Biton’s Construction of Machines of War and Catapults describes six machines by five engineers or inventors; the fourth machine is a rolling elevatable scaling ladder, named sambukē, designed by one Damis of Kolophōn. The first sambukē was invented by Herakleides of Taras, in 214 BCE, for the Roman siege of Syracuse. Biton is often dismissed as incomprehensible or preposterous. I here argue that the account of Damis’ device is largely coherent and shows that Biton understood that Damis had built a machine that embodied Archimedean principles. The machine embodies three such principles: (1) the proportionate balancing of the torques on a lever (from Plane Equilibria, an early work); (2) the concept of specific gravity or density (from Floating Bodies, a late work); and (3) the κοχλίας, i.e., a worm drive (invented ca 240 BCE), with the toothed wheel functioning as the horizontal axis of rotation of the elevated ladder. Moreover, the stone-thrower of Isidoros of Abydos (the second machine in Biton) also embodies the κοχλίας.

比顿的《战争机器和弹射器的构造》描述了五位工程师或发明家的六种机器；第四台机器是滚动式升降云梯，名为sambukē，由 Kolophōn 的 Damis 设计。第一个sambukē是塔拉斯的赫拉克莱德 (Herakleides of Taras) 于公元前 214 年为罗马围攻锡拉丘兹 (Syracuse) 时发明的。比顿经常被认为难以理解或荒谬而被驳回。我在这里认为，对达米斯装置的描述在很大程度上是连贯的，并且表明比顿理解达米斯建造了一台体现阿基米德原理的机器。该机器体现了三个这样的原则：（1）杠杆上的扭矩按比例平衡（来自早期作品《平面平衡》）； （2）比重或密度的概念（来自后期作品《Floating Bodies 》）； (3) κοχλίας，即蜗杆传动装置（约公元前 240 年发明），其齿轮充当高架梯子的水平旋转轴。此外，阿比多斯的伊西多罗斯的投石机（比顿的第二台机器）也体现了κοχλίας。