Annotations by Wade Hutchison
Baatz, D. 1978: "Recent Finds of Ancient Artillery, Britannia 9, 1-17
An article discussing the find of a 3rd century AD stone-throwing ballista at Hattra. It
also discusses the find of cheiroballistra frame pieces at Orşova,
Gravett, C., 1990: Medieval Siege Warfare, Osprey, Elite series; v. 28
Although most of this Osprey book deals with medieval siege engines, it has several illustrations of torsional engines.
Iriarte, A, 2000: "Pseudo-Heron's cheiroballistra a(nother) reconstruction: I. Theoretics", Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies, 11, 47-75
An interpretation of the cheiroballistra as a hand-held weapon. Contains good commentary on pseudo-Heron's text. Describes a general approach to reproducing ancient Roman artillery, and contains a good description of the cheiroballistra trigger mechanism.
Landels, J.G., 1978: Engineering in the Ancient World, Univ. of California
Although somewhat dated, this book has a clear description of the washer-tightening mechanism used on period engines.
Marsden, E. W., 1969: Greek and Roman Artillery. Historical Development, Oxford
Eric Marsden's two books, in which he used his mechanical insight to interpret Greek and Roman artillery manuals, are the starting points for all reconstructions we could find. Every article consulted for this project compares their interpretations with Marsden's. The Historical development volume presents copious background on where and when siege engines were used in the ancient world, and provides a framework to understand the details presented in the treatises volume.
Marsden, E. W., 1971: Greek and Roman Artillery. Technical Treatises, Oxford
In this volume, Marsden presents translations of all the extant Greek and Roman texts. He clearly points out some errors from earlier translations, such as a confusion between Greek and Roman weight and length measures. He also provides extensive notes on the text, clearly aimed at the potential modern siege engineer. Marsden's approach to reconstructing ancient engines is strongly influenced by the pioneering work of Schramm, as is his translation of Vitruvius.
Payne, A, 1999: The Architectural Treatise in the Italian Renaissance, Cambridge
A volume discussing the influence of Vitruvius on renaissance architects. Useful for background information on Vitruvius.
Payne-Gallwey, R., 1958: The Crossbow, Bramhall House
We did not consult any of Payne-Gallwey's sections on siege engines, as they are seriously flawed, but instead used his crossbow information to guide our string construction.
Rowland, I and Howe, T, eds, 1999:Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, Cambridge
The latest translation of Vitruvius, we came across this after construction was underway. Primarily used for background information on extant manuscript copies of Vitruvius
Schramm, E, 1918: Die antiken Geschutze der Saalburg, Reprint, Bad Homburg, 1980
Schramm used early translations to build replicas of every major type of torsional artillery. This reprint of the impossible-to-find original adds some updated archeological evidence in a preface.
Thayer, W., 30 Arpil, 2003, “Vitruvius on Architecture, Book X”, LacusCurtius: Into the Roman World, http://www.ku.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/10.html, (March, 2004)
This translation of the relevant sections of Vitruvius has a variety of errors in the numerical data for the scopion dimensions. It was identified as a source we could link to from the web site for the project without violating the copyright on Marsden’s work. The text is useful as an on-line reference, but the numerical data cannot be used as-is.
Caridad' (Caminreal, Teruel), Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies, 8, 167-99
A paper describing the archeological find, along with CAD drawings of the metal plating, washers and rebates found at Caminreal.
Wilkins, A, 2000, "Scorpio and Cheiroballistra", Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies, 11, 77-101
An excellent paper that discusses the translation of Vitruvius, with several corrections to Marsden’s translation. It also includes a discussion about a reconstruction of a 3-span scorpion very similar to our engine. He also has data on the power and firing accuracy of the scorpion and a cheiroballistra – they shot bolts at a dummy wearing period roman armor and discuss the results.