in antiquity, a military engine contrived for the throwing of arrows, darts, and stones, upon the enemy.

Some of these engines were of such force, that they would throw stones of an hundred weight. Josephus takes notice of the surprising effects of these engines, and says, that the stones thrown out of them beat down the battlements, knocked off the angles of the towers, and would level a whole file of men, from one end to the other, were the phalanx never so deep.