And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men,
to
be on the towers, and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows
and great
stones withal
Such as with the Romans were called "catapultae", "ballistae"
F21, "scorpiones" F23 and by
this it appears that these were not first invented in Greece and
Rome, but in Judea. It is said F24, that the Romans received
the machine to batter cities from the Greeks, and that the Trojan
horse was no other than a battering ram; but if they did, the
invention of them must be ascribed, not to them, but rather to
the Syrians and Phoenicians, according to Pliny {y}; though
others F26 suppose the Carthaginians, who were
a colony of theirs, to be the inventors of them; yet, after all,
they seem to be the device of some skilful men among the Jews, in
the times of Uzziah; according to Diodorus Siculus F1, they
were not found out when Nineveh was besieged in the times of
Sardanapalus:
and his name spread far abroad;
in distant countries, for his warlike dispositions and
preparations, which made them stand in fear of him:
for he was helped until he was strong;
he was wonderfully helped by the Lord to build fortified places,
raise a numerous army, and provide all sorts of armour for them,
and invent such machines as would greatly annoy the enemy,
whereby he became very potent, and injected dread round about
him.