“Eupalamas-The Creator of the Anchor: Told in First Person Perspective”
By: Joe B.  U.S.A.

My name is Eupalamas. I created the first anchor in 592 B.C. It was soon upgraded to wood and later into stone. Finally, it was later changed to iron so it would stay down. I had to make anchors for my town and it usually took 10 to 12 men to carry it. Some of them weighed up to 1400 pounds and it was easy to make out of stone, but it would not hold down the bigger ships.

One of the other inventions of my time was the first vending machine. It was made in 592 B.C. How it worked was that you would drop a coin in the slot. Then it would hit a pan and a spout would open and water would come out. When the coin fell it would close the spout. The man who made this was Hero of Alexander.

Eratosthenes was a man of many words. He was born in Cyrene. He worked on geometry and prime numbers. He ended up finding out the size of the world. He was the director of the Great Library of Alexandria. He was known for his prime numbers, but he was a better geographer in my opinion. He was the man that encouraged me to build something that could hold ships down.

He was the smartest man I knew at the time. He finally figured out the tilt of the world’s axis. He had great accuracy and completed a star catalog containing 675 stars. However, soon after that, he lost the catalog. He then suggested a leap year. He also wanted to invent an accurately dated calendar.

It was very sad when he got older. He became blind and committed suicide by starving himself. We all missed Eratosthenes because he could have solved so many theories and problems.

Anaximander was another man I knew who made maps. He was also called Anixiander. He was the second philosopher of Iania. He was a successful student in astronomy. He was also big in geography and invented tools to help people study astronomy like the sundial or the gnomon. He was really credited with making the first map.

He was born in 611 B.C. and died in 547 B.C. Little of his work was credited to him because of some other people stole his fame. He was interested in knowing what made up the elements of life.

He was the most fascinating man I ever met and I had not seen him for awhile. No one really knows how he knew the shape of the earth or what it looked like. He was a hard man to understand but he was brilliant.

The Greek catapult was made a little before I was born, but it was very important at the time. The man who invented it was Dioynysisas, the elder of Syracuse. He was a great inventor. He really called it the katapaltal. It was invented in 350 B.C.  It had a lot of problems, but soon was fixed. Alexander the Great was the first to use it for cover fire and ground troops. He also used them for siege warfare. This great invention soon went out of use and no one used it. The catapult was mainly made of wood. They weren’t used for anything else but war. It was never a problem making them, but it was just that no one wanted them anymore. To me, they were the most fascinating thing because of the way they were built.

Finally, the most complicated and wonderful invention was the steam engine. It was invented by Heron, an ancient Greek geometer and engineer. It was first called aelipile, which mean wind ball in Greek. It worked by a steel bat filled with water and was placed over a fir. Steam would be created and would go out two holes and make the ball spin and make energy. The two tubes at the top where the steam came out was where it curved to make it spin. It was Heron’s little toy. Some of his books said that his invention opened temple doors. I do not believe that. It was made in the first century A.D. It was soon upgraded to pull carriages and other things.

“Eratosthenes and His Life: Alexander and the Maps.” www.mlanaans.de/greeks.  Retrieved
on February 21, 2013.

“The Catapult.” www.buzzle.com/articals/greeks-invention.  Retrieved on February 15, 2013.

“The Steam Engine.” Dimdima.com/scinenc/  Retrieved on February 15, 2013.