[Windflier]

But not the Romans ~ they knew about it but did nothing systematic to fix the problem. The machine was built under the period when the Romans OWNED Greece ~ so I doubt the Greeks were able to do much about changing Roman attitudes.

So, what are you saying? That the Greeks built this device while under the domination of the Romans, so that they could accurately pinpoint the precise date of their Olympic games?

Enslaved people don't ordinarily make technological strides forward.

Or, perhaps you're now assigning attribution for the device to the Romans, who, per you, cared nothing about the accuracy of their own calendar?

Again, the logic is untidy.

I don't doubt that the device could have been used to plot the precise starting date of the Olympic games. I just don't believe that it was produced primarily for that reason.

[muawiyah]

The Greek problem wasn't that they couldn't invent things ~ they were being systematically stripped of capital so they could never take that next step forward into the Industrial Revolution.

It was like if Jaquard had invented the cards to control the looms but nobody would front him the bucks to make more cards. Luckily for the rest of us he had no trouble getting financing, and next thing you know we have super computers.

The ancient greeks were left holding a geared clock/calendar/calculator and nowhere to go with it.

Remember, back in Roman times life of the average person was brutish, short and filled with ignorance. The problem with the Romans is they seemed to like it that way.