The Romans came late to seafaring. Having vanquished all of the land mass of Italy with ease, the Romans happened upon a stricken Carthagian quinquireme near Sicily. This provided a template for Roman vessels to create a huge naval force, and after winning an epic sea battle against the Carthaginians tin 260BC, the Roman dominance of the Mediterranean Sea eventually led to it being referred to as a Roman lake.
One such vessel was skirting the treacherous waters south of the Peloponnese in 70BC. Its hold was swollen with antiquities, curios and innumerable treasures of golden artifacts - all condemned to centuries beneath the waves as the ship dashed against the rocks of Antikythera.
Yet this ship, and this priceless treasure, hid a secret that lay hidden for thousands of years after the wreckage. The secret was a device of stunning complexity, of beautiful intricacy, and of such astonishing design techniques that it took the civilized English world a full 1,400 years to approach the same level of craftsmanship.
The device now bears the monicker of where it lay, undiscovered, for all of those centuries. It is the Antikythera Mechanism. The computer of the ancients.
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