of the shaft were bound with strengthening metal bands. Vitruvius details in his text De architectura that Ceras the Carthaginian was the first to make a ram with a wooden base with wheels and a wooden superstructure, with the ram hung within. This structure moved so slowly, however, that he called it the testudo (Latin for "tortoise"). Another type of ram was one that maintained the normal shape and structure, but the support beams were instead made of saplings that were lashed together. The frame was then covered in hides as normal to defend from fire. The only solid beam present was the ram that was hung from the frame. The frame itself was so light that it could be carried on the shoulders of the men transporting the ram, and the same men could beat the ram against the wall when they reached it. Many battering rams had curved or slanted wooden roofs and side-screens, covered in protective materials, usually fresh wet hides. These canopies reduced the risk of the ram being set on fire, and protected the operators of the ram from arrow and spear volleys launched from above. An image of an Assyrian battering ram depicts how sophisticated attacking and defensive practices had become by the 9th century BC. The defenders of a town wall are trying to set the ram alight with torches and have also put a chain under it. The attackers are trying to pull on the chain to free the ram, while the aforementioned wet hides on the canopy provide protection against the flames. By the time the Kushites made their incursions into Egypt, around 715 BC, walls, siege tactics and equipment had undergone many changes. Early shelters protecting sappers armed with poles trying to breach mudbrick ramparts gave way to battering rams. The first confirmed use of rams in the Occident happened from 503 to 502 BC when Opiter Verginius became consul of the Romans during the fight against Aurunci people: The second known use was in 427 BC, when the Spartans besieged Plataea. The first use of rams within the Mediterranean Basin, featuring in this case the simultaneous employment of siege towers to shelter the rammers from attack, occurred on the island of Sicily in 409 BC, at the Selinus siege. Defenders manning castles, forts or bastions would sometimes try to foil battering rams by dropping obstacles in front of the