Greek and Roman Technology

A Sourcebook of Translated Greek and Roman Texts

Andrew N. Sherwood, Milorad Nikolic, John W. Humphrey, John P. Oleson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317402404
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

In this new edition of Greek and Roman Technology, the authors translate and annotate key passages from ancient texts to provide a history and analysis of the origins and development of technology in the classical world.

Sherwood and Nikolic, with Humphrey and Oleson, provide a comprehensive and accessible collection of rich and varied sources to illustrate and elucidate the beginnings of technology. Among the topics covered are energy, basic mechanical devices, hydraulic engineering, household industry, medicine and health, transport and trade, and military technology. This fully revised Sourcebook collects more than 1, 300 passages from over 200 ancient sources and a diverse range of literary genres, such as the encyclopaedic Natural History of Pliny the Elder, the poetry of Homer and Hesiod, the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and Lucretius, the agricultural treatises of Varro, Columella, and Cato, the military texts of Philo of Byzantium and Aeneas Tacticus, as well as the medical texts of Galen, Celsus, and the Hippocratic Corpus. Almost 100 line drawings, indexes of authors and subjects, introductions outlining the general significance of the evidence, notes to explain the specific details, and current bibliographies are included.

This new and revised edition of Greek and Roman Technology will remain an important and vital resource for students of technology in the ancient world, as well as those studying the impact of technological change on classical society.

1

THE RISE OF HUMANS AND HUMAN TECHNOLOGY

The early history of humankind and its technological development is necessarily recorded in terms of vague memories and suppositions. The rise of humans is sometimes entirely cloaked in mythological tales based occasionally upon parallel conditions in contemporary societies. More advanced cultures had only to compare their own state with that of the primitive peoples with whom they had contact to comprehend that they themselves had once been a simple society. This development of primitive peoples into more complex civilisations was explained by a variety of methods.

Legend and myth are often used to explain the advance of technologies through the direct intervention or gift of divinities. Many immortal benefactors are cited, but Prometheus remains the most beneficent god of all towards humans (1.6). In the historical period, the bestowal of “gifts” by more advanced cultures upon less civilised peoples might be regarded as the practical realisation of the earlier myths (1.8–9).

Nature and natural phenomena (1.10–13) represent the second agency by which humans obtained their technological advances. Nature is virtually personified in some of the sources, making “her” godlike in her gifts. For the most part, however, these passages indicate a more scientific analysis of the advancement of the human race, attributing major steps in development not to human ability but to random elements outside their control.

The third major explanation for the rise of civilisation might be considered a theory of natural evolution. Humanity, because it is a unique species with unique abilities, is forced by necessity or driven by its intelligence and desires to improve its lot.

In all three types of interpretation, humans are often regarded as initially helpless, little more than beasts. But with their unique skills they are able not only to survive but to advance against all odds. These steps towards civilisation involve a wide variety of special qualities that are listed with reasonable consistency by our sources: thought, use of hands, speech, laws, writing, and the use of fire. Sometimes the most significant stages of progress are set out in a single passage; sometimes only one or two traits are emphasised (1.14–16). The ability to use fire must in many respects be regarded as the physical “tool” of primary importance in humankind’s early technological development (Harari 2016, Dodds 1973).

Early Mythical and Historical Civilisations

Many myths and legends exist that tell of earlier peoples and lands in which humans did not have to work for their sustenance or who were culturally advanced. Some stories record single civilisations that had been destroyed, others tell of successive generations and their decline from an initial “Golden Age” to ages of toil. The Golden Age represented a paradise when humans mingled with the gods and the age to which later generations looked back with longing. Its loss meant the loss of a simple yet blissful existence of early civilisation; the achievements of material culture with the accompanying moral sins of mortals were not adequate compensation.

1.1 The five ages of humankind

Hesiod explains how humans have fallen to the state where they have to work for their livelihood; sad indeed, considering that gods and humans had a common origin. The Five Ages of Humankind are, with the exception of the Age of Heroes, named after metals – each Age having some of the qualities of its namesake metal. But not all ages make use of their associated metals: not until the Bronze Age does metallurgy come into the saga of human development.

Hesiod, Works and Days 107–178

I beg you to consider seriously that gods and mortals are born from the same source. First the immortal gods dwelling in Olympian homes made the golden race of people who lived in the time when Cronus ruled the heavens. They lived like the gods, carefree in heart and free from labour and misery; all good things were theirs: grain-giving earth spontaneously bore her copious and ungrudging fruit, and in pleasant peace they lived off their lands with much abundance.… Then the immortal gods, dwelling in Olympian homes, made the second race, the silver one, much worse than the previous, unlike the golden in either thought or appearance… Then Father Zeus made the third race, the bronze race of mortals, not at all like the silver race, from ash trees, terrible and mighty; they loved the wretched works of Ares [war] and acts of arrogance…. Their armour and weapons were bronze, bronze their houses, and with bronze tools they worked: dark iron did not yet exist. And overcome by their own hands they went into the dank and dark house of cold Hades, leaving no name…. Then Zeus, the son of Cronus, made another race, the fourth on the bountiful earth, better and more just, the divine race of heroes who are called demi-gods, the race before ours on the boundless earth. Some were destroyed by grim war and terrible battle [at Troy and Thebes]; to others Father Zeus, the son of Cronus, gave the gift of a home and means of living and settled them at the end of the earth apart from everyone. And they live free from worry on the Islands of the Blessed along the shore of deep-swirling Oceanus. Fortunate are these heroes, since the grain-giving earth produces a honey-sweet harvest three times a year for them. Oh, that I were not living among the fifth race, but had either died before or been born afterwards. For now is the iron race, when humans never will cease from labour and sorrow by day and from suffering at night, since the gods will give only grievous concerns…. And Zeus will destroy this race of mortals too.

1.2 The “uncivilised” Cyclopes

The Cyclopes, a monstrous race of lawless and unsocial giants, were visited by Odysseus during his long return voyage from Troy. Although he regards them as backward and without “modern” technology, their life is surprisingly easy compared to his own technologically advanced culture. This is a result of chance, however, rather than divine intervention. The principal point of the passage is that lack of technology and need have hindered the Cyclopes, who are unable and probably uninterested in gaining access to a nearby fertile island, leaving its potential unrealised.

Homer, Odyssey 9.105–131

Heavy at heart, we sailed from the land of the Lotus Eaters and came to the land of the Cyclopes, an overbearing and lawless race, who, relying on the immortal gods, neither sow with their hands nor plough. Everything grows without sowing or ploughing: wheat and barley and even the vines with their grape clusters ripe for wine, and the rain of Zeus fosters them. They possess neither counselling assemblies nor laws, but live in hollow caves on the peaks of towering mountains. Each one governs his children and wives, paying no attention to any other.

A flat and wooded island stretches out beyond the harbour, neither close nor far from the land of the Cyclopes. On it live countless wild goats since neither the comings and goings of people frighten them nor do the hunters come there who endure woodland hardships chasing across the mountainous peaks. Neither domesticated flocks nor ploughed lands possess it, but unsown and unploughed it is destitute of humans all its days, and nourishes the bleating goats. For the Cyclopes possess no scarlet-prowed ships, nor do they have shipwrights among them who might build well-oared ships, which would accomplish all their needs by going to cities, just as people often cross the sea in ships and visit one another; such would have made the island good to live in. For the island is not barren in any sense, but would bear everything in season.

1.3 Hard-hearted Jupiter makes humans work for their survival

Vergil compares the hard existence of contemporary society with an earlier and more pleasant life under Saturn. The struggle for survival has resulted in the creation and development of human technology.

Vergil, Georgics 1.121–146

Jupiter, the Father himself, has willed that the path of cultivation should not be easy, and he first awakened the fields through agricultural skill, sharpening mortal minds with cares and not allowing his realms to lie sluggish in heavy lethargy. Before Jupiter, during Saturn’s reign, no peasants subdued the lands; it was unlawful to even mark or to divide the field with boundaries. Humans made gain for the common good, and Earth herself bore everything more freely when no one demanded them. Jupiter added evil venom to black serpents and commanded wolves to plunder and the sea to stir. He shook honey from the leaves and took away fire, and he stopped up the wine running in streams everywhere so that practice through consideration might gradually hammer out a variety of arts and seek out the grain stalk in furrows and strike the hidden fire from the veins of flint. Then, for the first time, the rivers felt the hollowed alders; then the sailor counted and named the stars: Pleiades, Hyades, and Arctos, the illustrious daughter of Lycaon. Then humans discovered how to trap animals with snares, to deceive with birdlime, and to circle great glades with dogs. And now one assails the broad stream with the casting net seeking the depths, another draws his watery drag-net in the sea. Then came unyielding iron and shrill-toothed saw blade – for the first peoples used to rend the splitting wood with wedges; then came the variety of arts.

1.4 The hardy race of humans weakened by technology

Greek and Roman writers clearly recognised the importance of technology as an ingredient of an advanced culture, while the lack of technological progress was considered a sign indicating the absence of true civilisation. Lucretius here describes a situation, in which early humans were supported by the earth without the use of any technology except primitive weapons. In the passage, early people are seen as much stronger and living in an environment of great danger. But with the growth of advanced technologies humankind became softer and life easier: a direct contradiction of Hesiod’s Iron Age (1.1). Earlier in this passage, Lucretius (5.837–859) had expressed the concepts of natural evolution and survival of the fittest.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 5.925–1025

And the human race [in a primitive state] was at that time by far more hardy on land, as was fitting, since the hard earth had made it: built up inside with larger and more solid bones, fitted with strong sinews throughout the flesh, and not easily overcome by heat or cold or novel food or any defect of body. Humans drew out their lives in the manner of the rambling wild animals for many lustra [cycles] of the sun rolling through the sky. No steady guide for the curved plough existed, nor did anyone know how to work the fields with iron nor to dig new shoots into the ground nor to cut off the old branches from the high trees with a sickle. What the sun and rain had given, what the earth had created by her own accord, that gift sufficed to content their hearts.… Not yet did they know how to treat things with fire nor to use skins and to clothe their bodies with the pelts of wild animals; but they inhabited the woods and forests and mountain caves, and they concealed their rough bodies among the undergrowth when forced to escape the lashing of the winds and rains…. Confident in the wonderful power of their hands and feet, they used to hunt the woodland haunts of wild animals with stone missiles and with great, heavy clubs, overpowering many, and avoiding few from their places of ambush. And like the bristly boars, when overcome by night, they surrendered their wild, naked bodies to the earth, rolling leaves and boughs around themselves…. [Sometimes they had to flee in terror when wild animals troubled their rest; humankind was more likely to die if attacked by wild animals, since no medical knowledge existed.]…. But at that time a single day did not send many thousands of men led under military standards to destruction, nor did the rough waters of the sea dash men and ships on the rocks; at that time the wicked skill of navigation lay hidden. Instead it was lack of food that sent weak bodies to death; now, to the contrary, abundance of everything destroys mortals…. After they had procured huts and skins and fire, then, for the first time, the human ra...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface to the second edition
• Extract from the preface and acknowledgements of the first edition
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The rise of humans and human technology
• 2 Sources of energy and basic mechanical devices
• 3 Agriculture
• 4 Food processing
• 5 Mining and quarrying
• 6 Metallurgy
• 7 Sculpture
• 8 Construction engineering
• 9 Hydraulic engineering
• 10 Household crafts, health and well-being, and workshop production
• 11 Transport and trade
• 12 R ecord-keeping
• 13 M ilitary technology
• 14 A ttitudes towards labour, innovation, and technology
• Indexes