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If the carroballista and cheiroballista are different weapons, what's that on Trajan's Column?

Mon Vier

A cheiroballistra uses torsion coils. It's not especially similar to crossbows. 173.66.211.53 ( talk) 05:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC) reply

I don't think ‘similar’ refers to the kind of spring used but to the general form factor and use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.114.147.138 ( talk) 03:17, 26 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Another editor has proposed merging carroballista into this topic, but (as usual) failed to start any discussion explaining why. After a brief investigation, this is what I've found: both carroballista and cheiroballistra appear to refer to the same artillery device, evidently invented by a Greek engineer for the Roman army, which used it. Carroballista seems to be its Latin name, and means "cart ballista", while cheiroballistra is Greek, and means "hand ballistra". Neither term seems to be common enough to require inclusion in my Cassell's or Bantam's Latin Dictionaries.

Since both articles seem to be discussing the same item, and merging them would not result in an unwieldy article, merger seems logical. However, the target is less straightforward. The proposal was to merge carrobalista here, but since the nominator didn't give a reason, that could be unintentional, with either destination equally likely. Here's how I see it at the moment:

In favour of merging to cheiroballistra:

• The inventor was the Greek Hero of Alexandria, who (duh) was from Alexandria, where Greek would have been the dominant language.
• The weapon might have remained in use by the Byzantine army after Greek replaced Latin (this is just a guess).

In favour of merging to carroballista:

• The weapon was developed after Alexandria was part of the Roman Empire.
• The weapon was used by the Roman army, and is known primarily from sources about Roman warfare.
• Carroballista ("cart ballista") seems like a clearer description than cheiroballistra ("hand ballistra") because the latter could imply not merely that it was hand-operated, but hand-held; the article speculates that a hand-held version like a crossbow might have existed, probably based on the name, but we know that the weapon was typically carried or mounted in a cart, and "carroballista" includes Roman-era depictions of this.
• This Google ngram appears to show that, while neither name is especially common, carroballista has been the dominant form historically, except for a roughly 20-year period from 1990 to 2010 when cheiroballistra was more common. A hybrid form, cheiroballista, also turns up, but is less common than either of the others; the reverse, carroballistra, was not found.

On balance it looks like carroballista is the better target, but probably all three names should be given in the lead. P Aculeius ( talk) 11:37, 4 August 2024 (UTC) reply