HOISTING MACHINES
1. First we shall treat of those machines which are of necessity made
ready when temples and public buildings are to be constructed. Two
timbers are provided, strong enough for the weight of the load. They are
fastened together at the upper end by a bolt, then spread apart at the
bottom, and so set up, being kept upright by ropes attached at the upper
ends and fixed at intervals all round. At the top is fastened a block,
which some call a "rechamus." In the block two sheaves are enclosed,
turning on axles. The traction rope is carried over the sheave at the
top, then let fall and passed round a sheave in a block below. Then it
is brought back to a sheave at the bottom of the upper block, and so it
goes down to the lower block, where it is fastened through a hole in
that block. The other end of the rope is brought back and down between
the legs of the machine.
2. Socket-pieces are nailed to the hinder faces of the squared timbers
at the point where they are spread apart, and the ends of the windlass
are inserted into them so that the axles may turn freely. Close to each
end of the windlass are two holes, so adjusted that handspikes can be
fitted into them. To the bottom of the lower block are fastened shears
made of iron, whose prongs are brought to bear upon the stones, which
have holes bored in them. When one end of the rope is fastened to the
windlass, and the latter is turned round by working the handspikes, the
rope winds round the windlass, gets taut, and thus it raises the load to
the proper height and to its place in the work.
3. This kind of machinery, revolving with three sheaves, is called a
trispast. When there are two sheaves turning in the block beneath and
three in the upper, the machine is termed a pentaspast. But if we have
to furnish machines for heavier loads, we must use timbers of greater
length and thickness, providing them with correspondingly large bolts at
the top, and windlasses turning at the bottom. When these are ready,
let forestays be attached and left lying slack in front; let the
backstays be carried over the shoulders of the machine to some distance,
and, if there is nothing to which they can be fastened, sloping piles
should be driven, the ground rammed down all round to fix them firmly,
and the ropes made fast to them.
4. A block should then be attached by a stout cord to the top of the
machine, and from that point a rope should be carried to a pile, and to
a block tied to the pile. Let the rope be put in round the sheave of
this block, and brought back to the block that is fastened at the top of
the machine. Round its sheave the rope should be passed, and then should
go down from the top, and back to the windlass, which is at the bottom
of the machine, and there be fastened. The windlass is now to be turned
by means of the handspikes, and it will raise the machine of itself
without danger. Thus, a machine of the larger kind will be set in
position, with its ropes in their places about it, and its stays
attached to the piles. Its blocks and traction ropes are arranged as
described above.
5. But if the loads of material for the work are still more colossal in
size and weight, we shall not entrust them to a windlass, but set in an
axle-tree, held by sockets as the windlass was, and carrying on its
centre a large drum, which some term a wheel, but the Greeks call it
[Greek: amphiesis] or [Greek: perithêkion].
6. And the blocks in such machines are not arranged in the same, but in
a different manner; for the rows of sheaves in them are doubled, both at
the bottom and at the top. The traction rope is passed through a hole in
the lower block, in such a way that the two ends of the rope are of
equal length when it is stretched out, and both portions are held there
at the lower block by a cord which is passed round them and lashed so
that they cannot come out either to the right or the left. Then the ends
of the rope are brought up into the block at the top from the outside,
and passed down over its lower sheaves, and so return to the bottom, and
are passed from the inside to the sheaves in the lowest block, and then
are brought up on the right and left, and return to the top and round
the highest set of sheaves.
7. Passing over these from the outside, they are then carried to the
right and left of the drum on the axle-tree, and are tied there so as to
stay fast. Then another rope is wound round the drum and carried to a
capstan, and when that is turned, it turns the drum and the axle-tree,
the ropes get taut as they wind round regularly, and thus they raise the
loads smoothly and with no danger. But if a larger drum is placed either
in the middle or at one side, without any capstan, men can tread in it
and accomplish the work more expeditiously.
8. There is also another kind of machine, ingenious enough and easy to
use with speed, but only experts can work with it. It consists of a
single timber, which is set up and held in place by stays on four sides.
Two cheeks are nailed on below the stays, a block is fastened by ropes
above the cheeks, and a straight piece of wood about two feet long, six
digits wide, and four digits thick, is put under the block. The blocks
used have each three rows of sheaves side by side. Hence three traction
ropes are fastened at the top of the machine. Then they are brought to
the block at the bottom, and passed from the inside round the sheaves
that are nearest the top of it. Then they are brought back to the upper
block, and passed inwards from outside round the sheaves nearest the
bottom.
9. On coming down to the block at the bottom, they are carried round its
second row of sheaves from the inside to the outside, and brought back
to the second row at the top, passing round it and returning to the
bottom; then from the bottom they are carried to the summit, where they
pass round the highest row of sheaves, and then return to the bottom of
the machine. At the foot of the machine a third block is attached. The
Greeks call it [Greek: epagôn], but our people "artemon." This block
fastened at the foot of the machine has three sheaves in it, round which
the ropes are passed and then delivered to men to pull. Thus, three rows
of men, pulling without a capstan, can quickly raise the load to the
top.
10. This kind of machine is called a polyspast, because of the many
revolving sheaves to which its dexterity and despatch are due. There is
also this advantage in the erection of only a single timber, that by
previously inclining it to the right or left as much as one wishes, the
load can be set down at one side.
All these kinds of machinery described above are, in their principles,
suited not only to the purposes mentioned, but also to the loading and
unloading of ships, some kinds being set upright, and others placed
horizontally on revolving platforms. On the same principle, ships can be
hauled ashore by means of arrangements of ropes and blocks used on the
ground, without setting up timbers.
11. It may also not be out of place to explain the ingenious procedure
of Chersiphron. Desiring to convey the shafts for the temple of Diana at
Ephesus from the stone quarries, and not trusting to carts, lest their
wheels should be engulfed on account of the great weights of the load
and the softness of the roads in the plain, he tried the following plan.
Using four-inch timbers, he joined two of them, each as long as the
shaft, with two crosspieces set between them, dovetailing all together,
and then leaded iron gudgeons shaped like dovetails into the ends of the
shafts, as dowels are leaded, and in the woodwork he fixed rings to
contain the pivots, and fastened wooden cheeks to the ends. The pivots,
being enclosed in the rings, turned freely. So, when yokes of oxen began
to draw the four-inch frame, they made the shaft revolve constantly,
turning it by means of the pivots and rings.
12. When they had thus transported all the shafts, and it became
necessary to transport the architraves, Chersiphron's son Metagenes
extended the same principle from the transportation of the shafts to the
bringing down of the architraves. He made wheels, each about twelve feet
in diameter, and enclosed the ends of the architraves in the wheels. In
the ends he fixed pivots and rings in the same way. So when the
four-inch frames were drawn by oxen, the wheels turned on the pivots
enclosed in the rings, and the architraves, which were enclosed like
axles in the wheels, soon reached the building, in the same way as the
shafts. The rollers used for smoothing the walks in palaestrae will
serve as an example of this method. But it could not have been employed
unless the distance had been short; for it is not more than eight miles
from the stone-quarries to the temple, and there is no hill, but an
uninterrupted plain.
13. In our own times, however, when the pedestal of the colossal Apollo
in his temple had cracked with age, they were afraid that the statue
would fall and be broken, and so they contracted for the cutting of a
pedestal from the same quarries. The contract was taken by one Paconius.
This pedestal was twelve feet long, eight feet wide, and six feet high.
Paconius, with confident pride, did not transport it by the method of
Metagenes, but determined to make a machine of a different sort, though
on the same principle.
14. He made wheels of about fifteen feet in diameter, and in these
wheels he enclosed the ends of the stone; then he fastened two-inch
crossbars from wheel to wheel round the stone, encompassing it, so that
there was an interval of not more than one foot between bar and bar.
Then he coiled a rope round the bars, yoked up his oxen, and began to
draw on the rope. Consequently as it uncoiled, it did indeed cause the
wheels to turn, but it could not draw them in a line straight along the
road, but kept swerving out to one side. Hence it was necessary to draw
the machine back again. Thus, by this drawing to and fro, Paconius got
into such financial embarrassment that he became insolvent.
15. I will digress a bit and explain how these stone-quarries were
discovered. Pixodorus was a shepherd who lived in that vicinity. When
the people of Ephesus were planning to build the temple of Diana in
marble, and debating whether to get the marble from Paros, Proconnesus,
Heraclea, or Thasos, Pixodorus drove out his sheep and was feeding his
flock in that very spot. Then two rams ran at each other, and, each
passing the other, one of them, after his charge, struck his horns
against a rock, from which a fragment of extremely white colour was
dislodged. So it is said that Pixodorus left his sheep in the mountains
and ran down to Ephesus carrying the fragment, since that very thing was
the question of the moment. Therefore they immediately decreed honours
to him and changed his name, so that instead of Pixodorus he should be
called Evangelus. And to this day the chief magistrate goes out to that
very spot every month and offers sacrifice to him, and if he does not,
he is punished.