Skip to content
Wellsprings
Hero of Alexandria

Hero of Alexandria

c. 27 CE–c. 67 CE · Alexandria

Hero of Alexandria (active c. 62 CE) was a Greek mathematician and engineer, one of the great experimenters of antiquity. He wrote on mechanics, pneumatics, and surveying, and is famous for describing ingenious devices, including a simple steam-powered spinning sphere and various automata, as well as a formula for the area of a triangle that bears his name. His works are a key source for ancient applied science.

See Hero of Alexandria’s journey on the map →

Did you know?

  • A working steam device ran in Roman Egypt — about 1,650 years too early

    In the first century CE, Hero of Alexandria described the aeolipile: a sealed vessel of boiling water whose escaping steam spun a metal sphere on angled jets — a genuine steam-driven device. It remained a curiosity; steam power would not turn the wheels of industry until Thomas Newcomen's engine of 1712 CE, roughly 1,650 years later.

    How we know

    Hero of Alexandria c. 27–67 CE (floruit fixed by the eclipse of 13 March 62 CE); aeolipile described c. 62 CE. Newcomen's atmospheric engine 1712 CE → 1,650 yrs; Watt 1769 → 1,707 yrs.

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→

Stop 1 of 1

AlexandriaEgypt

We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.

About Alexandria

Alexandria (al-Iskandariyya) is the great Mediterranean port-city of northern Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE and a leading centre of learning in antiquity. After the Muslim conquest of Egypt (642) it remained a major commercial and scholarly hub; the Shadhili Sufi Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari (d. 1309) took his nisba from the city, and the modernist reformer Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) was active in Egypt's intellectual life there and in Cairo.

In Alexandria at the same time

Aelius Theon

Across the traditions, in Alexandria at the same time

See other sages who lived in Alexandria→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Hero of Alexandria’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

In the same tradition

Aelius Theon

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Hero of Alexandria’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(10)