Heronis Alexandrini Opera quae supersunt omnia

Heronis Alexandrini Opera quae supersunt omnia was produced as part of the Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, a prestigious collection established in the nineteenth century to provide scholarly, critical editions of classical texts. This specific volume, published in 1899, served as a foundational resource for academics and historians of technology, aiming to consolidate the scattered manuscripts of Hero of Alexandria, a mathematician and engineer whose work on pneumatics, mechanics, and geometry remains essential to our understanding of Hellenistic scientific thought.

The editorial work on this edition was spearheaded by scholars including Wilhelm Schmidt, who sought to reconstruct Hero’s complex diagrams and technical treatises with high philological accuracy. By utilizing the Teubner format—characterized by its rigorous text-critical apparatus and standardized Latin introductions—the publisher intended to provide a definitive reference for the European university system. The edition was received as a milestone in the study of ancient engineering, providing the primary authoritative source for many subsequent translations of Hero’s inventions, such as the aeolipile and his various automata.