made to rest on the battlements . But when they have fixed it and so got above the level of the top of the wall , the four men unfasten the wicker shields from either side of the stage , and walk out upon the battlements or towers as the case may be ; they are followed by their comrades coming up by the sambuca , since the ladder ’ s foot is safely secured with ropes and stands upon both the ships . This construction has got the name “ sambuca ” or “ harp ” for the natural reason , that when it is raised the combination of the ship and ladder has very much the appearance of such an instrument . They were used again unsuccessfully during the siege of Chios . This may have been the siege conducted by Philip V in 201 BC , but neither source specified the date . A different design of machine , also called a sambuca , was used unsuccessfully by Mithridates VI of Pontus in his attack on Rhodes in 88 B . C . The engine was built upon two ships lashed together and consisted of towers between which an assault bridge was hoisted . Mithridates ' sambuca had rams and projectiles as part of its offensive battery . During its deployment but before it could be successfully employed to transport soldiers , it fell . With it , fell the fortunes of the eastern wave against Rhodes , the Pontic king withdrawing . Fifteen years later , Mithridates again used a siege engine , in his unsuccessful attack on Cyzicus . Later classical sources confuse the sambuca for a ship mounted siege tower . Vegetius used the term sambuca as the name given to the assault ramp mounted on a siege tower . The name sambuca , is derived from an Egyptian harp which it was said to resemble . In popular culture . The siege of Rhodes is recounted in a humorous fashion in " The Grass Crown " by Colleen McCullough .