Greek Ballista

Generally, I followed Heron's Belopoeica and Philon's Belopoeica. However, those sources do not provide all the pieces of information needed to build an exact replica; they lack a detailed description of pedestal of euthytone, the dimensions of its trigger mechanism etc. Therefore, I constructed those parts to the best of my knowledge of ancient artillery in general. As my aim was to design and build a ballista that would look nearly identical to the ancient one, I used mainly gluing and riveting for connecting the material together. Nonetheless, my ballista performance was rather poor; I could not shoot further than 150 m. I ascribe this to the fact that the washers were turned by approximately 110 degrees. I could not twist them more because a 3 cm wide longitudinal crack appeared on the bottom hole-carrier (περίτρητον). To summarise, I managed to design and build a ballista which was like the ancient one only as long as the appearance is concerned.