Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Hydraletes

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

HYDRAL'ETES (ὑδραλέτης). A mill for grinding corn driven by water instead of cattle or men; which appears to have been first used in Asia (Strabo, xii. 3. § 30.), and not introduced into Italy before the time of Julius Caesar, at the earliest, and then only by a few private individuals. (Vitruv. x. 5. 2. Compare Pallad. R. R. i. 42.) The earliest mention of public water mills is about A. D. 398, under Arcadius and Honorius (Cod. Theodos. 14, 15. 4.), which were supplied by the aqueducts: and the use of floating mills was invented by Belisarius in the year 536, when Vitiges besieged the city, and stopped the mills, by cutting off the water supplied by the aqueducts. (Procop. Goth. i. 9.) From the passage of Vitruvius (l. c.), we learn that the hydraletes was very similar in operation to the common water-wheel (rota aquaria); a large wheel furnished with float boards (pinnae), which turned it with the current, and thus acted upon a cogwheel attached to its axle, by means of which the mill-stone was driven, as explained s. MOLA.