[Meaning] the siege machine [of that name]. It is so called because it collides forcefully and goes back again and does this continually as if it is fighting. There is a big horn resembling a that of a ram and the protruding part of the horn is overlaid with so much iron that it neither breaks off nor catches fire.[1]
[Note] that[2] the front part is called a protomh/ ["figurehead"]. The construction of the ram is as follows. 'A big beam resembling the mast of a ship; this is covered with a thick [layer of] iron on its end, formed into a figurehead in the likeness of a ram, from which it is named. It is suspended with ropes, just like from a scale, on either side of the beam, supported by a bottom cross-pieces at each side. [It is] pushed by a crowd of men toward the rear, and when the same men throw their weight against it toward the front, it strikes the walls with the protruding iron. And no fortress is so strong nor enclosing wall so wide that it can hold out against it, even if it survives the first strikes: because persistence' prevails, it takes the walls down.