I never really thought much about ancient Roman catapults, to be honest. Even with 7 years of college, two classics degrees, and archaeological study abroad in Italy and Greece. Catapults were never on my radar. That all changed when, on Friday, May 5, 2000 (I remember the exact date), I saw the Ridley Scott movie
Gladiator. And if you've seen it too, you already know what I'm going to say. That first scene, right? OMG. If you haven't seen it, stop what you're doing and go
watch it right now. It depicts the highly-organized, brute strength of the Roman legions attacking the "German horde" painted as an unsophisticated mass of dirty barbarians. A bit cliched, yes, but the weapons were unlike anything I had ever seen...or heard: the thump of the exploding pots of burning oil hurled by the giant onagers, the whiz of the huge ballista arrows, and the whoosh of the fiery arrows shot by the archers. The whole spectacle made me re-think the experience of war. Who considers the SOUND of war? Maybe I'm in the minority amongst Latin teachers, but I loved the movie, warts and all.
Many years later, I read Vitruvius' description of a Roman scorpion in Book X of his
De Architectura. I was fascinated, and cursory searches on the internet found numerous replicas based on his writing, the most descriptive being
this one by Wade Hutchison and Steve Godfrey. As I was contemplating projects for the first iteration of my Roman Technology class, I very much wanted to work on catapults, but unlike Hutchison and Godfrey, I had none of the wood-working skills that are absolutely essential for such a project. I turned my attention elsewhere that year and forgot about catapults.
A year later, I was working in EBR Schools at the #BestMiddleSchoolInTheParish teaching Roman Technology, and I was selected for a STEM fellowship. Fellows got mentorship with a STEM teacher who helped us to develop projects for our programs. I was so fortunate to meet Heather Howle, a STEM teacher who had written her own curriculum and valued the idea of integrating history and engineering. Through her guidance as my STEM mentor, I learned that STEM teachers use catapults frequently to teach force and motion in physics. The aerospace industry uses them to launch and land fighter jets off aircraft carriers through a system called CATOBAR, an acronym for "catapult-assisted take-off barrier arrested recovery." (
Watch here for an explanation of how this system works.) Thus, catapults are particularly relevant in today's real world, not just as a tool for learning.
As I learned more about catapults, I picked up some great ideas about how to teach them. One of the best catapult teaching units I've seen is by
Vivify STEM, a two-woman team of Texas-based aerospace engineers turned educators. Here's
a free one by Engineering with Paper (all you need is paper, scissors, and tape!) With these plans, I particularly liked that I didn't have to know wood-working to create devices that could be built by students and tested like ancient Roman ones. Unlike the real ones, these are safe to shoot with projectiles like q-tips, ping-pong balls, pencil erasers, and cotton balls. I always teach them in September because they teach students the basic concepts of the engineering design process. If kids have not taken a STEM class and/or were never encouraged to build with blocks as youngsters, they sometimes struggle with designing and building their own devices. Catapults are a low-stakes way to learn.
This year's students are no exception. They have LOVED learning about catapults. We began the unit with an overview of the Roman war machine. Of course, I add lots of history and textual evidence. We read excerpts from Vitruvius and Josephus, for example. The students learned about different siege weapons of the Romans including onagers, ballistas, scorpions, siege towers, battering rams, naval rams, etc. This past month, I got stuck in a research rut learning about the Balearic slingers and the bullets of lead and clay that they used. Fascinating stuff, and of course, I'm trying to come up with a safe way to teach them about slinging!
During our STEM labs, we learned how to build two models (an ONAGER and a SCORPION) with my assistance, and then they tested them with different projectiles for accuracy and then for distance. The students practiced using tape measures, recorded data, and then reviewed how to figure averages. (Math teachers love me around this time of year.) Then, we took it to the next level, and they designed their own catapults to fire and test.
If you're interested in learning more, see
my catapult lesson here. Let the fun and learning begin!
