Note 27 — PART V HISTORICAL NOTES ON ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL SIEGE ENGINES AND THEIR EFFECTS IN WARFARE
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Sambuca. A stringed instrument with cords of different lengths like a harp. The machine which Marcellus brought to Syracuse was designed to lift his soldiers—in small parties at a time and in quick succession—over the battlements of the town, so that when their numbers inside it were sufficient they might open its gates to the besiegers. The soldiers were intended to be hoisted on a platform, worked up and down by ropes and winches. As the machine was likened to a harp, it is probable it had a huge curved wooden arm fixed in an erect position and of the same shape as the modern crane used for loading vessels. If the arm of the sambuca had been straight like a mast, it could not have swung its load of men over a wall. Its further resemblance to a harp would be suggested by the ropes which were employed for lifting the platform to the summit of the arm, these doubtless being fixed from the top to the foot of the engine.
28 It is, I consider, impossible that Archimedes, however marvellous the power of his engines, was able to project a stone of ten Roman talents or nearly 600 lbs. in weight, to a considerable distance! Plutarch probably refers to the talent of Sicily, which weighed about 10 lbs. A stone of ten Sicilian talents, or say 100 lbs., could have been thrown by a catapult of great strength and size.
Though the trebuchet cast stones of from 200 lbs. to 300 lbs. and more, this weapon was not invented till long after the time of Archimedes.