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Details
LOT 1414
Stone Ballista Catapult Shot
ROMAN, 1ST-3RD CENTURY A.D. OR LATER
3 1/8 in. (973 grams, 81 mm).
Roughly spherical stone cobble with impact scar. [No Reserve]
Provenance
From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000.
From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.
Literature
See Wilkins, A., Roman Imperial Artillery, Solway Print, 2017.
Footnotes
The operation of the onager (Latin for 'wild ass') is first mentioned in 353 A.D. by Ammianus Marcellinus in his Res Gestae and more fully in Vegetius's Epitoma Rei Militaris probably written in the reign of Emperor Theodosius I (378-395 A.D.).
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