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Revision as of 02:28, 15 March 2009
The sambuca was a ship-borne siege engine used unsuccessfully by Mithridates IV of Pontus in his attack on Rhodes in 88 B.C. [1]
The engine was built upon two ships lashed together and consisted of towers between which an assault bridge was hoisted (ib.). The sambuca had rams and projectiles as part of its offensive battery.[2] During its deployment but before it could be successfully employed to transport soldiers, it fell. With it, fell the fortunes of the eastern wave against Rhodes, the Pontic king withdrawing. (ib.)
Fifteen years later, Mithridates again used a siege engine, in his unsuccessful attack on Cyzicus.[3]
In popular culture
The siege of Rhodes is recounted in a humorous fashion in The Grass Crown by Colleen McCullough.
References
- ^ Rickard, J (11 December 2008), Siege of Rhodes 88 B.C. , http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/siege_rhodes_88_BC.html
- ^ Appian, Roman History, "The Mithridatic Wars", 26, http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/appian_mithridatic_06.html
- ^ Duncan B. Campbell, 2005, Siege Warfare in the Roman World (Osprey Press), pp. 18, 33, 67,