In this video, I try my best to reconstruct Hero's Automaton. An ancient programmable device that belongs to a long tradition of curious Greek Machines.

Sources in order of reference:

Hero's Automata Critical Edition By Dr.Grillo (translation begins page 135 but his context and notes are the main source of this video, which begin page 83) https://theses.gla.ac.uk/76774/7/2019...

-hephaestus tripods: Homer's Illiad as translated by Lattimore
this page has the specific paragraph: https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Hephai...

-Daedalus moving statues: Plato's Meno
(PDF link here of a translation by J. Holbo & B. Waring https://123philosophy.files.wordpress... )

-Archytas's Dove: Bill Thayer translation of Gellius' Noctes Atticae book 10 section 12 paragraph 8 (old webpage, the link is directly to book ten, just scroll down to section 12)
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...

-ancient metal chemistry: leiden papyrus X

-Aristotle's De Motu Animalium Critical Edition by Martha Nussbaum page 42 section 701b (some pdf's have it on page 36 of the document) (note Nussbaum translates the greek word automata to mean "automatic puppet" which is fair tbh. )
jstor link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/311236 (its payed here :( tho ive found it circulated elsewhere free)

-Demetrios's snail is referenced in Grillo's crit edition of Hero's Automata, but Dr. Ruffel from the same research team has a very helpful blog post about it here: http://classics.academicblogs.co.uk/r...

-Vitruvius on Ctesbius: Vetruvius' Ten Books on Architecture, book X chapter 7 on works by Ctesbius: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/t...

if you're curious about the greek inscription on the pot its the 1st, 11th, and 13th line of the orphic hymn to Hephaestos and reads something like "Strong Spirited Hephaestos, mighty inexhaustible fire; Come to us Always Gentle one, and make work joyful; for it is your fire which burns in nature within our bodies;" a translation of the full hymn can be found here: https://www.theoi.com/Text/OrphicHymn...

Background music is "The Hills of Attica" by The Flight (from the Assassins Creed Odyssey Original Soundtrack)