On the left, the reconstruction of polybolos at the Museum in Saalburg (Germany) | Photo: SBA73 / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
In the world of ancient military, the Greeks and Romans perfected siege art, constructing machines that were awakened by the battlefields. One of the most fascinating inventions of those times was polybolos – a weapon, which can be called the prototype of modern machine guns.
Polybolos was an improved version of the ballista, which he mentions in his work Sytaxis (preserved only in fragments) Filon from Byzantium, a Greek engineer living in the 3rd century BCE. This weapon was to be able to automatically shoot a series of bolts (stored in a wooden magazine), thanks to a mechanism that he himself reloaded and tightened the chord.
Thanks to the use of gear and chain, polybolos could repetitively shoot the shots, without having to stretch the chord manually. The mechanism worked based on a carousel feeder that moved the bullfall to the shot position.
After shooting, the gear system moved another bolt to the position ready to be fired, and the chord was stretched automatically.
We have no more sources and information whether the machine was widely used on the battlefields.
- Marsden, E. W. Greek and Roman Artillery: Historical Development
