On Automata, or Self-Moving Machines

it may still be doubted from what it arises that, although the counterweights of clocks are seen, they are nevertheless called and held by everyone to be self-moving machines. To this it is answered that, although the counterweight is the mover, it moves in such a manner that he who beholds it judges it not to move, the motion of the counterweight being imperceptible, much like the growth of grass; wherefore, seeing the machine move but not the thing that moves it, it seems at first sight, and to the common people, that the machine is not moved by the counterweight, but moves of itself. Pneumatic machines are less capable of historical and fabulous arrangement than are the mobile self-moving ones, and the mobile self-moving ones less capable of the same arrangement than the stationary self-moving ones, as our Hero noted in the writings we are translating; this arises because in the stationary ones we assist ourselves with painting, whereas in the mobile ones we primarily make use of nothing other than things in the round and in relief.

Among the ancients, the masters of these arts were called Thaumaturges, as Hero says, and according to Pappus in the proem to the eighth book, Thaumasiurges, and by others Thaumatopes, which in sum signifies nothing other than fabricators and makers of marvelous works; for Thauma in Greek means nothing other than wonder or miracle. And hence it is that the rainbow, causing people to wonder by its sudden appearance, the variety of its colors, and its clarity and roundness, was called by the ancient poets the daughter of Thaumas—that is, of admiration. And in truth, how can it not cause wonder to see that art, which is an extrinsic principle, grants to inanimate things an intrinsic motion, similar to that which is granted to natural things by nature itself? Among the saints, the title of Thaumaturge was deserved by Gregory, the ancient Bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus, and this, as history...