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DIBNER 84: ANCIENT GREEK TECHNOLOGY. First edition of this collection of early Greek writings on technology (especially military technology) and hydrostatics. It contains several treatises on the mechanics and siege operations, or poliorcetica, used in the Hellenistic period (the period between Alexander and Augustus), including the construction and management of their projectile engines. The first six works in the volume comprise the writings on the subject of military engines that were compiled by Athenaeus, Apollodorus, Biton, Heron and Philon. These works include the first edition, in both Greek and Latin, of Biton s Construction of War Machines and Artillery, of extant part of the Mechanike Syntaxis, attributed to Philon of Byzantium, and of the Poliorcetica of Apollodorus of Damascus. These are followed by the Greek and Latin texts of Hero of Alexandria s works on hydrostatics, the Pneumatica and Automata, which include what some regard as the first description of a steam-engine; this is the first printing of the Greek text of these works. Thévenot, the King s librarian to Louis XIV, prepared the present work from a rather defective secondary manuscript (Codex Parisinus 2435). After Thévenot s death in 1692, it was revised by the mathematician La Hire with insightful annotations by Boivin, an official in the King s library. It is one of three early publications of the French Academy of Sciences, grouped together as Dibner 84. "Printed at the royal press in small editions, they were intended as gifts for the King and Academy. In size, binding and beauty of the plates, they are among the most sumptuous books in science" (Dibner). This is a rare book on the market, only eight copies having appeared at auction in the last 40 years. The Evelyn copy was sold at Christie s in 1977. To gain access to the walls of a site under siege, a siege tower or ram was brought into position and used to launch an attack onto the walkway, aided by missile fire from the higher levels of the tower. Simultaneous attacks with scaling ladders took place. A siege tower is a specialized siege engine constructed to protect assailants and the ladders used when approaching the defensive walls of a fortification. The tower was usually rectangular, with four wheels and a height roughly equal to that of the wall; it was sometimes higher to allow archers to stand on the top and fire into the fortification. The tower was made chiefly of wood, but sometimes there were metal components as well. They were unwieldy to manoeuvre, and slow to assemble, and consequently were usually constructed at the siege site. Sometimes siege towers themselves incorporated other devices, including artillery, rams, and dropbridges. Two main types of artillery equipment were used in this period: bolt-throwers (ballistae: used for picking off prominent individuals), and stone-throwers (scorpiones, onagri). Stone throwers could cause structural damage, but were generally confined to firing at towers, gates or siege machinery. Artillery might use incendiary ammunition when firing at gates or equipment. In common with much Byzantine literature, poliorcetica draw heavily on earlier, classical material. Since these were composed before the development of heavy artillery, the poliorcetica are not so much concerned with large machines but rather with describing techniques for bringing men close to fortifications and then ways of undermining them. They also suggest various psychological tricks which might be used to outwit the enemy. Such ancient works on military machines were a source of fascination to the Italians of the late 15th and 16th centuries, not only because of their historic interest, but also as a source for modern inventions to be used in contemporary warfare, and several of these works were first published in Renaissance Italy. The present volume begins with the De Machinis of Athenaeus, a Cilician ex-statesman living in Rome in the 20s B.C., and a contemporary of the arch.
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