Ancient Science and Technology

ANC lENT SC I ENCE AND TECHNOLOGY by A. TREVOR HODGE This article l is a summary of a presentation I was invited to give at the June meeting of the Classical Association of Canada at Fredericton, N.B., on a new course on Ancient Science and Technology I have for two years been giving at Carleton University, Ottawa. It can be no more than the experiences of one instructor teaching one set of students at one particular university, and all my impressions must be based on that; but technology is a steadily accelerating bandwagon upon which many classics departments arc now trying to hitch a ride, and my impressions may be of interest to those about to take the plunge. Our course runs throughout the academic year as part of our classical civilization progranune. It is thus accessible to our own majors, but, having no prerequisite, follows the pattern of most such courses in drawing thc bulk of its enrolment from outside the department from students who take it as an option to complement their studies in another discipline. In particular, the Faculty of Engineering requires of its students an Arts option, and, since the new course opened, has been assiduous in directing them into it. The course has thus taken on a distinct engineering slant, and we have done all we could to accommodate engineering students, offering to timetablc the course to suit their needs and so on. In terms of quantity (I need not say T know there are other criteria that count too) the result is a success; enrolment first time rOlUld was 76, second, 130, and the student evaluation survey gave the course a very high rating. For this one point emerges. My own training was as an ancient historian and archaeologist, specializing in Greek architecture. Ancient technology is often thought of as something very arcane and peripheral to the general run of classics, enough to strike dread into the heart of any classicist faced with teaching it. It is my experience that, at an introduC!tory tevet (and I am here dealing with nothing else), it ought to be within the competence of any general classicist to get up the material enough to give the course . Even a literary specialist should find it within his powers, if he had to-I don't say he would enjoy it, but he should be able to do it, if not well, at least adequately. A condensed version of the standard handbooks, notably R. J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Teohnotogy, and Singer, Holmyard, etc., History of Ancient TeC!hnotogy, Vol . I, repeated more or less straight, will do very well. This sounds cynical . It is meant to be realistic. For the students, most of whom have no previous knowledge of Greece and Rome at all, let alone their technology, it will be a completely virgin field (for the instructor too the first time through); to introduce them to it by an outline of the established views of the authorities is not to sell them short. The advice I would offer, based on all thiS, is: if you are a department thinking of offering a technology course but hesitating because "we have no technology man", then go ahead. It is not as unfathomable a mystery as all that. A second point. It would be a rare classicist indeed who, with no training in engineering, did not blench at the thought of "lecturing on engineering to engineers", and at the start it gave me some sleepless nights. On this too I can offer reassurance. For one thing, the engineers are out of their field too, in the dreaded Faculty of Arts where you are expected to write essays, ANCIENT SCIENCE AND TEQ-INOLOGY 29 and are quite as nervous as the instructor. Second, they have various specialties , and an honours student in, e. g., Aeronautical Engineering, will not know much more about the principles of bronze smelting than an ordinary Arts man. Third, it is possible on reading the handbooks really to Wldel's t and the processes involved, so that in lecturing one is not simply parroting the printed page and can answer sensibly any reasonable question that...