Читать книгу Firemen and Their Exploits - F. M. Holmes - Страница 6

Table of Contents

No one knows who invented the modern fire-engine.

The earliest machine, so far as is generally known, was described by Hero of Alexandria about a hundred and fifty years before Christ. He called it "the siphon used in conflagrations"; and it seems to have been originated by Ctesibius, a Greek mechanician living in Egypt, whose pupil Hero became.

It is very interesting to notice how this contrivance worked. It was fitted with two cylinders, each having a piston connected by a beam. This beam raised and lowered each piston alternately, and with the help of valves—which only opened the way of the jet—propelled water to the fire, but not continuously. The method must have proved very inefficient, especially when compared with the constant stream thrown by the modern fire-engine. Indeed, it is this power to project a steady and continuous stream which chiefly differentiates the modern fire-engine from such machines as Hero's siphon.

How far this siphon or any similar contrivance was used in ancient times we cannot say; but no doubt buckets in some form or other were the first appliances used for extinguishing conflagrations. Whenever mankind saw anything valuable burning, the first impulse would be to stamp it out, or quench the flame by throwing water on it; and the water would be conveyed by the readiest receptacle to hand; then when men had discovered the use of the pump, or the squirt, they would naturally endeavour to turn these appliances to account.

In some places the use of water-buckets was organized. Juvenal alludes to the instructions of the opulent Licinus, who bade his "servants watch by night, the water-buckets being set ready"; the wealthy man fearing "for his amber, and his statues, and his Phrygian column, and his ivory and broad tortoise-shell."

Then Pliny and Juvenal use a term—hama—which signifies an appliance for extinguishing fires; but the true rendering seems to be in dispute, some translators being content to describe it simply as a water-vessel. Pliny the Younger refers to siphones, or pipes, being employed to extinguish fires; but we do not know how they were used, or whether they resembled Hero's siphon.

In fact, the earliest references to fire-engines by Roman writers are regarded by some as being merely allusions to aqueduct-pipes for bringing water to houses, rather than to a special appliance. And from Seneca's remark, "that owing to the height of the houses in Rome it was impossible to save them when they took fire," we may gather that any appliances that may have been in use were very inefficient.

A curious primitive contrivance is described by Apollodorus, who was architect to Trajan. It consisted of leathern bags or bottles, having pipes attached; and when the bottles were squeezed, the water gushed through the pipes to extinguish the flames. Augustus was so enterprising as to organize seven bands of firemen, each of which protected two districts of Rome. Each band was in charge of a tribunus, or captain, and the whole force was under a præfectum vigilum, or prefect of the watch; though what apparatus they employed—whether buckets or pipe-bags, syringes or Hero's siphon—we do not know.

But these appliances, or some of them, were no doubt in use at the Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 66. In July of that year—the tenth of the reign of the infamous Emperor Nero—two-thirds of the city was destroyed. The fire broke out at a number of wooden shops built against the side of the great Circus, and near to the low-lying ground between the Palatine and the Cælian Hills. The east wind blew the flames onward to the corner of the Palatine Hill, and there the fire blazed in two directions. It gained such enormous power, that stonework split and fell before it like glass, and building after building succumbed, until at one point it was only stopped by the river, and at another by frowning cliffs.

For six awful days and seven nights the fire raged, and then, when it was supposed to have been extinguished, it burst forth again for three more days. The sight must have been appalling. We can picture the huge sheets and tongues of flame sweeping ever onward, the fearful heat, and the immense volumes of smoke which mounted upward and obscured the sky.

The panic-stricken people fled to the imperial gardens, but whispered that Nero himself had originated the fire. To divert suspicion, he spread reports that the Christians were the culprits; and they were treated with atrocious cruelty, some being wrapped in fabric covered with pitch and burnt in the Emperor's grounds. The guilt of Nero remains a moot point; but he seems to have acted with some amount of liberality to the sufferers, though his acts of humanity did not free his name from the foul suspicion.

The conflagration itself stands out as one of the most terrible in history. Before its furious rage the capable Romans seem to have been reduced to impotence. Their organization, if they had any, seems to have been powerless; and their appliances, if they used any, seem to have been worthless.

We are entitled to draw the deduction that they had no machine capable of throwing a steady, continuous stream from a comparatively safe distance. No band of men, however strong and determined, could have stood their ground sufficiently near the fierce fire to throw water from buckets, pipe-bags, or even portable pumps. For small fires they might prove of service, if employed early; but for large conflagrations they would be worthless. And if Rome, the Mistress of the World, was so ill-provided, what must have been the condition of other places?

We may infer, therefore, that the means of fire extinction in the ancient world were miserably inadequate.

Had mediæval Europe anything better to show?