All images courtesy of Antikythera Mechanism Research Project. Digital reconstructions ©2008 Tony Freeth; photograph from the National Archaeological Museum, Athens ©Hellenic Ministry of Culture/Archaeological Receipts Fund

known world! By Zeus, we Greeks are civilized!”

It is absolute, metal proof that you are not just empty talk like those so-called “cosmopolitan” philosophers. You can tell horoscopes with your device, even get a decent job teaching. It also proves that you matriculated from Rhodes, where the Rhodians build giant war machines — where they built the Colossus of Rhodes out of somebody else’s war machines. The Colossus is truly one of the Seven Wonders of the World!

Wondrous things happen in Rhodes, and even weirder ones in its close ally Alexandria, the boomtown of the Hellenistic world. In Alexandria they build wild gizmos like jet-propelled aeolipiles. You grease up one of those babies, fire up its steam cauldron, and it swiftly becomes the fastest-moving object known to man.

Of course, you have to explain a lot to get skeptical Greeks to support advanced aeolipile makers. You have to explicate to doubtful people that the air, the pneuma, is not “nothing,” but possesses material substance, unlike the element fire, which has

DECONSTRUCTING THE ANTIKYTHERA DEVICE: (clockwise from top left) FRONT: The gears and pointers at the front of the mechanism. There is a zodiac scale, which displays the positions of the sun and moon; a calendar scale, which shows the date in the Egyptian calendar; and a moon phase display. BACK: Elements colored in bronze are those for which there is direct evidence; elements in copper are those that have been conjectured to complete the model. BACK DIALS: The main upper dial is a 19-year, 235-month Metonic calendar; its two subsidiary dials are Olympiad and Callippic calendars. FRAGMENT: The front of the main surviving fragment of the mechanism. It contains 27 gears. The large gear with four spokes at the front is called the Mean Sun Wheel.

immaterial substance. Physics can get complicated. It can get hugely complicated, really Greek and subtle.

Unlike the unsubtle Romans, who also have strong ideas about a universal cosmic order. Except, unlike your nifty little gearbox, their orderly ideas involve huge aqueducts and roads. Solid, world-gripping stone roads, with Roman armies marching on them.

So the problem here isn’t too few kosmos boxes. The problem is too many ancient computers. Once the sense of cosmic wonder fades, the boxes are arcane, they’re fussy, they’re mystically detached and geeky. No business model there. Too many features. Not enough apps to empower the everyday user.

And all that fancy bronze gearing … hey, bronze, that’s valuable stuff. The kids can repurpose grandpa’s fusty old gearbox and make some new objects of solid, practical value. Like coins. Coins and swords. Bronze coins and swords … who can’t love those? Coins and swords are universal!

Bruce Sterling ( bruces@well.com) is the author of several science fiction novels and nonfiction books.

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