Arcuballista
Arcuballista a crossbow, occurs first in Vegetius (de Re Mil. 2.15), but is probably identical with the scorpiones minores of Livy (26.47, 49), and the σκορπιδία of Polybius (8.7). The crossbowman is arcuballistarius (Veget. op. cit. 4.21). The same writer speaks of a manuballista as nearly the same weapon (2.15), the Greek equivalent of which, χειροβαλλίστρα, is described by the elder Heron in the first of his existing fragments. Saglio, who gives two illustrations from sculpture in the museum at Le Puy, well remarks that the name and the thing have both come down substantially unaltered (Fr. arbalète) from ancient times to modern.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.