The ram-tortoise of hegetor of byzantium in the treatise on machines by atheneaus mechanicus.: Some remarks on its reconstruction

• Autores: Maurizio Gatti
• Localización: The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. Barcelona, 18-20 November 2010 / coord. por Antoni M. Roca Rosell, 2012, ISBN 978-84-9965-108-8, págs. 240-245
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In this paper I present a war-machine, the huge ram-tortoise by Hegetor of Byzantium, whose description is to be found in three ancient sources: Athenaeus Mechanicus, Vitruvius and the Anonymous Byzantine. Because of the general difficulty and obscurity of all these texts, reconstructions of the machine have raised a variety of conflicting interpretations. Basing on a new philological analysis of the text of Athenaeus Mechanicus, which is in my opinion the most reliable source about this machine, I present here a new and more authentic reconstruction.