With an exceptional proficiency in Greek and Roman mythologies, Adrienne Mayor takes the reader in a tour-de-force journey through myths and stories recording the many inventions of machines, automata as the author names them. As these are rarely collected in one place, this book details the many machines made by gods or humans, leaving the reader surprised by the ancient mechanical imagination, ostensibly the base for many inventions to follow, and no less, the artistic expressions in Sci-Fi literature and movies.

The introduction, suggestively entitled “Made not Born,” sets the frame of the work, the Greek myths, displaying “the earliest expressions of the timeless impulse to create artificial life” (1). The automata collected in her book, from the myths and legends, are objects made with crafting tools used in all artistic accomplishments, a subject of admiration for many centuries. Mayor assures us that she “gathered every text and scrap of ancient poetry, myth, history, art, and philosophy related to artificial life” (5), demonstrating that people in antiquity were as fascinated with creating life as are today’s scientists cloning a sheep.

The first chapter, “Robots and the Witch,” centers on the encounter of Jason and Medea with the bronze giant Talos, built by Hephaestus, the Greek blacksmith god, to protect Crete’s borders. Imagined many centuries before modern man’s capabilities to make self-moving devices, the giant Talos falls to the wicked powers of Medea. To enable the giant to move, as if foreseeing the invention of electricity or gasoline, the god inserted in his robot a tube through which ran ichor, the ethereal life liquid (named Medea’s oil), which Medea knew how to drain, ending the bronze giant’s abilities and force. The chapter ends with a number of examples from military history that have used the name Talos to emphasize invincible force.

In the next chapter, “Medea’s Cauldron of Rejuvenation,” Mayor discusses Jason’s request of Medea to restore his father Aeson’s youth, using her pharmaka, a “quintessential example of mythical biotechne to bring about unnaturally extended life” (33). The search for rejuvenation, a major theme of myth and folktale, is manipulated by the skillful Medea and her pharmaka in the plot to kill the aged king, Pelias. These mythical biotechne wonders are means by which mythic characters such as the witch Medea play on the human desire for perpetual youth and the wish to overcome death.

The human struggle to overcome death leads us into the third chapter, “The Quest for Immortality and Eternal Youth,” a discussion indirectly related to robots, machines expressing the human desire to defeat old age and death. A quick review of famous ancient stories of heroes and heroines in search of immortality draws the reader to the author’s conclusion: “The ancient myths about immortality deliver an existential message: not only is death inescapable, but human dignity, freedom, and heroism are somehow intertwined with mortality” (50). Cheating old age and death, on the other hand, as we find from other stories, can cause havoc and suffering, as it is shown in the myth of Sisyphus, or Eos’s lover Tithonus.

In the following chapter, “Beyond Nature, Enhanced Powers Borrowed from Gods and Animals,” the author addresses technology as a means by which men strive to survive the adversity of nature. For the Greek mind, the human feebleness came from the very beginning with man’s creation, when the Titan Epimetheus bestowed upon all the other creatures many protective abilities, leaving man naked and helpless. To remedy this situation, Prometheus gave humans “the powers of technical skills, speech, and fire from the gods” (61). Thus, many myths and images describe the role of techne gifts from the Titans—plowing the earth, taming horses, building ships, or bronze bulls, artificial limbs and wings, etc.—gifts to empower humans to overcome the forces of nature. The Greek admiration for the human mind and its creative powers is best illustrated by the myth of Daedalus, creator of many tools, sculptor of artificial life, the mastermind of marvelous technological inventions. These range from the cow in which Queen Pasiphae hides to fulfill her desire to copulate with a bull in Minos’s herd, to the wings built for his son Icarus and himself to fly away from Crete. At king Cocalus’s court, the mythical hero Daedalus continues his work, creating more marvelous things—a gilded ram “so perfect that it would be taken as an actual ram” (86), a perfect honeycomb, artificial “live statues” that could speak and walk, featured in many Athenian plays—ingenious biotechne, projections of the human imagination that have incited interest in generations of people ever since.

In chapter 6, “Pygmalion’s Living Doll and Prometheus’s First Humans,” Mayor recounts the Greek tales and stories from other cultures about artifacts of human statues and other inanimate objects brought to life by gods or by magic. Among these is the famous myth of Pygmalion and his ivory statue, an artifact that is not an automaton, as Mayor specifies, but an object that becomes real supernaturally with the help of the goddess of love: “These stories of artificial life differ from the tales about the animated statues” discussed in previous chapters (106). Stories of an inventor constructing a lifelike young woman, a mechanical doll, are found in many other cultures; versions are known in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, and Tocharian traditions. Mayor draws a parallel between the mechanical doll and Prometheus’s creation of the first humans out of clay, tapping “into the timeless idea that humans are somehow automata of the gods” (122). The many human-creation stories from antiquity to late medieval times reveal that realistic forms of humans become real beings, naked and defenseless creatures on which Prometheus takes pity, gifting them with craft and fire.

The blacksmith god Hephaestus, author of all the animated crafts from Talos of Crete to fire-breathing bulls, Zeus’s torturing eagle, the mechanical tripods serving the Olympians, the golden statues of girls serving gods, and many other marvels, is the subject of the seventh chapter. Among all of Hephaestus’s creations, Pandora, the maiden made not born, presented by Hermes, the trickster messenger of gods, to Epimetheus as his bride, brings with her to the human race the gods’ punishment for accepting the stolen fire. An animated statue, Pandora is associated by the author with the Trojan horse, hiding in her “dowry” all the misfortunes afflicting the human race. Most interestingly, the current technological hubris of man’s imagination—humanoid robots, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and computer games—should be included in the mix of misfortunes with the potential of afflicting the entire society.

The last chapter, “Between Myth and History,” describes the many technological inventions used mainly by tyrants and leaders to deceive and manipulate crowds, as did the animated wax statue of Caesar that stunned the audience during the funerary procession organized by Mark Anthony, the statue of Ptolemy’s dead sister and the impressive funerary cortege, the giant warrior statues created to protect Buddha’s tomb, and the ancient animated theater of Heron of Alexandria, among many others.

The depiction of these mechanical devices and automata made to dazzle, deceive, and dominate the masses leads the author to her concluding chapter, “Epilogue: Awe, Dread, Hope.” The fascination with biotechne, which combines bios, “life,” and techne “craft,” featured in myths, legends, and folklore, reveals a permanent obsession of the ancient mind with conquering mortality and the hard work required to replicate the power of nature. The author concludes: “A goal of this book has been to suggest that on deeper levels the ancient myths about artificial life can provide a context for the exponential developments in artificial life and Artificial Intelligence—and the looming practical and moral implications. I hope that rereading those ancient stories might enrich today’s discussions of robotics, driverless cars, biotechnology, AI, machine learning, and other innovations.” (214). Artificial life as featured in myths gathered in this book may help mankind understand the human condition and what it means to simulate life.

Generously accompanied by illustrations of vases, statues, mirrors, decorated coins, and other objects, the literary and artistic evidence featured in this book offers a glimpse of automata produced by the creative imagination of the Greek mind from Homeric to Roman times. A thorough and serious academic achievement, Adrienne Mayor’s book raises a red flag on our incessant desire to overcome our limitations, using examples from ancient experience and wisdom. Alas, the numerous references to modern movies and to technological realizations show that human inquisitiveness will not subside to a prudent level.

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[Review length: 1415 words • Review posted on April 30, 2020]