Ancient War Machines from Viceroy Books

Botley, Oxford, United Kingdom: Osprey Publishing, Limited, 2003. New book, 48 pages, NVG078. Siege machinery first appeared in the West during the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily in the late-5th century BC, in the form of siege towers and battering rams. After a 50-year hiatus these weapons of war re-appeared in the Macedonian armies of Philip II and Alexander the Great,… Read more about this item

Botley, Oxford, United Kingdom: Osprey Publishing, Limited, 2003. New book, 48 pages, NVG078. Siege machinery first appeared in the West during the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily in the late-5th century BC, in the form of siege towers and battering rams. After a 50-year hiatus these weapons of war re-appeared in the Macedonian armies of Philip II and Alexander the Great,… Read more about this item

Osprey Pub Co, 2008. New book, 48 pages, NVG150. Elephants have been deployed as weapons for centuries, particularly in South and South-East Asia, where war elephants constituted the bulk of most armies in the region from antiquity right up to the 19th century. This book offers an insight into the incredible history of these ‘living tanks,’ focusing on the design… Read more about this item

University Park, Illinois, U.S.A.: Osprey Pub Co, 2006. New book, 48 pages, NVG119. Chariots, the first mobile fighting vehicle, seem to have originated in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC. The highly mobile two-wheeled war chariot, carrying a driver and an archer armed with a short composite bow, revolutionized military tactics after 1700 BC. This expensive weapon spread throughout the… Read more about this item

University Park, Illinois, U.S.A.: Osprey Pub Co, 2003. New book, 48 pages, NVG089. The catapult (katapeltikon) was invented under the patronage of Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse, in the 4th century bc. At first only the arrow-firing variant was used, and it was not until the reign of Alexander the Great that stone-projecting catapults were introduced. The Romans adopted these… Read more about this item

University Park, Illinois, U.S.A.: Osprey Pub Co, 2005. New book, 64 pages, ELI126. Sieges were often pivotal in Rome’s wars, including its conflicts with the Macedonians and Carthaginians in the 2nd century BC; the civil wars of the Republic; and the late Roman wars against the Sassanid Persians, who, alone amongst Rome’s adversaries, were equally skilled in siegecraft. This book… Read more about this item