Top professionals turned up carrying Caesar's first ballista (8)
I believe the answer is:
scorpion
'ballista' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'top professionals turned up carrying caesar's first' is the wordplay.
'top' becomes 'noi' (resembles No p).
'professionals' becomes 'pros' ('pro' can be a synonym of 'professional').
'turned up' is a reversal indicator.
'carrying' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'caesar's first' becomes 'c' (pst letter of 'caesar').
'noi'+'pros'='noipros'
'noipros' backwards is 'sorpion'.
'sorpion' placed around 'c' is 'SCORPION'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scorpion that I've seen before include "Venomous stinger" , "Stinger with a long tail" , "Arachnid with venomous sting" , "Small spider with pincers and stinging tail" , "Eight sign of Zodiac, kind of spider" .)