The Ancient Romans. Over several centuries they went from a small collection of villages along the banks of the River Tiber to conquering all of the Mediterranean basin.
For sure many a doctoral dissertation has been written on how and why that happened. But I think all of those well-heeled scholarly types have all missed a key factor: bad-ass-ness. These guys were all barely 5 feet tall yet in battle they routinely crushed Germans and other barbarian tribes who were orders-of-magnitude larger physical specimens – and the Romans were often vastly outnumbered.
At the Battle of Vercellae (modern-day France), a Roman army of about 40,000 squared off against several hundreds of thousands of Cimbri (a German tribe) and destroyed the entire force, forever wiping the Cimbri from the historical record.
So, yes, Roman infantry kicked ass. But what many don’t appreciate is that many of their conquests were won through their engineering prowess. And that’s because, unlike their contemporaries, the Romans invested as much into their engineering as they did training and outfitting their infantry.
Need to get over the Rhine river? Not a problem. In one week the Romans built a fully decked bridge.
Need to lay siege to a city and at the same time defend against a relief force? Not a problem. Simply circumvallate the city with a 12-mile wall to keep the city inhabitants in and then another 18-mile wall around that 12–mile-wall to keep the relief force out. Each complete with towers and very deep ditches.
OK. But what does this have to do with drones?
Well, we’ve talked about how an anvil is a better design than current drones but I think the case should be made that the Romans had even better drones.
You see, the Romans also used that engineering talent to create some (also bad-ass) long-range artillery. A Roman catapult, called an “Onager,” could hurl 60-pound projectiles and hit targets over 1500 feet away.
This means the Onager was the first drone delivery service. As long as what was ordered was the delivery of man-killing and wall-destroying projectiles.
Want to see an Onager delivering in action? Well, luckily there are some seriously nerdy types who get dressed up like Roman legionnaires and then post awkward videos showing off their excessively awesome onager-drone-delivery re-enactments.
And the Onager was also an extraordinarily cost-effective drone. You could throw a constant barrage of projectiles for hours for a few mere sestertii (equivalent to $10).
It was also the first modular drone delivery system, changing the Onager to fit the mission at hand. You could change the projectile. You could change the type of rope used to power (by torsion). You could change the style of the throwing mechanism.
The Onager therefore was the ancestor to the modern Modovolo Lift.
Let’s shamelessly and very scientifically compare the Onager to the DJI Matrice 300.
| Onager (Modovolo) | DJI Matrice 300 | |
| Modularity | Yes, you change the drone to fit the mission. | No, you can’t change the drone. |
| Cost | A few sestertii | $12k+ |
| Flight-Time | Many hours | 55 minutes |
