Plate 14: New Attack on the Old Fortress by Antonio Tempesta & Otto van Veen 1611

"The Batavi had built a tower with two stories. This they pushed toward the praetorian gate, as the ground was most level there, but the Romans thrust out against it strong poles, and with repeated blows of beams broke it down, inflicting heavy loss on those who were on it. Then, while their foes were in disorder, they made a sudden and successful sally upon them; and at the same time the legionaries, who were superior in skill and artifices, devised further means against them. The barbarians were most terrified by a well-balanced machine poised above them, which being suddenly dropped caught up one or more of the enemy before the eyes of their comrades and with a shift of the counterweight threw them into camp. Civilis now gave up hope of capturing the camp by storm and again began an inactive siege, trying meanwhile to shake the confidence of the legions by messages and promises."

-Tacitus, The Histories: Book 4, Chapter 30

Plate 14: New Attack on the Old Fortress by Antonio Tempesta & Otto van Veen 1611, from The War of the Romans Against the Batavians (Romanorvm et Batavorvm societas). 6 3/8 × 8 1/8 in. (16.2 × 20.6 cm). Current location: MET Museum. Antonio Tempesta in collaboration with Otto van Veen published in 1612 in Antwerp a series of thirty-six etchings on the Batavians and the Romans in a book entitled Batavorum cum Romanis bellum.

Copy of Antonio Tempesta & Otto van Veen's work by an unknown artist in the 1700s.

Source:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/401516

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/RP-P-OB-77.955


Quote:

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Histories/4A*.html