antlia

• a machine for drawing water, worked with the foot, a pump, Mart. 9, 14, 3; * Suet. Tib. 51.

AN´TLIA(ἀντλία, ἀντλίον), any machine for raising water. [COCHLEA; GIRGILLUS; ROTA AQUARIA; SIPHO; TOLLENO; TYMPANUM. ] The figure on the next column shows a machine which is still used in Tyrol and other Alpine countries. As the current puts the wheel in motion, the jars on its margin are successively immersed and filled with water. When they reach the top, the water is sent into a trough, from which it is conveyed to a distance, and chiefly used for irrigation. Lucretius (Lucr. 5.516) mentions a machine constructed on this principle: Ut fluvios versare rotas atque haustra videmus.

In situations where the water was at rest, as in a pond or a well, or where the current was too slow and feeble to put the machine in motion, it was constructed so as to be wrought by animal force, and slaves or criminals were commonly employed for the purpose (in antliam condemnare, Suet. Tib. 51). Five such machines are described by Vitruvius, in addition to that which has been already explained, and which, as he observes, was turned sine operarum calcatura, ipsius fluminis impulsu. These five (on which details will be found sub vocc.) were, 1, the tympanum,--a tread-wheel, wrought hominibus calcantibus: 2, a wheel (rota) resembling that in the preceding figure, but having, instead of pots, wooden boxes or buckets (modioli quadrati), so arranged as to form steps for those who trod the wheel: 3, the chain-pump (tolleno): 4, the cochlea, or Archimedes' screw: and 5, the ctesibica machina, or forcing-pump. (Vitr. 10.4-7; Drieberg, Pneum. Erfindungen der Griechen, pp. 44-50.)

On the other hand, the antlia with which Martial (Mart. 9.18, 4) watered his garden was probably the pole and bucket universally employed in Italy, Greece, and Egypt. The pole is curved, as shown in the annexed figure; because it is the stem of a fir, or some other tapering tree. The bucket, being attached to the top of the tree, bends it by its weight; and the thickness of the other extremity serves as a counterpoise. The great antiquity of this method of raising water is proved by representations of it in Egyptian paintings. (Wilkinson, Manners and Cust. of Anc. Egypt. 2.1-4; see also Pitt. d'Ercolano, vol. 1. p. 257.)

(ἄντλια). Any contrivance for raising water. Five such machines are mentioned by Vitruvius, x. ch. 4-7; and Lucretius (v. 516) speaks of one like this, in the annexed illustration, which represents a machine still used in the Tyrol. The antlia with which Martial watered his garden (ix. 19) was nothing more than the pole and bucket still used in Greece, Italy, Egypt, and in some parts of New England.