Revisiting Greek Automata: Clockwork Robots from the Ancient World

In this video, we revisit my modern take on Hero’s automaton and talk about the automata-making tradition in antiquity. Dr. Grillos Edition of Hero’s Automata: My earlier video on automata: Click Spring’s Antikythera mechanism video: My context on Architekton, quotes from Pappus of Alexandria, and of Philo’s funding by the Ptolomies comes from ’Greek Science After Aristotle’ by Lloyd, especially its chapter “Applied Mechanics and Technology“ though this book also contains a chapter on Ptolomy and ancient astronomy I got information about water clocks and the work of Philo of Byzantium from ’The Handbook of Ancient Water Technology’ provided by , this contains a section entitled ’Theoretical Hydraulics, Automata, and Water Clocks’ written by Michael Lewis: a digital copy of Cicero’s Dialogue ’De Re Publica’ which contains the account of Archimedes’ Sphere #iiitaplatestnewsin2021