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(μηχανή , machine, 1 Maccabees 5:30, etc.; 2 Maccabees 12:15, etc.), a term exclusively applied in Scripture to military affairs. Such instruments were certainly known much earlier than the Greek writers appear to admit, since figures of them occur in Egyptian monuments, where two kinds of the testudo, or penthouse, used as shelters for the besiegers, are represented, and a colossal lance, worked by men who, under the cover of a testudo, drive the point between the stones of a city wall. (See FORT).

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