Ancient Roman Machine Gun-Like Weapon May Have Damaged Pompeii’s Walls During Siege
Before Pompeii was engulfed in volcanic ash, its walls may have been battered by an ancient “machine gun” while the city was under siege. With a third of Pompeii still buried beneath volcanic debris from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., archaeologists continue to discover evidence of the city’s turbulent past, including battle damage on its walls.
A study recently published in Heritage proposes a compelling hypothesis to explain several peculiar impact marks along the northern stretch of Pompeii’s fortified walls: This damage potentially came from a barrage of metal-tipped projectiles launched by a polybolos, a repeating ballista that may have been used to slay Pompeii’s defenders during the city’s siege in 89 B.C.E.
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Roman Siege of Pompeii in the Social War
Most people see Pompeii as an iconic Roman city, but it wasn’t always inhabited by Romans. The Roman Republic took control of the city during the Social War of 91 to 88 B.C.E., when it fought to subdue its Italian allies (or socii) that wanted either full Roman citizenship or independence, according to EBSCO.
In 89 B.C.E., an army under the Roman general and statesman Sulla marched upon Pompeii, one of many cities rebelling against Rome. Hoping to cut Pompeii off from resources and force a surrender, Sulla began a siege on Pompeii, according to Pompeii Archaeological Park.
In the end, despite a valiant defense by Pompeii’s residents, Sulla took over the city and added it to Rome’s ranks.
Evidence of a Polybolos
The damage to Pompeii from Sulla’s siege is still visible today; the walls surrounding the city are pitted with indentations from projectiles. Some of the marks are clearly circular, representing projectiles hurled by skilled slingers and ballistae (Roman catapults). But other small marks between the city’s Vesuvio and Ercolano Gates have stood out to archaeologists — these ones are four-sided and appear in a “fan-shape.”
The researchers behind the new study believe these marks may have come from a polybolos, which would have fired out a rapid succession of darts powered by torsion.
Digital surveys of walls with the four-sided marks allowed the researchers to create 3D models of the impacts. From these models, they were able to reconstruct what the projectiles may have looked like. The projectiles’ shape, they found, matches what a Roman polybolos would have fired, based on comparisons with pyramidal dart heads from museum collections.
The researchers hypothesize that during the siege of Pompeii, the polybolos may have been used to strike archers emerging from the bases of towers or defenders who briefly exposed themselves higher up in the fortification. The ancient weapon wasn’t used to knock down the walls; therefore, the marks seen today are simply the result of projectiles missing their Pompeian targets.
Clues From Ancient Engineers
The researchers also examined ancient literature, specifically descriptions of the polybolos written by the Greek engineer Philo of Byzantium in the 3rd century B.C.E. Philo described the weapon — which was powered by the twisting of natural-fiber bundles — as mostly useless when it came to hitting multiple targets, since its rapid-fire projectiles couldn’t spread well. However, it was extremely effective for hitting a single target multiple times.
The Roman army may have adopted the polybolos from innovations originating on the Greek island of Rhodes, where the engineer Dionysius of Alexandria is said to have invented the weapon several centuries prior to the siege of Pompeii. Not long before the siege, Sulla even served as governor of the province that included Rhodes, known as a hub of “engineering excellence” in ancient times, according to the study.
“It is therefore plausible that Sulla — a politically astute and technically informed commander — could have acquired or encouraged Rhodian innovations, deploying an enhanced multi-shot engine during the siege of Pompeii between the summer of 89 and the winter of 88 B.C.,” the authors conclude.
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