Onager is a formidable weapon of the ancient Romans

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The term "artillery" is associated by many with cannons, howitzers, mortars, etc. However, people created field and siege weapons long before the advent of gunpowder. The words "ballista" and "catapult" have long been on everyone's lips, although most often in movies or computer games these devices are not depicted quite correctly. A lesser known machine was the onager. This is an ancient Roman tool used to throw stones or Molotov cocktails.

The oldest metal parts of onagers found by archaeologists date back to the 3rd century AD. e., and from the 4th century these machines appear in written sources. The most detailed descriptions of what an onager is and where this machine was used were left by the ancient Roman historian Amian Marcellinus and his contemporary Vegetius. Let's take a closer look at this issue.

Device device

Onager is a throwing machine driven by a torsion bar, i.e., twisting force. It consisted of several main parts:

• powerful wooden base (frame) put on wheels;
• lever withtorsion bar made of durable and elastic fibers;
• crossbar that stopped the lever when fired;
• gate, which cocked the lever into combat position.

At the heart of any throwing machine is the force that sets the projectile in motion. In modern artillery, this is the energy of an explosion of gunpowder, while the ancient guns were mainly torsion, that is, they used the power of fibers twisted by a bundle - veins, hair or ropes. The end of the lever was inserted inside the harness. The lever was pulled through the gate or in another way.

Operation principle

For a shot, the lever, overcoming the resistance of the torsion bar, was lowered down with the help of a collar and fixed with a special pin. At the right moment, the knocked-out pin released the lever, which, under the action of the torsion bar, described the arc until it collided with the crossbar. At the moment of impact, the sling attached to the end of the lever, in turn, described an arc and opened, throwing out a projectile.

To mitigate the "recoil" when fired, a straw mattress was tied to the crossbar. But even under such conditions, the car could not be placed directly on the city wall, because the vibrations during the shots threatened to destroy the masonry. Onager was placed either on a bed of turf or on a platform of bricks.

The meaning of the word "onager"

There are at least two versions of why the car got this name:

• when fired, due to the impact of the lever on the crossbar, the car bounced, which made it look like a kicking onager - a donkey;
• ancient Roman historian Amian Marcellinus wrote thatwhile hunting wild donkeys, while running, the animals threw stones from the ground with kicks from their hind legs, which sometimes caused serious injuries to the hunters.

Onager is a wild donkey. Another version of the name - "scorpion" - the onager received, probably, for the similarity of the movement of the lever when fired with the sting of the above-named insect.

Combat use

Unlike a trebuchet or a ballista, an onager is a machine that was used not in the siege of fortresses, but in their defense. Another likely use is field artillery for direct fire. The historian Vegetius wrote that each Roman legion was armed with 10 of these guns.

However, the effectiveness of the onager in the field is doubtful due to the long reload time at a short firing range. When defending a fortress, when the attackers are forced to be at a distance, this is not a big problem. But if the armies met "in an open field", then it is unlikely that the crew of such a weapon will have time to fire many shots before being eliminated.

Modern reconstructions

Onager's throwing arm is often shown as a spoon in contemporary depictions. In fact, this is a fabrication. In the only verbal description of the machine that has survived to this day and left by Amian Marcellinus, a sling is mentioned. In addition, the sling at the moment of impact on the crossbar made a sharp jerk forward, throwing out a stone and giving it additional acceleration. A spoon-shaped lever devoid of thisadvantages, would be simply unprofitable, and also more difficult to manufacture.

For example, in the reconstruction of Ralph Payne-Galloway at the end of the 19th century, a machine with a total weight of 2 tons threw stones with a sling at 460 meters, and with a "spoon" - only at 330 meters. The mass of the stone was 3.6 kg. The researcher calculated that a stone of one talent (an ancient Roman measure of weight equal to 26 kg) would have thrown his onager 70 meters.

The powerful machine, built by students of an American school in the 70s of the XX century, threw stones weighing 9 kg almost 150 meters, and stones weighing 34 kg - 87 meters. The schoolchildren also tried to throw a boulder weighing 175 kg. He fell next to the car, but the structure itself was not damaged during the shot.

Modern military would certainly look at Roman vehicles with contempt. Nevertheless, to ancient people, unfamiliar with gunpowder and other explosives, a machine that threw stones the size of a human head several hundred meters could seem like a very formidable weapon. Even a distance of 80-100 meters is enough to inflict damage on the troops storming the fortress wall.

Marcellinus describes the situation when the Romans, during the defense of one of the fortresses, destroyed the Persian siege towers with the help of onagers. In addition, the damage that a stone weighing 30 kilograms, flying at a decent speed, is capable of inflicting on a person, probably had a strong demoralizing effect on those who were nearby. It is possible that the onager is also a psychological weapon that the defenders of the cities used to"cooling the ardor" of the attackers.