Claw of Archimedes
The Claw of Archimedes was an ancient weapon devised by Archimedes to defend the seaward portion of Syracuse's city wall against amphibious assault. Although its exact nature is unclear, the accounts of ancient historians seem to describe it as a sort of crane equipped with a grappling hook that was able to lift attacking ships partly out of the water, then either cause the ship to capsize or suddenly drop it.
These machines featured prominently during the Second Punic War in 213 BC, when the Roman Republic attacked Syracuse with a fleet of at least 220 Quinqueremes under Marcus Claudius Marcellus. When the Roman fleet approached the city walls under cover of darkness, the machines were deployed, sinking many ships and throwing the attack into confusion. Historians such as Polybius and Livy attributed the Romans' defeat to these machines, together with catapults also devised by Archimedes.
The plausibility of this invention was tested on the television show Superweapons of the Ancient World, and concluded that the design—at least as we imagine it today—was improbable.
External link
- A Formidable War Machine: Construction and Operation of Archimedes' Iron Hand A paper describing the authors' ideas of the Claw of Archimedes, together with scale models of the Claw's operation. (Also at [1])
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