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A siege hook is a weapon used to pull stones from a wall
Defensive wall

A defensive wall is a fortification used to defend a city or settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements....
 during a siege
Siege

A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by Battle of attrition and/or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit." A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by a coup de main and refuses to surrender ....
.

The Greek historian Polybius
Polybius

Polybius was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his book called The Histories covering in detail the period of 220–146 BC....
, in his Histories
The Histories (Polybius)

Polybius? The Histories were originally written in 40 volumes, only the first five of which are extant in their entirety. The bulk of the work, except for the 40th volume, which was the index volume, is passed down to us through collections of excerpts kept in libraries in Byzantium, for the most part....
, mentions the use of such weapons at the Roman siege of Ambracia
Ambracia

Ambracia, occasionally Ampracia , was an ancient Corinth, Greece colony, situated about 7 miles from the Ambracian Gulf in Greece, on a bend of the navigable river Arachthos River , in the midst of a fertile wooded plain....
:

The Aetolians being besieged by the consul Marcus Fulvius, offered a gallant resistance [...] as the rams vigorously battered the walls, and the long poles with their iron sickles tore off the battlements, they tried to invent machines to baffle them, letting down huge masses of lead and stones and oak logs by means of levers upon the battering rams; and putting iron hooks upon the sickles and hauling them inside the walls, so that the poles to which they were fastened broke against the battlements, and the sickles fell into their hands.






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A siege hook is a weapon used to pull stones from a wall
Defensive wall

A defensive wall is a fortification used to defend a city or settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements....
 during a siege
Siege

A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by Battle of attrition and/or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit." A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by a coup de main and refuses to surrender ....
.

The Greek historian Polybius
Polybius

Polybius was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his book called The Histories covering in detail the period of 220–146 BC....
, in his Histories
The Histories (Polybius)

Polybius? The Histories were originally written in 40 volumes, only the first five of which are extant in their entirety. The bulk of the work, except for the 40th volume, which was the index volume, is passed down to us through collections of excerpts kept in libraries in Byzantium, for the most part....
, mentions the use of such weapons at the Roman siege of Ambracia
Ambracia

Ambracia, occasionally Ampracia , was an ancient Corinth, Greece colony, situated about 7 miles from the Ambracian Gulf in Greece, on a bend of the navigable river Arachthos River , in the midst of a fertile wooded plain....
:

The Aetolians being besieged by the consul Marcus Fulvius, offered a gallant resistance [...] as the rams vigorously battered the walls, and the long poles with their iron sickles tore off the battlements, they tried to invent machines to baffle them, letting down huge masses of lead and stones and oak logs by means of levers upon the battering rams; and putting iron hooks upon the sickles and hauling them inside the walls, so that the poles to which they were fastened broke against the battlements, and the sickles fell into their hands.