Guh I hate how this thing keeps popping back up. It's been rediscovered so many times.<p>It's nifty in that the Greeks used it as a calculator of sorts to compute the locations of the stars and planets for astrological purposes. Being an astrologer in those days was mostly mathematical computations, drawing the astrology charts by hand, and then very little delineation done after wards.<p>I've been learning koine Greek in an effort to read some of these documents out of simple fascination. IIRC, Archimedes or maybe was it Cierco talked about these devices.<p>I always wonder if the Greeks didn't have interference from the Romans, would they have discovered a way to use steam power beyond that if a simple toy?