ram was used. It was a massive beam with a trumpet-shaped solid head of metal, and the machinery by which it was wielded was moved on three pairs of wheels. Connected with the machine, and forming a part of it, was a lofty tower, from the summit of

which, when wheeled up to the walls, the besiegers could discharge their missiles upon the battlements with more advantage. The front part of this hele

polis, or city-taker (as was the case with the spearheaded ram), was also raised into a sort of tower,— higher than the rest of the structure, but not so elevated as the accessory tower,-in which doubtless was the cross-beam from which the ram was slung. The upper part of this turret, as well as of the assaulttower, was sometimes pierced with a row of loopholes for the discharge of arrows when the defence was energetic. The whole machine was covered with hurdles of wicker. No tower appears to have been affixed to the engine in the later periods, but the front part of the frame-work was elevated into a sort of dome, for the better suspension of the beam; this construction was in use also at Nimroud.

In this, as in other instances, the monuments of Nineveh tend to show how unjustly the Greeks have been accredited as the inventors of many of the contrivances, which in fact they merely received from the East. The invention of the battering-ram is by some ascribed to Artemanes of Clazomene, who flourished about 440 B. c. Pliny alludes to a report that it was the work of Epeus during the siege of Troy; but Homer makes not the slightest allusion to it. Thucydides (ii. 76) mentions it as employed in the Peloponnesian War B. c. 429; and we may safely consider that the first acquaintance which the Greeks had with the engine was not much earlier than the middle of that century. Moveable towers placed on wheels for use in sieges, are said to have been invented for the siege of Byzantium by Philip, about B. C. 340. But here we have indisputable evidence that both were employed in sieges with great

effect by the Assyrians as ordinary implements of war, many years before.

We see also how little credit is to be given to the statement of Diodorus, that the long duration of the siege of Nineveh in the time of Sardanapalus was owing to the ignorance of battering-rams and other military engines, the use of which in his day was wont to bring sieges to a speedy issue.*

Vitruvius and Tertullian ascribe the invention to the Tyrians, and it has been hence supposed that Nebuchadnezzar in his siege of Tyre acquired that knowledge of these machines which enabled him to use them against Jerusalem, as described by the Prophet Ezekiel.

At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering-rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort. Ezek. xxi. 22.

But Nebuchadnezzar was doubtless familiar with them much nearer home.

The neglect of proportion in the drawing of these specimens of ancient art precludes the possibility of our ascertaining their actual dimensions. If we were to take as a criterion the human figures represented in the scene, we should conclude that the engine was no larger than a wheel-barrow, and the assault-tower scarcely equal to the stature of a man; while the warriors fighting at the summit

For ballistes to cast stones, testudos to cast up mounds, and battering-rams, were not known in those ages.-Diod. Sic. B. ii. § 2. (Booth's vers. p. 67.)

strongly remind us of a sweep projecting his head and shoulders with much difficulty from a slender chimney-pot. On the other hand, if we look at the besieged city, we see that the tower considerably overtops its walls, and frequently equals its loftiest turrets, while, sometimes, the warrior is represented as stepping from its summit on to the walls. It is probable that the latter proportion is nearer the truth; for such a tower, to have been effective, must have been made to approach the battlements at least. Vitruvius says the smallest ought to be not less than 60 cubits high, and the greater 120 cubits. Plutarch speaks of one 100 cubits high used by Mithridates at the siege of Cyzicus. Some of these towers were of twenty stories, each pierced with windows (as were the Assyrian ones); those of ten stories were common.

In order to hamper the battering-ram and destroy, or, at any rate, impede its action, the garrison let down from the battlements strong chains, with which they caught the head of the engine. The object desired was probably to hold it fast, and thus prevent it from being drawn back to receive a fresh impetus; for we can hardly conceive that by any force which they could employ in dragging upwards, they could hope to sever the head from the beam. But this feat might have been effected by a wellaimed blow with a massive stone hurled down from the wall, such as we actually see sometimes in the hands of the besieged warriors; and according to Josephus*

* Wars of the Jews, III. vii. Which see for an interesting description of the structure, power, and form of the implement, as it existed in that

it was actually performed in such a manner at the siege of Jotapata.

To obviate these efforts the besiegers made use of grappling hooks, with which they seized the links of the chain, and by swinging with all their weight upon them, endeavoured to drag it out of the hands of their enemies.

*

Besides the battering and spear-headed ram the Assyrians used other military engines. Two of these are represented in a siege from Nimroud, which, from an appearance like a twisted rope at the top of one, and several great stones in the air or open space in front of them, we may conjecture to have been catapults, but very different in form and structure from those used by the Romans, and difficult to understand. They are very tall and slender, somewhat resembling the half of an obelisk divided perpendicularly, marked with regular angled patterns, as if covered with cloth or stamped leather. They were brought up to the fortress on a mound, or embankment, formed of alternate layers of branches of trees and bricks. A man from the battlements holds towards these machines a large flaming torch.

If these be indeed catapults, it shows that these engines also were of much greater antiquity than has been supposed. Diodorus and Plutarch assign their invention to a period in the third century B. C., but they are mentioned in the Holy Scriptures full five hundred years earlier than this, and their

age, as well as the various devices employed to destroy and to preserve it; all illustrative of our subject.

Layard, pl. 29.