Originally published on April 17, 2019 (Episode 107)
Introduction
Greek myths brim with tales of androids and artificial beings: Talos the bronze giant, Daedalus’s moving statues, Hephaestus’s mechanical assistants. Ancient people imagined robots, life-prolonging treatments, and other marvels that seem startlingly modern.
Adrienne Mayor explores this fascination in Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology. Drawing on sources from Hesiod to Etruscan urns, she examines why myths of artificial life and augmented power captivated the ancient imagination—and why they still resonate with us today.
About the Guest
Adrienne Mayor is a research scholar in classics and the history of science at Stanford University. Her books explore myth, science, and imagination in the ancient world.
For Further Investigation
Adrienne Mayor, Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology (Princeton, 2018)
Related Episodes
“Griffins, Greek Fire, and Ancient Poisons”— a later conversation with Adrienne Mayor
Mayor Opera Omnia
—, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World (Princeton, 2016)
—, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy (Princeton, 2011)
—, The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton, 2023)
—, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World (Princeton, 2022)
—, Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws: And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities (Princeton, 2022)
Listen & Discuss
Why were ancient myths so preoccupied with artificial beings?
What does this fascination reveal about how humans imagine technology?
👉 Share with a friend who thinks robots are new.
