> But surely the idea of a mechanical man predates the term, robot. Automatons?
Greek myth has Hephaestus (Vulcan to the Romans) making a bunch of robots. Talos was a giant humanoid guardian of Crete made of bronze. I can't remember the names of his forge workers, but there were two of them and they worked with him pumping bellows and hammering metal.
I was curious about the assistants to Hephaestus you mentioned - apparently Vergil describes two cyclopes, Brontes (thunder) and Steropes (lightning), as helping him at the forge. Earlier myths about cyclopes describe three of them (Brontes, Steropes and Arges (brightness)), who predated the birth of Hephaestus and were credited with forging Zeus' thunderbolts.
Greek myth has Hephaestus (Vulcan to the Romans) making a bunch of robots. Talos was a giant humanoid guardian of Crete made of bronze. I can't remember the names of his forge workers, but there were two of them and they worked with him pumping bellows and hammering metal.