To be fair, 1st century BC engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio wasn’t really the world’s first engineer or even plant manager – the ancient Mespotainians and others have claim to that title. However, the Roman citizen and his was work written about during his lifetime, giving him exposure as the first interviewee of a PMV magazine.
What is certainly clear is that Vitruvius designed machines of a type that wouldn’t be seen again until Leonardo DaVinci’s sketches, some 1,400 years later.
Vitruvius didn’t start as a PMV man. In fact, his first engineering accomplishments came in architecture, where after taking a number of big commissions for the ‘Rome’ project – which contrary to popular myth was not built in a day – and managed to produce no less than ten books on the subject of architecture.
One of the first machines he invented was a dewatering plant, based on an Archimedes screw. The device was more sophisticated than that, though, with ‘attachments’ for applications such as clearing trenches or irrigating fields.
The next machine recorded is the reverse-overshot water wheel, of which remains of have been found across Europe. This machine was a clever series of wheeled bucket chains, which went through an underground labyrinth of mines, and connected in a way reminiscent of a vertical string of canal locks. The wheels were typically driven by hydropower, coming from the water pressure of a nearby fresh water aquaduct.
Vitruvius also concerned himself with building services, designing an underfloor ducting system Foremost among them is the development of the hypocaust, a type of central heating where hot air developed by a fire was channelled under the floor and inside the walls of public baths and villas.
He gives explicit instructions how to design such buildings so that fuel efficiency is maximised, so that for example, the caldarium is next to the tepidarium followed by the frigidarium.
He also advises on using a type of regulator to control the heat in the hot rooms, a bronze disc set into the roof under a circular aperture which could be raised or lowered by a pulley to adjust the ventilation.
Although he does not suggest it himself, it is likely that his dewatering devices such as the reverse overshot water-wheel was used in the larger baths to lift water to header tanks at the top of the larger thermae, such as the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla for district heating or cooling, while also giving us details on stucco rendering, as well as the best way to mix and use concrete, more then 1800 years before the material came back into use.
So this Roman engineer is another link in the chain of the evolution of the parts and principles we still use to this day.
The Original Plant Guy
Roman 1st century BC Marcus Vitruvius Pollio left a staggering legacy
To be fair, 1st century BC engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio wasn’t really the world’s first engineer or even plant manager – the ancient Mespotainians and others have claim to that title. However, the Roman citizen and his was work written about during his lifetime, giving him exposure as the first interviewee of a PMV magazine.
What is certainly clear is that Vitruvius designed machines of a type that wouldn’t be seen again until Leonardo DaVinci’s sketches, some 1,400 years later.
Vitruvius didn’t start as a PMV man. In fact, his first engineering accomplishments came in architecture, where after taking a number of big commissions for the ‘Rome’ project – which contrary to popular myth was not built in a day – and managed to produce no less than ten books on the subject of architecture.
One of the first machines he invented was a dewatering plant, based on an Archimedes screw. The device was more sophisticated than that, though, with ‘attachments’ for applications such as clearing trenches or irrigating fields.
The next machine recorded is the reverse-overshot water wheel, of which remains of have been found across Europe. This machine was a clever series of wheeled bucket chains, which went through an underground labyrinth of mines, and connected in a way reminiscent of a vertical string of canal locks. The wheels were typically driven by hydropower, coming from the water pressure of a nearby fresh water aquaduct.
Vitruvius also concerned himself with building services, designing an underfloor ducting system Foremost among them is the development of the hypocaust, a type of central heating where hot air developed by a fire was channelled under the floor and inside the walls of public baths and villas.
He gives explicit instructions how to design such buildings so that fuel efficiency is maximised, so that for example, the caldarium is next to the tepidarium followed by the frigidarium.
He also advises on using a type of regulator to control the heat in the hot rooms, a bronze disc set into the roof under a circular aperture which could be raised or lowered by a pulley to adjust the ventilation.
Although he does not suggest it himself, it is likely that his dewatering devices such as the reverse overshot water-wheel was used in the larger baths to lift water to header tanks at the top of the larger thermae, such as the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla for district heating or cooling, while also giving us details on stucco rendering, as well as the best way to mix and use concrete, more then 1800 years before the material came back into use.
So this Roman engineer is another link in the chain of the evolution of the parts and principles we still use to this day.