Archimedes Texts

Section 2

They say that the crafts needed more than any others in human affairs, and which are related to the field of mechanics in which the so-called "chief-artificer" is the chief and foremost exponent, are: (firstly) what is called in Greek the craft of "manjana" this being what the ancients also used to call the craft of "mechanics". For the masters of this craft raise great weights aloft by means of their devices, contrary to the weight's natural motion, with very little power. Then there is the craft which makes the tools which are needed as a matter of particular urgency in war and its practitioners are also called "mechanicians". For among the instruments they manufacture are those known in Greek as "Qatabaltiqu", which can be used to shoot arrows, stones, iron and similar things for a considerable distance. Together with these two crafts is that which the Greeks particularised by the name of "mechanics", in so far as its practitioners raise water from considerable depths with very little effort by water-wheels which they construct.

The ancients also apply the name "mechanician" to those people who construct remarkable things, in some of which recourse is had to wind, after the pattern of Heron's so-called "pneumatic" machines, and in some of which sinews and ropes are used in such a way that their movements are made to resemble those of living animals, after the method of Heron in his account of his "Automata" and "Aequilibria", and Archimedes in his account of his "Floating Bodies". Another example of these are the water-clocks, such as Heron mentions in his account of water-machines.