A siege engine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare. Some have been operated close to the fortifications, while others have been used to attack from a distance. From antiquity, siege engines were constructed largely of wood and tended to use mechanical advantage to fling stones and similar missiles. With the development of gunpowder and improved metallurgical techniques, siege engines became artillery. Collectively, siege engines or artillery together with the necessary troops and transport vehicles to conduct a siege are referred to as a siege-train.

The earliest engine was the battering ram, developed by the Assyrians, followed by the catapult in ancient Greece. The Spartans used battering rams in the Siege of Plataea in 429 BC, but it seems that the Greeks limited their use of siege engines to assault ladders, though Peloponnesian forces used something resembling flamethrowers.

The first Mediterranean people to use advanced siege machinery were the Carthaginians, who used siege towers and battering rams against the Greek colonies of Sicily. These engines influenced the ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius I, who developed a catapult in 399 BC.

Michael Shulman (born December 31, 1981) is an American stage, television, film actor and co-owner of New York and Los Angeles-based production company Starry Night Entertainment.

Born in New York City, Shulman has been acting since childhood where he began his career in theatre and quickly appeared in more than 10 plays and musicals, including a two year run on Broadway in Les Misérables, the original cast of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, and two plays by John Guare. He was a member of the cast of Recess, and played the role of the Hustler Kid. It was during this time that he began his recording career and has since appeared in more than 5 albums. Shulman next turned to television and film and landed several roles, including Jodie Foster's Little Man Tate, M. Night Shyamalan's Wide Awake, Disney's Can of Worms, Fox's Party of Five (1994), and his critically acclaimed performance as Benny in the HBO special, Someone Had to Be Benny (1996) for which he was nominated for a CableAce Award (the youngest nominee in the Award's history) and won a Daytime Emmy Award.