The conquest of new territories but also self-defense were the main reason why war was a constant phenomenon during Antiquity. War conflicts brought with them the development of war engineering, with the creation of weapons for defense and siege. Among the latter, the helépolis or siege tower stood out, a huge machine built on a rectangular base on which several floors of descending size were raised and which served to attack the walls of cities or serve as a platform so that soldiers could access the walled enclosures and fight the enemy hand-to-hand. Being made with organic materials such as wood or skins, no specimen has survived to this day and we only know data about these authentic killing machines through ancient written texts by historians and engineers. Related News standard Yes Greek researchers claim to have discovered the sacred tunic of Alexander the Great Marta CañeteIn this sense, the treatise on weapons written by Biton of Pergamon stands out, an engineer who lived between the end of the 3rd century and the beginning of the 2nd century BC and who wrote for the king Attalus II the treatise ‘On the construction of weapons of war and catapults’ in which he described in detail six war machines, among which is the helepolis of Posidonius. Thanks to texts such as that of Biton, we know that the helepolis used to be covered by layers of ox hides treated with fire-retardant materials or metal plates to prevent the enemy’s incendiary arrows from causing a fire in the tower and that, during sieges, They used to be placed in front of the walls of the besieged cities and, from them, all types of projectiles were launched. One of the main advantages of these machines was that they could be easily disassembled and transported in animal-drawn carts, which facilitated their use during the military campaigns of Alexander the Great. In the cities and after being assembled, hundreds of soldiers pushed the helepolises until they were at an adequate distance to hit their objective: the walls, palisades or parapets and break the enemy’s first line of defense. The tower of Rhodes and the helepolis of Posidonius One of the most famous siege towers of Antiquity is the one built by Epimachus of Athens and used in the siege of Rhodes in 304 BC: a gigantic structure 40 meters high with nine floors with catapults, two internal stairs – one for the ascent and the other for the descent of the crew -, and a folding walkway for mounting the soldiers on the enemy wall. Supported on eight wheels, the machinery moved with the force of several hundred soldiers. Posidonius’ helepolis was one of the key elements in the success of Alexander the Great’s military campaigns. In the description of the machine made by Bitón, it is striking that the engineer assures that only a few dozen soldiers were necessary for its implementation, a fact that contrasts with the information of other previous and later siege towers for whose mobilization it was necessary. the force of several hundred soldiers. According to Bitón’s data, Posidonius’s helepolis measured 28 meters high, had dimensions of 15×23 meters and a weight of 90 tons, -according to current calculations-. Empirical data From these data, the engineer and professor at the Polytechnic University of Athens, Theodosios Tasios, has carried out research, which has been presented these days at the III International Congress of Ancient and Byzantine Technology, to demonstrate whether the engineer’s claims of Pergamon were correct. Taking into account the rolling resistance of similar systems and after calculating how much force the soldiers needed to push the handles of the winch shaft, Tasios assures that only 40 soldiers were needed to put Posidonius’ machine into operation, organized in groups of 4, they pushed the 10 handles. It should be noted that the movement was possible thanks to a huge vertical winch moved by some soldiers, who marched in a circle on the first floor of the machine. «The soldiers pushed in a horizontal direction 10 large handles that protruded radially from the vertical lathe. The movement of the soldiers rotated the vertical axis of the winch, which in turn rotated a rope that transmitted the movement to the axle of the front wheels, which allowed them to roll on the ground, overcoming the rolling resistance. There was a similar belt for the rear wheels,” Tasios explained during his speech. The researcher explains to ABC that his study is similar to those carried out by other modern researchers (computationally or experimentally) for issues that help understand Technology, a fundamental aspect of Ancient Greek Civilization. «In this case, I was faced with radical disagreement between two great researchers, EW Marsden and O. Lendle, but neither of them cited evidence to support their opinion. It also contained Vitruvius’ empirical data (10.15.7) on the size of the rolling resistances of a large helepolis. The rest was simple engineering…”
#Discovering #Helépolis #colossal #siege #engine #Alexander #Great
