ARIES

ARIES also denotes a Battering Ram; being a military Engine much in use among the ancient Romans, to batter and beat down the Walls of Places besieged. See MACHINE.

Of this there were two kinds; the one rude and simple, the other artificial and compound. The former seems to have been no more than a great Beam, which the Soldiers bore in their Arms, and with one End of it, by main force assailed the Walls. The compound Ram is described by Josephus thus: A Ram is a vast long Beam, like the Mast of a Ship, armed at one End with a Head of Iron, somewhat resembling a Ram’s Head, that is moved forward, and recoiled backwards; and so shakes the Walls with its Iron Head: Nor is there any Tower or Wall so thick or strong, as to resist the repeated Assaults of this forcible Machine.



M. Félibien describes a third sort of battering Ram, which ran on Wheels; and was the most perfect and effectual of them all.

Vitruvius affirms, that the Ram was first invented by the Carthaginians, while they laid Siege to Cadiz. This was the simple kind above-mentioned: Epimachus, a Tyrian, contrived to suspend it with Ropes; and Polyidus, the Thessalian, to mount it on Wheels, at the Siege of Byzantium, under Philip of Macedon.

The Engine opposed to the Ram, was called Lupus, the Wolf. Plutarch tells us, that Mark Antony, in the Parthian War, used a Ram of 80 Foot long; and Vitruvius assures us they were sometimes made 106, and sometimes 120 Foot long, to which, perhaps, the Force of the Engine was in great Measure owing.

The Ram was managed at once by a whole Century of Soldiers; so that it played continually, and without Intermission, being usually covered with a Vinea, to protect it from the Attempts of the Enemy. See VINEA.

ARIES