The War Machines Of Dimitrios The Besieger, (290 B.C) Options

[Eua1]

THE WAR MACHINES OF DIMITRIOS THE BESIEGER
(290 B.C)



Antigonides were becoming from the Epigonus those who succeeded and shared the enormous empire of Great Alexander. Antigonus the One-eyed had inherited Macedonia and later was the founder of the dynasty which lightened by his son Dimitrios, the so called "Besieger".

In 307 B.C Antigonus asked help from Rhodians, in the war against Ptolemaio the A', because they had big commercial exchanges with him, but they denied to help him. Thus, by command of his father, Dimitrios reached in Rhodes with a lot of army and fleet and beseiged the island so much from the land as much from the sea. We can say that Dimitrios as militaryman was equal to Great Alexander and the siege of Rhodes remained in the history of military enterprises because of the number of the martial
machines that had been used.

Characteristic were the enormous catapultes that erected stones of weight of 80 kilos in 150m. distance, the well-hoarding double “tortoise” (he placed them in two tied up boats lorries for protecting the men from the missiles of the sling-throwers "ïîiâåëþí" and stone-throwers "ðåôñïâüëùí") it looked with its protections like a giant tortoise as well as two four-floor towers, taller than the city's walls, which were also tied up and placed on lorries boats, enormous drillers, length of 25 metres, and finally, the famous Eleopolis (Literally, “destroyer of cities”), the most horrible besieging machine that have ever saw the ancient world and was manufactured by the mechanic Epimahus the Athenian.



An ironbound wooden tower, 47m high, 21.94m square at the base, and 150 tons weight, separated in 9 floors, each of which was furnished with machines for battering and discharging projectiles of enormous size and weight, full of catapultes of all kinds, with special metal coating so that it is not burned, reservoirs of water, besieger rams and naturally a lot of soldiers. It had 8 iron clad wheels which were 1m thick each one and they were 4.57m in diameter. At the siege of Rhodes Demetrius employed an Helepolis of still greater dimensions and more complicated construction. Besides wheels it had casters antistrepta, so as to admit of being moved laterally as well as directly. Its form was pyramidal. The three sides which were exposed to attack, were rendered fire-proof by being covered with iron plates. In front each side had port-holes, which were adapted to the several kinds of missiles, and were furnished with shutters that could be opened or closed at pleasure, and were made of skins stuffed with wool. Each story had two broad flights of steps, the one for ascending, the other for descending, a much esteemed description of it was written by Dioeclides of Abdera. It was no doubt the greatest and most remarkable engine of the kind that was ever erected.



Moreover he changed lighter boats to aggressively with three-inch arrow-throwers catapultes capable to put in distance of 500 metres arrows 65 cm so that they harass the Rodians when they tried to repair their walls.

He manufactured big battering-ram tortoises that they caused cracks in the walls as well as 25 m long portable drills (“korax”) to bore holes through city walls.



However the Rodians defended themselves so bravely that Dimitrios, magnanimous as it was, abandoned the siegge against them and moreover he gave them all his besieging machines as gift for their bravery.
These besieging machines were nothing more than the continuity of those that had been improved or invented by the engineers of Alexandros. They constituted the development of the besieging machines that unfortunately did not continue.

Source : : Barton C. Hacker, “Greek Catapults and Catapult Technology”, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE 9, 1968
W.W Tarn, “Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments”, Cambridge University Press, 1930

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