THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY. HERO'S "SIPHON." HOW THE ANCIENTS STROVE TO
EXTINGUISH FIRES.
No one knows who invented the modern fire-engine.
The earliest machine, so far as is generally known, was described by
Hero of Alexandria about a hundred and fifty years before Christ. He
called it "the siphon used in conflagrations"; and it seems to have been
originated by Ctesibius, a Greek mechanician living in Egypt, whose
pupil Hero became.
It is very interesting to notice how this contrivance worked. It was
fitted with two cylinders, each having a piston connected by a beam.
This beam raised and lowered each piston alternately, and with the help
of valves--which only opened the way of the jet--propelled water to the
fire, but not continuously. The method must have proved very
inefficient, especially when compared with the constant stream thrown by
the modern fire-engine. Indeed, it is this power to project a steady and
continuous stream which chiefly differentiates the modern fire-engine
from such machines as Hero's siphon.
How far this siphon or any similar contrivance was used in ancient times
we cannot say; but no doubt buckets in some form or other were the first
appliances used for extinguishing conflagrations. Whenever mankind saw
anything valuable burning, the first impulse would be to stamp it out,
or quench the flame by throwing water on it; and the water would be
conveyed by the readiest receptacle to hand; then when men had
discovered the use of the pump, or the squirt, they would naturally
endeavour to turn these appliances to account.
In some places the use of water-buckets was organized. Juvenal alludes
to the instructions of the opulent Licinus, who bade his "servants watch
by night, the water-buckets being set ready"; the wealthy man fearing
"for his amber, and his statues, and his Phrygian column, and his ivory
and broad tortoise-shell."
Then Pliny and Juvenal use a term--_hama_--which signifies an appliance
for extinguishing fires; but the true rendering seems to be in dispute,
some translators being content to describe it simply as a water-vessel.
Pliny the Younger refers to _siphones_, or pipes, being employed to
extinguish fires; but we do not know how they were used, or whether they
resembled Hero's siphon.
In fact, the earliest references to fire-engines by Roman writers are
regarded by some as being merely allusions to aqueduct-pipes for
bringing water to houses, rather than to a special appliance. And from
Seneca's remark, "that owing to the height of the houses in Rome it was
impossible to save them when they took fire," we may gather that any
appliances that may have been in use were very inefficient.
A curious primitive contrivance is described by Apollodorus, who was
architect to Trajan. It consisted of leathern bags or bottles, having
pipes attached; and when the bottles were squeezed, the water gushed
through the pipes to extinguish the flames. Augustus was so enterprising
as to organize seven bands of firemen, each of which protected two
districts of Rome. Each band was in charge of a _tribunus_, or captain,
and the whole force was under a _præfectum vigilum_, or prefect of the
watch; though what apparatus they employed--whether buckets or
pipe-bags, syringes or Hero's siphon--we do not know.
But these appliances, or some of them, were no doubt in use at the Great
Fire of Rome in A.D. 66. In July of that year--the tenth of the reign of
the infamous Emperor Nero--two-thirds of the city was destroyed. The
fire broke out at a number of wooden shops built against the side of the
great Circus, and near to the low-lying ground between the Palatine and
the Cælian Hills. The east wind blew the flames onward to the corner of
the Palatine Hill, and there the fire blazed in two directions. It
gained such enormous power, that stonework split and fell before it like
glass, and building after building succumbed, until at one point it was
only stopped by the river, and at another by frowning cliffs.
For six awful days and seven nights the fire raged, and then, when it
was supposed to have been extinguished, it burst forth again for three
more days. The sight must have been appalling. We can picture the huge
sheets and tongues of flame sweeping ever onward, the fearful heat, and
the immense volumes of smoke which mounted upward and obscured the sky.
The panic-stricken people fled to the imperial gardens, but whispered
that Nero himself had originated the fire. To divert suspicion, he
spread reports that the Christians were the culprits; and they were
treated with atrocious cruelty, some being wrapped in fabric covered
with pitch and burnt in the Emperor's grounds. The guilt of Nero remains
a moot point; but he seems to have acted with some amount of liberality
to the sufferers, though his acts of humanity did not free his name
from the foul suspicion.
The conflagration itself stands out as one of the most terrible in
history. Before its furious rage the capable Romans seem to have been
reduced to impotence. Their organization, if they had any, seems to have
been powerless; and their appliances, if they used any, seem to have
been worthless.
We are entitled to draw the deduction that they had no machine capable
of throwing a steady, continuous stream from a comparatively safe
distance. No band of men, however strong and determined, could have
stood their ground sufficiently near the fierce fire to throw water from
buckets, pipe-bags, or even portable pumps. For small fires they might
prove of service, if employed early; but for large conflagrations they
would be worthless. And if Rome, the Mistress of the World, was so
ill-provided, what must have been the condition of other places?
We may infer, therefore, that the means of fire extinction in the
ancient world were miserably inadequate.
Had mediæval Europe anything better to show?