Google's Trebuchet Misfire

It is fake history to say that Greek Hoplites and Roman Centurions used trebuchets.

Yesterday, we directed you to check out the Google sponsored "Storm the Citadel" trebuchet competition that was held on Saturday, February, 8th, at The Citadel, Military College of South Carolina. It looks like a great event and a fantastic way to introduce young people to the fields of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). It gets students involved in actually building things with their hands that are governed by the laws of physics and described by mathematical principles, which is basic engineering.

The Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival has endorsed that same idea of getting kids involved in engineering since we started hurling pumpkins back at the first Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival in 2009. Since our very first festival we have included a Lightweight trebuchet division, for kids age 10 and below, and a Junior Middleweight division for age 17 and below.

We were mildly mortified yesterday, when we realized that this Google sponsored event was apparently the 10th annual "Storm the Citadel" day, yet the first time we had become aware of it. Thank you very much Twitter. We had thought we were up to speed on what the major trebuchet competitions were around the country. Storm the Citadel with over 700 schools from South Carolina, and Florida participating, might be the biggest one of them all.

Google being Google, it looks like they sponsored and helped organize a really fun and educational day for all the people involved, plus they had great weather. This is based on the tweets and pics about the event that we saw online.

So, perhaps Google can be forgiven for not considering the subject of history when it organized its STEM "Storm the Citadel" event. After all history is considered a so called soft science or subject that is not the same as a hard science like math or physics. A good description of history on the quora website says:

History should be considered as both science and art. History is sometimes classified with the social sciences and sometimes with the “arts”. History is considered a science because, on the level of appearances, it seems to answer our questions about people, places, things, and dates...

That last word, dates, presents a very minor sticking point that we feel somewhat obligated to point out about "Storm the Citadel"

"Storm the Citadel" breaks down their trebuchet competition into 3 divisions:

1. Hoplite Division (Grades K-5)
2. Centurion Division (Grades 6-12, College/Org/Military) 
3. Barbarian Division (Invitation Only)

When we first saw these trebuchet levels, we said wow, this is a much cooler way to name your divisions, than something as prosaic as lightweight, middleweight, and heavyweight, like we do. It figures that Google would do things one better. But, then after sleeping on it, it dawned on us that Google or The Citadel Military College, whoever had came up with these division names, was making a historical mistake.

Historically speaking, trebuchets were not around for either the Hoplites, or the Centurions, to use. Therefore, Google by suggesting that Greek Hoplites and Roman Centurions used trebuchets is actually promoting fake history.

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Here are the facts.

Hoplite warrior on ancient Greek vase

Hoplites, as defined by Wikipedia, were citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greek city-states who were primarily armed with spears and shields. They utilized the phalanx formation in order to be effective in war with fewer soldiers. The exact time when hoplite warfare was developed is uncertain, the prevalent theory being that it was established sometime during the 8th or 7th century BC. It goes on to say: "After the Macedonian conquests of the 4th century BC, the hoplite was slowly abandoned in favour of the phalangite, armed in the Macedonian fashion, in the armies of the southern Greek states. Although clearly a development of the hoplite, the Macedonian phalanx was tactically more versatile." 

So, the historical record is that Hoplites ruled the battlefield from the 8th-7th century BC to around the 4th century BC. Some other sources said they survived into the late 3rd - early 2nd century BC.

Trebuchets would have been unknown military technology to Greek Hoplites. They did not show up in Greece until long after the Hoplites had left the battlefield. Wikipedia gives us these dates for trebuchets:

A trebuchet is a type of catapult that uses a swinging arm to throw a projectile... There are two main types of trebuchets. The first is the traction trebuchet, or mangonel, which uses manpower to swing the arm. It first appeared in China in the 4th century BC. Carried westward by the Avars, the technology was adopted by the Byzantines in the late 6th century AD and by their neighbors in the following centuries.

The later, and often larger, counterweight trebuchet, also known as the counterpoise trebuchet, uses a counterweight to swing the arm. It appeared in both Christian and Muslim lands around the Mediterranean in the 12th century AD..

Hoplites fought BC, trebuchets only showed up in Greece hundreds of years latter, AD. Additionally, the small Hoplite trebuchet kit that Google distributes for their competition is a counterpoise or counterweight trebuchet, which wasn't invented until over 1400 hundred years after the Hoplites ruled.

This is the very definition of another Greek word, "anachronism" --

An anachronism (from the Greek, "against" and khronos, "time") is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of persons, events, objects, or customs from different periods. The most common type of anachronism is an object misplaced in time..

Centuriao Romano (Roman Centurion)

Date checking Centurions, finds another possible anachronism. The rank and title of Centurion was probably gone or changed by the time the simple traction trebuchet, or mangonel, reached the Byzantines in the late 6th century AD.  The Byzantium Empire adopted Greek to replace Latin. So a Latin word like Centuriao (or Centurion) would have been replaced by the Greek word Kentarchia.

Wikipedia says: "A centurion was a professional officer of the Roman army after the Marian reforms of 107 BC." It does not say exactly when the last one stood on a battlefield, possibly during the last days of the Imperial Roman Army, which would have been 476 AD. That is when Rome fell to Odoacer and his barbarians. Trebuchets were not in Europe when Rome fell.

The "Byzantine Army" page on Wikipedia has a great deal of information and lists a command structure, but it does not include or mention the term "Centurion." So it does not look like the Byzantine Army, which came after the Romans, had the rank known as "Centurion" from our somewhat limited research.

This would be an interesting question for a historian to answer definitively: would a Centurion have ever operated a trebuchet? We think not. A Centurion, was a Roman infantry officer, and even if trebuchets were in Europe before 476 AD (100 years early), a then unique weapon like a traction trebuchet would have been operated by some type of specialist, like a siege engineer. Not by some "grunt" infantry officer.

Lastly, and perhaps ironically, some barbarians probably did know about and use trebuchets. As Wikipedia points out, trebuchets were carried westward from China by the Avars. The Pannonian Avars were an alliance of several groups of Eurasian nomads of unknown origins. They are probably best known for their invasions and destruction in the Avar–Byzantine wars from 568 to 626 AD. Yes, it looks like you could call them barbarians.

Google has misplaced trebuchets in the historical timeline. So, bottom line kids, Greek Hoplites and Roman Centurions did not really use trebuchets. But the barbarians did. And those who forget history are doomed to be engineers.