Chapter 5 explores how technical ingenuity featured in the act of religious dedication in ancient Greek religion. Two epigrams (describing the Bes rhyton and the Lykon thēsauros) are taken alongside descriptions of pneumatic inventions in Philo of Byzantium and Hero of Alexandria’s technical manuals. Though not typically read together, Hellenistic epigram, and Philo and Hero’s texts all describe pneumatically enhanced dedications, and demonstrate, within the confines of their genres, how religious awe and technological capabilities were co-constructed and mutually reinforcing. The chapter then turns to the material record, examining traces of technically enhanced dedications in practice. Two examples are explored: wheeled tripods and articulated figurines. Both categories of votive objects show different ways in which the mechanical, human, and divine were configured. Both also stretch further back chronologically than the discussion of preceding chapters, allowing for discussion of texts including Iliad 18 on Hephaistos’ tripods, and Prometheus Bound, to think about the (mythic) prehistory of the phenomenon at hand.

Before the taming of horses, human lives and activities were limited by the speed of walking or boats, and without the wheeled vehicle transport of goods was restricted to human strength. All this would change when humans had finally established control of the horse, breeding, training and using this unique species, and in due course attaching it to haul chariot, cart and wagon.