The Advanced Technology of Ancient Rome: Automatic Doors, Water Clocks, Vending Machines & More

Ancient Rome nev­er had an indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion. Grant­ed, cer­tain his­to­ri­ans have object­ed now and again to that once-set­tled claim, ges­tur­ing toward large heaps of pot­tery dis­cov­ered in garbage dumps and oth­er such arti­facts clear­ly pro­duced in large num­bers. Still, the fact remains that Ancient Rome nev­er had an indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion of the kind that fired up toward the end of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, but not due to a com­plete absence of the rel­e­vant tech­nol­o­gy. As explained in the new Lost in Time video above, Romans had wit­nessed the pow­er of steam har­nessed back in the first cen­tu­ry — but they dis­missed it as a nov­el­ty, evi­dent­ly unable to see its pow­er to trans­form civ­i­liza­tion.

That’s just one of a vari­ety of exam­ples of gen­uine high Roman tech­nol­o­gy fea­tured in the video, many or all of which would seem implau­si­ble to the aver­age view­er if insert­ed into a sto­ry set in ancient Rome.

Take the set of auto­mat­ic doors installed in a tem­ple, trig­gered by a fire that heats an under­ground water tank, which in turn fills up a pot attached to a cable that — through a sys­tem of pul­leys — throws them open. (When the fire cools down, the doors then shut again.) This was the work of the Greek-born inven­tor Hero of Alexan­dria, who would bear com­par­i­son in one sense or anoth­er with every­one from Rube Gold­berg to Leonar­do da Vin­ci.

It was also Hero who came up with that ear­ly steam tur­bine, called the aeolip­ile. He came along too late, how­ev­er, to take cred­it for the “self-heal­ing” Roman con­crete pre­vi­ous­ly much-fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture, the mate­r­i­al of build­ings like the Pan­theon, “still the largest unre­in­forced con­crete dome in the world.” Anoth­er inven­tion high­light­ed in the video comes from Alexan­dria, but well before Hero’s time, and even before that of the Roman Empire itself: the accu­rate water clock engi­neered by Cte­si­bius, whose under­ly­ing design remained influ­en­tial in the Roman era. Hydraulic pow­er was also used in Roman mills, which made pos­si­ble com­plex fac­to­ry sys­tems, even in a civ­i­liza­tion that nev­er reached an indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion prop­er. And if a Roman fac­to­ry work­er got thirsty at break time, maybe he could drop a coin into one of Hero’s wine vend­ing machines.

Relat­ed con­tent:

How the Ancient Romans Built Their Roads, the Life­lines of Their Vast Empire

The Amaz­ing Engi­neer­ing of Roman Baths

The Roman Colos­se­um Decon­struct­ed: 3D Ani­ma­tion Reveals the Hid­den Tech­nol­o­gy That Pow­ered Rome’s Great Are­na

How Did Roman Aque­ducts Work?: The Most Impres­sive Achieve­ment of Ancient Rome’s Infra­struc­ture, Explained

The Ancient Roman Dodec­a­he­dron: The Mys­te­ri­ous Object That Has Baf­fled Archae­ol­o­gists for Cen­turies

Archae­ol­o­gists Dis­cov­er an Ancient Roman Snack Bar in the Ruins of Pom­peii

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.