192 Chapter 9
ostentatiously locked and sealed the building. After a while, the doors
were unlocked and visitors allowed to reenter the building. They were
surprised to find the three cauldrons now “magically” filled with wine.
“The ceiling and walls appear to be intact, so that no one can discern any
artifice.” The trick apparently involved a hidden hydraulic technology of
pumping the wine into the vessels. The date is unknown, but the descrip-
tion appears in a collection of notes gathered by Aristotle’s students and
followers.
As for Archytas, alongside his military, political, and scientific ac-
complishments in mathematics, geometry, harmonics, and mechanics,
he was also credited— by Aristotle— with inventing a popular children’s
plaything, the clacking noisemaker known as the “clapper.” 25 His toy
clapper and his technological showpiece, the flying Dove, demonstrated
mechanical principles while providing a delightful diversion— a welcome
alternative to the cruel automata of other rulers.
A deceptively frivolous automaton of an invertebrate creature was con-
structed in Athens under oppressive Macedonian rule in the late fourth
century BC. Demetrius of Phaleron was appointed to govern Athens by
the Macedonian king Cassander in 317 BC. A well- educated orator who
was a younger contemporary of Aristotle, Demetrius was sole ruler of
Athens until he was forced into exile in 307 BC. He ended up in Alex-
andria, Egypt, where he was involved in establishing the great library
and museum of Alexandria, where many inventors worked (see below).
Demetrius later fell out of favor in Alexandria too, and was exiled to the
hinterlands where he died of snakebite, about 280 BC. 26
As tyrant of Athens, Demetrius was arrogant, given to excess and
extravaganzas. Naturally, he despised democracy and he disenfranchised
poor citizens. According to a lost history of the time by Demochares, a
rival Athenian orator who defended democracy, in 308 BC Demetrius
commissioned a moving replica of a giant land snail that “worked by
some internal contrivance.” 27 The Greek historian Polybius (12.13) tells
us that this Great Snail led the traditional ceremonial procession of the
Dionysia, Athens’ great drama festival. Moving from Plato’s Academy
outside the city walls to the Theater of Dionysus, it traveled a distance