Footnote 3 – The Spade Hits Sussita

The Roman Army used several types of siege weapons for discharging missiles. The largest was the onager, also called a scorpio. This siege machine could hurl massive stones. The Jewish historian Josephus states that at the siege of Jerusalem the machines of Legio X Fretensis hurled stones that weighted a talent (more than 50 pounds) a distance of two furlongs (about 1,400 feet [The Jewish War V, 6, 3]). The smaller machines, to which the Roman architect Vitruvius gives the general term of catapult (catapulta) were of various sizes. The smaller ones were called scorpiones and the larger, ballistae. (See G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army, [London: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1985, 3rd ed.], pp. 243–244.)