2 Chronicles 26:15

He made in Jerusalem engines, &c.— This is the first time that we read of any machine either for besieging or defending towns; which is plainly the reason why sieges were of so long a continuance before the invention of these. Homer, who is the most ancient Greek writer that we know of who treats of sieges, describes a kind of entrenchment, (though a poor one,) some lines of circumvallation, and a ditch with palisades; but we hear not a word of any machines, such as the ballistae, and catapultae, which were used for the hurling of stones and throwing darts; and therefore we need less wonder that the famous siege of Troy continued so long. Sardanapalus, king of Assyria, maintained himself in Nineveh for seven years, because the besiegers (as Diodorus observes, lib. 2:) wanted such engines as were fit for demolishing and taking of cities, they being not then invented. Salmanezer lay three years before Samaria, 2 Kings 17:5., and as some say, Psammiticus twenty before Azoth. See Aristeas de LXX Interp. Now, of Uzziah it is said, that he made in Jerusalem engines invented by cunning men, to be on the towers, and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones; so that it must needs be a mistake to attribute the invention of the ballista, the scorpio, or the onager, (whereof Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. 23: cap. 2 has given us the descriptions,) to the Greeks or Romans, because we find them made use of in the east before the Greeks had brought the military art to any great perfection. Uzziah was certainly the first inventor of them; and therefore it is said, that for these and other warlike preparations his name was spread abroad. From this time they began to be employed both in attacking and defending towns; and therefore we find the prophet Ezekiel describing the future sieges of Jerusalem and Tyre, where he makes mention of battering rams and engines of war, or, as it should be rendered, machines of cords, which, in all probability, were what later ages called their ballistae and catapultae.