ABSTRACT
The Greco-Roman world, and especially the Roman world, while highly creative in other fields of human activity, remained, according to this point of view, strangely inactive in the technological field.2 As regards Rome, the classic example of the water mill and the anecdote about Vespasian are always cited. The Romans knew about the water mill, but built relatively few of them and continued to make far wider use of mills employing animal or human power.3 And it is said that when Vespasian was offered the plans of machines which would have saved on human labor, the emperor, though awarding a prize to the inventor, prohibited the construction of the machines “to allow the populace to make their living.”4
