The defenders of Amida use scorpions to destroy Persian siege towers equipped with ballistae, causing many Persians to fall to their deaths or be crushed.
Cumque omni ex latere armorum et operum beluarumque molibus urgeremur, per scorpionum ferreas fundas e propugnaculis subinde rotundi lapides iacti, dissolutis turrium coagmentis, ballistas earumque tortores ita fudere praecipites, ut quidam citra vulnerum noxas, alii obtriti magnitudine ponderum interirent,
Translation :
And while we were hard pressed on every side by weight of armed men, siege-works, and monsters, round stones hurled at intervals from the battlements by the iron arms of our scorpions shattered the joints of the towers, and threw down the ballistae and those who worked them in such headlong fashion, that some perished without injury from wounds, others were crushed to death by the great weight of debris.
Edition :
Ammianus Marcellinus. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935-1940.
