Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices: The History of a Technology 9027716935, 9789027716934

Table of contents :
Cover
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
ILLUSTRATIONS
1 Introduction
Significance of the subject
Organization of the study
Rabbinical literature
Choosing terms
PART ONE THE PRIMARY MATERIAL
2 Literary evidence
Introduction
List of texts, by author
List of texts, by device
Catalogue of texts
3 Papyrological evidence
Introduction
List of texts, by device
Catalogue of texts
4 Archaeological evidence
Introduction
List of sites
List of sites, by device
Catalogue of sites
PART TWO THE HISTORY OF A TECHNOLOGY
5 Origins and development
Introduction
The water-screw
The force pump
The compartmented wheel
The bucket-chain and pot-garland
The sāqiya gear
6 The social context
Chronological survey
Personnel
Reassessing classical technology
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEXES
Index of Greek words
Index of Latin words
Index of literary passages
Index of papyri and inscriptions
General index

Citation preview

Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices The History of a Technology

JOHN PETER OLESON

Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices is a member of the Department of Classics at the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia.

JOHN PETER OLESON

Water is fundamental to human life, and the ways in which a society uses it can tell us a great deal about a people. The ancient Greeks and Romans had at their disposal several mechanical water-lifting devices. The water-screw, the force pump, the compartmented wheel, and the bucket-chain were developed by scientists associated with the great school at Alexandria. Application of these devices was sporadic in the Hellenistic world, but they, and the later sifqiya gear, were used in a wide range of rural and urban settings in many parts of the Roman Empire. Professor Oleson has prepared a definitive study of mechanical waterlifting devices in the Greek and Roman world. He systematically and thoroughly examines the literary, papyrological, and archaeological evidence for the devices and considers the design, materials, settings, costs, effectiveness, and durability of the many adaptations of the small basic repertoire of models. The literary and papyrological materials range from Deuteronomy to papyri of the seventh century AD, and the archaeological sites discussed range from Babylon to Wales. An extensive collection of illustrations complements the literary, papyrological, and archaeological evidence for this remarkable ancient technology.

PHOENIX

Journal of the Classical Association of Canada Revue de la Societe canadienne des etudes classiques Supplementary Volume XVI Tome supplementaire XVI

JOHN PETER OLESON

Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices: The History of a Technology

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

C> University

of Toronto Press 1984 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada Reprinted in 2018

ISBN 0-8020-5597-4 ISBN 978-1-4875-7885-5 (paper)

Published in the United Kingdom and Europe by D . Reidel Publishing Company

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Oleson, John Peter, 1946Greek and Roman mechanical water-lifting devices (Phoenix. Supplementary volume; 16 = Phoenix. Tome supplementaire, ISSN 0079-1784; 16) Bibliography: p. l. Hydraulic machinery- History. I. Title. II. Series: Phoenix (Toronto, Ont.). Supplementary volume ; 16. TJ840.43

62 l.2'0422'09

C83-094085-5

This book has been printed on acid-free paper.

To my mother and the memory of my father, who first showed me the living water Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water that I give him will never be thirsty again. John4: 13-14

CONTENTS

ix xii between xiv and l

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABBREVIATIONS ILLUSTRATIONS

l Introduction 3 Significance of the subje¢t 3 Organization of the study 5 Rabbinical literature 7 Choosing terms 9 PART ONE THE PRIMARY MATERIAL 2 Literary evidence 15 Introduction 15 List of texts, by author 17 List of texts, by device 19 Catalogue of texts 22 3 Papyrological evidence 126 Introduction 126 List of texts, by device 13 l Catalogue of texts 140

viii Contents 4 Archaeological evidence 172 Introduction 172 List of sites 174 List of sites, by device 178 Catalogue of sites 181

PART TWO THE HISTORY OF A TECHNOLOGY 5 Origins and development 285 Introduction 285 The water-screw 291 The force pump 30 I The compartmented wheel 325 The bucket-chain and pot-garland 350 The saqiya gear 370 6 The social context 386 Chronological survey 386 Personnel 392 Reassessing classical technology 397

NOTES

409

BIBLIOGRAPHY 429 INDEXES 447 Index of Greek words 447 Index of Latin words 450 Index of literary passages 451 Index of papyri and inscriptions 453 General index 454

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My research was generously supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Faculty Research Committee of the University of Victoria. To these institutions and their committees I am very grateful. I would like to thank the staff of the library of the American Academy in Rome, where much of this book was written, for their generous hospitality and assistance, and the staffs of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, the British School in Rome, and the French Academy. In addition, I was accorded visiting privileges at the libraries of Harvard University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Washington, and the University of California at Berkeley which greatly facilitated my research. Numerous individuals assisted me in one way or another in my research, and to all of them I willingly acknowledge my debt: Dr J.-Ch. Baity, Brussels; Professor I. Berciu, Alba Julia; Professor G. Boon, Cardiff; Dr W.V. Davies, London; Professor J. Eames, Liverpool; Miss Deborah Gascoyne, Toronto; Dr Dia Abou Ghazi, Cairo; Mr L. Ghobrial, Victoria; Dr A. Haffner, Trier; Dr Mariano del Amo y de la Hera, Huelva; Professor Herbert H . Huxley, Victoria; Professor J .G. Landels, Reading; Dr L. Langouet, St-Malo; Dr F . Foerster Laures, Barcelona; Professor W.L. MacDonald, Northampton; Dr G .T. Martin, London; Mr T.J. Oertling, College Station, Texas; Ms Karen Oleson, New York; Dr Susan Read, Reading; Dr Brent Shaw, Lethbridge; Professor A.F. Shore, Liverpool; Dr Jane Waldbaum, Milwaukee; Dr M. Warhurst, Liverpool; Dr 0 . Wikander, Lund; Mr V. Wollmann, ClujNapoca; Dr L.C. Zoreda, Madrid; and several anonymous readers for University of Toronto Press. I am particularly grateful to Dr Roger S. Bagnall of Columbia University and Professor David A. Campbell of the University of Victoria, who read significant portions of this work in an earlier version and made many useful

x Acknowledgments suggestions, saving me from numerous errors. Naturally, I alone am responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation that remain. I owe special thanks as well to Dr Thorkild Schi~ler of Copenhagen, whose research on water-lifting wheels is cited in every chapter of my monograph, for generously sharing with me information and ideas and for graciously allowing me to reproduce various drawings from his book. The final, and special, scholarly debt I owe to Dr Anna McCann, of New York, whose generosity to me as a student, and later as a fellow scholar, has been unparalleled. By entrusting me with an important part of the Cosa port excavation, she started me on this subject of research, and she has offered me material and spiritual support along the way. Numerous important photographs appear here with her permission. Without the loving support and cheerful tolerance of my dear wife this book would never have been written. My most fundamental acknowledgments, however, appear on the dedication page. I would like to thank E.J. Brill of Leiden for permission to quote several short passages from F. Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, in chapter 2, and Cambridge University Press for permission to quote from Goodyear's edition of Anonymous, Aetna, and to reproduce a poem by Antipater from Gow and Page's edition of the Greek Anthology, also in chapter 2. The illustrations appear by courtesy of the following institutions or individuals: Dr Thorkild Schicpler, Copenhagen (Figures 2, 9, 38, 40, 95, 96, pl II no. 15, 16, 19), Oxford University Press (Figures 10, 35), Nordiska Museet, Stockholm (Figure 11), Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden (Figures 17, 19, 22), Professor J.G. Landels, Reading, and Chatto and Windus Ltd, London (Figures 30-4, 36), Deutsches Archaologisches Institute, Cairo (Figures 37, 39), Musees Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Bruxelles (Figure 41), the British Museum (Figures 44, 46, 71, 116), Dr Anna Marguerite McCann (Figures 52-63), Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (Figure 66), M .J.-P. Joncheray, Cahiers tlarcheo/ogie subaquatique (Figures 67-70), Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato (Figures 72-4, 89-91, 93-4, 97-8, 101, 109, 112, 130), P. Demargne, Revue archeologique (Figures 75-6), Society of Antiquaries, London (Figure 77), Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, London (Figures 80-1), Dr F. Foerster Laures, Barcelona and Council for Underwater Archaeology, London (Figures 82-3), Archaeological Museum, Cairo (Figure 86), Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier (Figures 87, 158-9, 163), Romisch-Germanische Kommission (Figure 92), British School at Athens (Figures 99-100), Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris (Figures 131, 135), Dr. L. Langouet, St-Malo (Figures 132-6), Consejo Superior de Investigationes Cientificas, Madrid (Figure 142), University of

xi Acknowledgments Liverpool, School of Archaeology (Figure 147), Merseyside County Museums, Liverpool (Figures 148-9), Professor C. Daicoviciu (Figures 156-7). Photos not otherwise credited are by the author. Publication of this book has been made possible by a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the University of Toronto Press.

ABBREVIATIONS

In spelling the names of Greek authors and their works, I have followed Liddell, Scott, and Jones Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford 1968); for Latin authors, the Oxford Latin Dictionary. For authors not in either of these works, and for abbreviations of modern reference works, I have for the most part followed the practice of the Oxford Classical Dictionary 2nd ed (Oxford 1970). In the text and notes, monographs and articles of special relevance to pumping technology have been cited by author and date, and the full titles can be found by consulting the bibliography. The abbreviations of periodical titles are those of L'Annee phi/o/ogique. The papyrological abbreviations (not listed below) are those suggested in J.F. Oates, R.S. Bagnall, and W.H. Willis Checklist of Editions of Greek Papyri and Ostraka 2nd ed: Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists supp I (1978). Dates are all AD unless marked BC. In addition to the abbreviations standard to English prose, the following abbreviations appear: Archiiologischer Anzeiger Berlin Annual of the British School at Athens London AD Archaiologikon Deltion Athens AEA Archivo Espanol de Arqueologia Madrid AnnEp L'Annee epigraphique Paris AncSoc Ancient Society Louvain ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der riimischen Welt Berlin ArchCam Archaeologia Cambrensis Cardiff ARID Analecta Romana lnstituti Danici Copenhagen ASA£ Anna/es du Service des Antiquites d' Egypte Cairo AW Antike Welt Zurich BASP Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists New York AA

ABSA

xiii Abbreviations BCAR Bul/ettino de/la Commissione Archeo/ogica Comunale in Roma BJ Bonner Jahrbu'cher Bonn BJPES Bulletin of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society BMAH Bulletin des Musees royaux wv, crtq>rovtov, u&poµu11.01 (shadiif, force pump, water-mill) Hirtius (?) De be/lo Alexandrina VI I (compartmented wheel) /LS no. 8903 (water-screw) Isidore of Seville Origines xx 6, 9 (force pump); 15, 1-3 (compartmented wheel, shlidllj) Lucretius De rerum natura v 516 (compartmented wheel) Manetho Apotelesmatica I 83-8 (unspecified) Martial Epigrammata IX 18 (compartmented wheel or sh'l!drlj) Moschion Treatise on the Great Ship of Hieron of Syracuse (in Athenaeus v 207ff, 208ff; FGrH IIIB, no. 575 frag I, 3.6, 5.3) (water-screw) Musa, fragment (in Seneca, Controversiae IO, praef 9) (force pump) Nonius Marcellus De compendiosa doctrina I 13, 3-5 (compartmented wheel) G. Optatianus Dedicatory Inscription (water-screw?) Pappus of Alexandria Col/ectio VIII 2 (unspecified) Paulinus of Nola Epistulae 49 I, 2, 3, 12 (force pump?) Philo of Alexandria De confusione linguarum 38 (water-screw) Philo of Byzantium Mechanicesyn taxis v (Pneumatica) chap 61, 64-5 from ms A.S. 3713; two chapters from Oxford ms 954; chap 4 from Anonymous Oxford Collection (compartmented wheel, bucket-chain; force pumps); Mechanice syntaxis VII (Parasceuastica) 91, 43-4 (compartmented wheel) Pionius Vita Sancti Po/ycarpi xxviii (force pump) Pliny the elder Natura/is historia II 65, 166 (force pump); XVIII 23, 97 (watermill); XIX 20, 60 (force pump; shadiif); xxxm 31 , 96- 7 (unspecified) Pliny the younger Epistulae x 33, 2 (force pump) Plutarch Numa XIV 8-9 (compartmented wheel); Mora/ia 974e (see Ctesias)

19 List of texts, by device Posidonius of Apamea, frag 47 (in Strabo Ill 2, 9; FGrH IIA, no. 87 frag 47) (water-screw); frag 117 (in Diodorus v 37, 3-4; FGrH IIA no. 87 frag 117) (water-screw) Claudius Ptolemaeus Apotelesmatica IV 4, 5 (179) (unspecified) T. Quinctius Crispin us Lex Quinctia de aquaeductibus (in Frontinus De aquis II 129, 11) (compartmented wheel and unspecified) Revue biblique 70 ( 1963) 255-7 (unspecified) Rhetorius the Egyptian Opus astro/ogicum 166, 22-4 (conduit-masters?) Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Heliogaba/us XXIV 5 (compartmented wheel) L. Annaeus Seneca (elder) Controversiae 10, praef 9 (see Musa) L. Annaeus Seneca Natura/es quaestiones II 16 (force pump) Septuagint, Deuteronomy 11: 1~ 11 (compartmented wheel?) Ecclesiastes 12: 6 (compartmented wheel?) SIG 783, 17-21 (compartmented wheel?) Strabo Geographica Ill 2, 9 (see Posidonius, frag 47); XII 3, 30 (water-mill); XVI 1, 5 (water-screw); XVII l, 30 (water-screw; compartmented wheel) Suetonius De vita Caesarum, Tiberius 51 (unspecified) Sulpicius Severus Dia/ogi I 13 (gear-driven pot-garland) Tertullian De anima 33, 7 (compartmented wheel) Ulpian AdSabinum XX (in Digesta XXXIII 7, 12, 18-19) (force pump); XXI (in Digesta XXX 41, 9-12) (force pump?) Vitruvius De architectura v 12, 5 (water-screw, compartmented wheels); IX 8, 4 (unspecified); x 3, 9 (compartmented wheels, water-screw); X 4, 1-2 (unspecified, compartmented wheel); x 4, 3 (compartmented wheel); x 4, 4 (bucket-chain); x 5, 1 (compartmented wheel); x 5, 2 (water-mill); x 6, 1-4 (water-screw); x 7, 1-5 (force pump) LIST OF TEXTS, BY DEVICE

1/ WATER-SCREW after 241 BC Moschion (KOXA.ia~) after second half Ill BC Strabo XVI 1, 5 ( ICOXAia~) ca 18~116 BC Agatharchides, frag 19 (KoXAia~) 135-51 BC Posidonius of Apamea, frag 47 (A{yt'.nmot KOXAim); frag 117 (A{yu1ttt(l1COi ICOXAiat) 25-23 BC Vitruvius v 12, 5; x 3, 9; 6, 1-4 (coc/eae) 2~7 BC Strabo XVII l, 30 (ICOXA.iat) ca 40 Philo of Alexandria (eAt~) ca 50 Hero of Alexandria Dioptra chap 6,200 (KOXAia~)

20 Literary evidence 72-4 /LS no. 8903 (cochlia)

2/

FORCE PUMP

3/

COMPARTMENTED WHEEL

late III Be? Philo of Byzantium Pneumatica appendix I chap 2 25-23 BC Vitruvius x 7, 1-5 (Ctesibica machina) early I Musa (sipho) ca 50 Hero of Alexandria Pneumatica I 28 (criq>rov, opyavov) mid-I Anonymous Aetna vv 324-8 (sipo) 6~79 Pliny the elder II 65, 166 (sipho); XIX 20, 60 (organa pneumatica) 62-5 Seneca (sipo) 1~30 Apollodorus of Damascus (criq>rov) 109-ll Pliny the younger (sipo) mid-II Pionius (criq>rov) 206-7, 210 C/L VI 1057-8 (sifonaril) 212-17 Ulpian xx (sifones), XXI (sifones?) 362 C/L VI 31075 (=3744) (sifonarius) imperial C/L VI 2994 (siponarius) before 431 Paulinus (sentinaculum)? VI Hesychius, s.v. criq>rov, crtq>rovwv ca 630 Isidore of Seville xx 6, 9 (sifon) (type of drive noted in parentheses, where known)

a I Compartmented body

late III Be? Philo of Byzantium Pneumatica chap 61 (tread) 25-23 BC Vitruvius v 12, 5; x 3, 9; 4, 1-2 (tympanum) (tread) ca 50 Hero of Alexandria Dioptra chap 6,200 ('rnµ1t