CONTROVERSIES AS TO HERON’S DATE 301 
Philon’s date cannot be later than the end of the second 
century B.C. (If Ctesibius flourished before 247 b.c. the argu 
ment would apparently suggest rather the beginning than the 
end of the second century.) Next, Heron is supposed to have 
been a younger contemporary of Philon, the grounds being 
the following. (1) Heron mentions a ‘ stationary-automaton ’ 
representation by Philon of the Nauplius-story, 1 and this is 
identified by Tittel with a representation of the same story by 
some contemporary of Heron’s (oi Kad’ fjfxds 2 ). But a careful 
perusal of the whole passage seems to me rather to suggest 
that the latter representation was not Philon’s, and that 
Philon was included by Heron among the ‘ ancient ’ auto 
maton-makers, and not amonghis contemporaries. 3 (2) Another 
argument adduced to show that Philon was contemporary 
1 Heron, Autom., pp. 404. 11-408. 9. 2 lb., p. 412. 18. 
3 The relevant remarks of Heron are as follows. (1) He says that ho 
has found no arrangements of ‘stationary automata’ better or more 
instructive than those described by Philon of Byzantium (p. 404. 11). 
As an instance he mentions Philon’s setting of the Nauplius-story, in 
which he found everything good except two things {a) the mechanism 
for the appearance of Athene, which was too difficult {epycoSearepov), and 
(6) the absence of an incident promised by Philon in his description, 
namely the falling of a thunderbolt on Ajax with a sound of thunder 
accompanying it (pp. 404. 15-408. 9). This latter incident Heron could 
not find anywhere in Philon, though he had consulted a great number 
of copies of his work. He continues (p. 408. 9-18) that we are not to 
suppose that he is running down Philon or charging him with not being 
capable of carrying out what he promised. On the contrary, the omission 
was probably due to a slip of memory, for it is easy enough to make 
stage-thunder (he proceeds to show how to do it). But the rest of 
Philon’s arrangements seemed to him satisfactory, and this, he says, is 
why he has not ignored Philon’s work: ‘ for I think that my readers will 
get the most benefit if they are shown, first what has been well said by 
the ancients and then, separately from this, what the ancients overlooked 
or what in their work needed improvement ’ (pp. 408.22-410. 6). (2) The 
next chapter (pp. 410. 7-412. 2) explains generally the sort of thing the 
automaton-picture has to show, and Heron says he will give one example 
which he regards as the best. Then (3), after drawing a contrast between 
the simpler pictures made by ‘ the ancients ’, which involved three different 
movements only, and the contemporary (oi tend' ypas) representations of 
interesting stories by means of more numerous and varied movements 
(p. 412. 3-15), he proceeds to describe a setting of the Nauplius-story, 
This is the representation which Tittel identifies with Philon’s. But it, 
is to be observed that the description includes that of the episode of the 
thunderbolt striking Ajax (c. 30, pp. 448.1-452. 7) which Heron expressly 
says that Philon omitted. Further, the mechanism for the appearance 
of Athene described in c. 29 is clearly not Philon’s ‘more difficult’ 
arrangement, but the simpler device described (pp. 404. 18-408. 5) as 
possible and preferable to Philon’s (cf. Heron, vol. i, ed. Schmidt, pp. 
Ixviii—Ixix).