[Dyrrachium (Durazzio) on the Dalmatian coast] ... he [Bohemund] was constructing machines of war, building movable sheds (or ‘tortoises’) with towers and battering rams, and other sheds to protect the diggers and the sappers, he worked all the winter and summer.
Source: Anna Comnena. The Alexiad of the Princess Anna Comnena. Translated by Elizabeth A. S. Dawes. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1928. Bk. XIII, p.327.
DOCUMENT 26 The Battering Ram
First he completed a tortoise with a battering ram, an indescribable object, and rolled it up to the eastern side of the city. And merely to look at it was a fearsome sight, for it was built in the following manner. They made a small shed, fashioning it in the shape of a parallelogram, put wheels under it, and covered its sides, both above and laterally, with oxhides sewn together, and thus as Homer would say, they made the roof and walls of the machine ‘of seven bull’s-hides,’ and then hung the battering rams inside. When the machine was ready, he drove it up to the wall by means of a large number of men pushing it along from inside with poles and bringing it close to the walls of Dyrrachium. When it seemed near enough and at an appropriate distance, they took off the wheels, and fixed the machine firmly on all sides with wooden pegs, so that the roof might not be shaken to pieces by the blows. Afterwards some very strong men on either side of the ram pushed it violently against the wall with regular co-ordinated movement. The men would push forward the ram violently with a single movement and the ram thus brought up against the wall shattered it, then it rebounded, and returning made a second shattering. And this it did several times as it was swung several times in either direction, and did not cease making holes in the walls.
Source: Anna Comnena. The Alexiad. Bk. XIII, p. 328.
World History
