Hero of Alexandria

Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria (c. 10–70 AD) was an ancient Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. He is considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and his work is representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition. Hero published a well recognized description of a steam-powered device called an aeolipile (hence sometimes called a "Hero engine"). Among his most famous inventions was a windwheel, constituting the earliest instance of wind harnessing on land. He is said to have been a follower of the Atomists. Some of his ideas were derived from the works of Ctesibius. Much of Hero's original writings and designs have been lost, but some of his works were preserved in Arab manuscripts.

Hero's Engine or Aeolipile
Hero described construction of the aeolipile (a version of which is known as Hero's engine) which was a rocket-like reaction engine and the first-recorded steam engine (although Vitruvius mentioned the aeolipile in De Architectura some 100 years earlier than Hero). It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution. Another engine used air from a closed chamber heated by an altar fire to displace water from a sealed vessel; the water was collected and its weight, pulling on a rope, opened temple doors. Some historians have conflated the two inventions to assert that the aeolipile was capable of useful work.

Hero of Alexandria in "Death in Vesunna"
The night after the murder of Clodius Eprius, Gaius Tero and Kleandros had dinner together to discuss the strange mysteries in his death. During the discussion of how to speed a lead button fast enough to smash through Eprius' skull, Kleandros recalled a famous artificer from the previous generation named Heron, the son of Ktesibios from Alexandria. One of his devices was a cauldron with a hollow ball on its lid. The ball had a tube from the cauldron on one side and a pivot on the other. It also had bent nozzles around its circumference. When the cauldron was heated, steam would fill the ball and escape through the nozzles causing the ball to spin. If some way could be found to block the steam for a while and then release it at once, then it could give a small pellet of metal a very strong push, strong enough to kill.