L'apparition des premiers engins balistiques dans le monde grec et hellénisé : un état de la question

Abstract

The discovery, first at Paphos and then at Phocea, of medium-caliber round stone projectiles dating from a period preceding the fourth century B.C. have justly led researchers to ponder the invention of the lithobolos and its date of appearance in the Greek world. Reexamination of the literary texts relative to military techniques and tactics (both Greek and Persian), and the study of the archaeological environment in which these projectiles were discovered tend to rule out the hypothesis according to which the lithobolos was developed by the Persians as early as the sixth and fifth centuries. We must keep the traditionnal dating and consider that it was the Macedonians who first used a catapult with round stone projectiles. In 334, during the siege of Halicarnassus, Alexander was already using lithoboloi at torsion, which marked a real advance in the realm of military engineering.