Ancient Greek Military Engineers - Philo of Byzantium, Epimachus of Athens, Diades of Pella, Poseidonius (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Philo of Byzantium (Greek: ), also known as Philo Mechanicus, was a Greek engineer and writer on mechanics, lived during the latter half of the 3nd century BCE. He was probably younger than Ctesibius, though some place him a century earlier. Philo was the author of a large work, Mechanike syntaxis (Compendium of Mechanics), which contained the following sections: The military sections Belopoeica and Poliorcetica are extant in Greek, detailing missiles, the construction of fortresses, provisioning, attack and defence, as are fragments of Isagoge and Automatopoeica (ed. R. Schone, 1893, with German translation in Hermann August Theodor Kchly's Griechische Kriegsschriftsteller, vol. i. 1853; E. A. Rochas d'Aiglun, Poliorcetique des Grecs, 1872). Another portion of the work, on pneumatic engines, has been preserved in the form of a Latin translation (De ingeniis spiritualibus) made from an Arabic version (ed. W. Schmidt, with German translation, in the works of Heron of Alexandria, vol. i., in the Teubner series, 1899; with French translation by Rochas, La Science des philosophes... dans l'antiquit, 1882). Further portions probably survive in a derivative form, incorporated into the works of Vitruvius and of Arabic authors. The Philo line, a geometric construction that can be used to double the cube, is attributed to Philo. A treatise conventionally titled De septem mundi miraculis, on the Seven Wonders of the World, is ascribed to Philo of Byzantium, but belongs to a much later date, probably the 6th century A.D. It is printed in R. Hercher's edition of Aelian (Teubner, 1858); an English translation by Jean Blackwood is included as an appendix in The Seven Wonders of the World by Michael Ashley (Glasgow: Fontana Paperbacks, 1... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1186281