This article is in two parts. The first part, in Italian, by Giuseppe Schinco, is a study of the typology and technical characteristics of a group of 225 lead slingshots found rather more than twenty years ago by a private metal detectorist on the hill of Botromagno near Gravina in Puglia. The second part, in English, by Alastair Small, is a review of the archaeological evidence for a possible siege of the site within the time frame suggested by the typological study of the slingshots. Since the site, which can be identified with the ancient Silvium, can be shown to have been abandoned around the end of the first quarter of the first century BC within that time frame, we conclude that the siege most probably took place during the slave war of 73–70 BC associated with Spartacus.