History

Another machine described by Hero, deserves to be mentioned here, not on account of the use to which it was put, which was only to aid superstition, but on account of it;s similarity in some respects to more modern inventions.

Whether the aeolipile shown in the preceding forms, or in any other which is assumed in after times, was employed by the ancients for any practically useful purpose, cannot now be determined; but it is plain, that by attaching mechanism to the axis of the revolving sphere, some application might have been made of this machine. The principle has been repeatedly revived and employed by modern inventors, in what are called rotary engines of simple emission.

In the same treatise of Hero mentioned previously, there is a drawing and description of another Steam Machine, more ingenious than the preceding, and forming one of the various forms of an ancient apparatus called an aeolipile, which is still used by lecturers on Natural Philosophy, to illustrate the nature and the properties of steam.