Sambuca (siege engine)
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.[1] 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.[1]
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
- ^ a b c 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,
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