[YOUGOTIT]

They also had automatic doors operated by hydraulics and water clocks and other clocks. I saw the recovered calculator (in a museum) but no one could tell what it was until the x-rays were developed that could distinguish the different gears inside.

There was a lot of development that was lost when the barbarians took over and Europe fell into the dark ages. Like flush toilets and showers and bathing facilities and concrete and building with iron reinforced concrete.

[camle]

exactly, and coin operated fortune telling machines, and mechanical singing birds...

the lesson here is that all this technology was lost (Galen did eye and brain surgery in ancient Rome, for example) when civilization appeases barbarians instead of agressively fighting them. Even Rome's high level of sophistication couldn't save it in the end.

and the world lost - a thousand years of darkness because of a losing strategy.