Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
"I think, sir," the page said, "that did we send all your men below, leaving only the crew of the vessel on deck, they would take us for a merchant ship which has been wrecked here, and exercise but little care how they approach us. The men on deck might make a show of shooting once or twice with the balistas. The pirates, disdaining such a foe, would row alongside.
In the first place, the earl, though brave, was inexperienced; then some of those forty French ships were larger than the forty English ships, and the able frigates were quick rowing galleys, full of men-at-arms, who must have done much mischief. The French on this occasion also made use of balistas and other machines for throwing bars of iron and great stones, to sink the English ships.
Meantime the Hippodrome had been converted into a Campus Martius, where at all hours of the day the newly enlisted men were being drilled in the arms to which they were assigned; now as archers, now as slingers; now with balistas and catapults and arquebuses; now to the small artillery especially constructed for service on the walls.
The hermit Peter came forward to greet him; a shout was sent up by the whole camp; Godfrey gave him high reception; nobody envied him. Workmen, no longer trembling, were sent to the forest to cut wood for the machines of war; and the tower was rebuilt, together with battering-rams and balistas, and catapults, most of them an addition to what they had before.
"It is too true," the captain said. "Those are the galleys of the Moorish corsairs. They are thirty or forty oars, draw but little water, and will be here like the wind." "What do you advise?" asked the earl. "The balistas which you have upon the poop can make but a poor resistance to boats that can row around us, and are no doubt furnished with heavy machines.
Many, too, had aided in making them; and these were at once set to work to construct the various machines in use at that time. Before the invention of gunpowder, castles such as those of the English barons were able to defy any attack by an armed force for a long period. Their walls were so thick that even the balistas, casting huge stones, were unable to breach them except after a very long time.
Afterwards the king's troops drew back into narrow and rocky places, whither the Romans, keenly eager for fighting, penetrated also. These had in their favour order and military discipline, while their arms were of a kind well calculated for protecting their persons. In favour of the enemy were the advantage of ground, and their balistas and catapultas disposed on almost every rock as on walls.
In the evening battle. The advantage of course was with the besieged. The work on the mounds meanwhile continued, while the campania behind the intrenchment was alive with a creaking of wheels burdened by machinery, and a shouting of ox-drivers; and the veterans on the walls said the enemy was bringing up his balistas and mangonels.
Many, too, had aided in making them; and these were at once set to work to construct the various machines in use at that time. Before the invention of gunpowder, castles such as those of the English barons were able to defy any attack by an armed force for a long period. Their walls were so thick that even the balistas, casting huge stones, were unable to breach them except after a very long time.
The Mallas, mounting on the city towers, beheld the great supports of life destroyed; they then prepared their warlike engines to crush the foe without: balistas and catapults and "flying torches," to hurl against the advancing host.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking