Corpus Hermeticum with Pneumatica and Ocellus Lucanus

having been vaporized by force, as this [exhalation] cools down toward the upper region? original: "ὄλκιον" (olkion). The meaning is uncertain, but it likely refers to a vessel or a specific atmospheric layer where moisture collects., after a certain time it is carried again back to the lower place. And winds pneumata original: "πνεύματα" (pneumata). While often translated as "spirits" or "breath," in Hero’s physics, it specifically refers to air in motion—wind. also occur from a violent exhalation anathymiaseōs of the air aeros, as it is pushed out and thinned, always moving the parts of the air that follow in a continuous stream. But this movement of the air does not occur in all places topois? equally. Instead, it is more violent near the exhalation itself, and weaker further away because of the distance? original: "δέπον" (depon). This may be a scribal error for "deon" (lack/distance) or "diastēma." where it has not been moved. This is exactly what happens in the case of heavy weights barōn thrown upward. For indeed, these move quickly as long as they are near the source? that sends them up, where the force dynamis that dispatched them is still active. But they move slowly as they reach the top [of their flight]. When the dispatched force no longer follows them at all, they are carried again to their natural place—I mean, of course, to the lower place. Just as the speed that the dispatching force imparted to them eventually ceased, so too, as the force gradually fails and is, as it were, spent, the speed of the motion also ends. And water hydōr also changes into an earthy substance geōdē ousian. For when we pour water into some earthy and hollow place, after not much time it disappears Hero is describing what we now understand as absorption or evaporation, but he interprets it as a literal transformation of the liquid element into the solid element of earth..