ENGINE
ENGINE
Anmerhungen, part i, Erlangen, 1820, incomplete) ; on Richard of St. Victor and Ituysbroek {Rich, von St. Victor u. Joh. Riiyshrock, Erlang. 1838). Several other •worlcs ou kindred topics are preserved in MS. in the librarj' of the Erlangen University. Next to mystic theology, the stud}' of the Church fathers was one of his favorite occupations, to which we owe a work on patristics {Leitfaden zu Vorlesungen iibcr Patris'ik,F^r- lang. 1823). He also left in MS. a complete transla- tion of Irena-us. A biographical sketch of Engelhardt is given in the funeral sermon by his colleague, pro- fessor Thomasius (Erlang. 1855). See Herzog, Beal- Enajklop. xix, 479. (A. J. S.)
Engine {f.u]xavij, machine, 1 Mace, v, 30, etc. ; 2 Mace, xii, 15, etc.), a term exclusively applied in Scrip- ture to military affairs. Such instruments were cer- tainly known much earlier than the Greek writers ap- pear to admit, since figures of them occur in Egyptian monuments, where two kinds of the testudo, or pent- house, used as shelters for the besiegers, are represent- ed, and a colossal lance, worked by men who, under the cover of a testudo, drive the point between the stones of a city wall. See Fort.
were of much inferior strength. Darts varied simi- larly from small beams to large arrows, and the range they had exceeded a quarter of a milu, or about 450 j'ards. All these engines were constructed upon the principle of the sling, the bow, or the spring, the last
Komau Balista.
Ancient Egyptian Testudo.
1. The Hebrew "JlS'i'n, chishshabon (2 Chron. xxvi, 15), lit. invention (as in Eccles. vii, 29), is its counter- part in etymological meaning, each referring to the in- genuity (engine, from ingenium') displayed in the con- trivance. The engines to which the term is applied in 2 Chron. were designed to propel various missiles from the walls of a besieged town ; one, like the halis- ta, was for stones, consisting probably of a strong spring and a tube to give the right direction to the stone ; another, like the catapulta, for arrows, an enor- mous stationary bow. The invention of these is as- signed to Uzziah's time- — a statement which is sup- ported Ijoth liy the absence of such contrivances in the representations of Egyptian and Assyrian warfare, and by the traditional belief that the halista was invented in Syria (Pliny, vii, 56). Of the balistte and cata-
lioman Catapidt. pultiB it may be proper to add that they werfc of vari- ous powers. For battering walls there were some that threw stones of fift_v, others of one Iiundred, and some of three hundred weight ; in the field of battle they
being an elastic bar, bent back by a screw or a cable of sinews, with a trigger to set it free, and contrived either to impel darts by its stroke, or to throw stones from a kind of spoon formed towards the summit of the spring. (See Smith's Diet, of Class. Antiq. s. v. Tormentum.') See Wak.
Ancient Assyrian War-engine.
2. Another military engine with which the Hebrews were accpiainted was the battering-ram, described ia Ezek. xxvi, 9 as IS-p "^H'S, mec/d' kobollo' , lit. a heat- ing o/" that ^vhich is in its front, hence a ram for strik- ing walls ; and still more precisely in Ezek. iv, 2 , xxi, 22 as "12, kcrr, a ram. The use of this instrument was well known both to the Egj'ptians (Wilkinson, Anc. Eg. i, 359) and the Assj'rians. The references in Eze- kiel are to the one used bv the latter people, consist- ing of a high and stoutly-built framework on four wheels, covered in at the sides in order to protect the men moving it, and armed with one or two pointed'
ENGINE
197 ENGLAND, CHURCH OF
weapons. Their appearance was very different from that of the Roman aries with which the Jews after- wards became acquainted (Joseph. Wai\ iii, 7, 19). No notice is taken of the testudo or the vinea (eomp. Ezek. xxvi, 9, Vulg.), but it is not improbable that the He- brews were acquainted with them (comp. Wilkinson, i, 3G1). The marginal rendering " engines of shot" (Jer. vi, G ; xxxii, 24; Ezek. xxvi, 8) is incorrect. An en- gine for battering the wall is mentioned in the reign of king David (2 Sam. xx, 15) ; but the instrument it- self for throwing it down may have been that above noticed, and not the battering-ram. The ram was, however, a simple machine, and capable of demolish-
(Tj — m--
liorarm I3attering-nim woiked by hand.
ing the strongest walls, provided access to the foot was practicable, for the mass of cast metal which formed the head could be fixed to a beam lengthened suffi- ciently to require between one and two hundred men to lift and impel it; and when it was still heavier and liung in the lower floor of a movable tower, or helepo- lis, it became a most formidable engine of war — one used in all great sieges from the time of Demetrius, about B.C. 306, till long after the invention of gun- powder. Towers of this kind wei-e largely used at the destruction of Jerusalem (q. v.) bj' the Romans. — Kit- to, s. V. ; Smith, s. v. See Battering-kam.
Roman HelepolU oi i u\ ilil I \n buieJ.