Mechanical Behaviour and Perfomances of the Artillery of the Roman Legions

The mechanical behavior and the performances of the throwing machines used by the Roman Legions ares presented. The paper starts from a synopsis of the studies that were carried on by the author, sometimes in cooperation with some colleagues, in the last 15 years on ancient throwing machines and represent the (almost) final results of this branch of his researches. The presented machines are: the ballista, the catapult, the repeating catapult, the carroballista and the onager. So, both direct firing and high arching artillery was considered. These machines belong to a period of time ranging from the II Century B.C. to the fall of the Empire in V Century A.D., but mostly belong to the Imperial Roman Armies.

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