Famed Antikythera wreck yields more treasures
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Classical Greece was millenia ahead of the rest of the world. Pindar writes of the automata found in Rhodes:
The animated figures stand
Adorning every public street
And seem to breathe in stone, or
move their marble feet.
Not really. Romans were quite nifty as well. Byzantine empire had many automatons. There are steam machines used by arabs...
And the gray-eyed goddess herself bestowed on them every art, so that they surpassed all mortal men as the best workers with their hands; and the roads bore works of art like living, moving creatures, and their fame was profound.
Which perhaps doesn't carry the same implications as the rather florid translation you quoted.
Pretty typical of classical greek translations, though, and sometimes it's necessary–see Sappho.
Pindar's 7th Olympian Ode, lines 50-54:
αὐτὰ δέ σφισιν ὤπασε τέχναν
πᾶσαν ἐπιχθονίων Γλαυκῶπις ἀριστοπόνοις χερσὶ κρατεῖν.
ἔργα δὲ ζωοῖσιν ἑρπόντεσσί θ᾽ ὁμοῖα κέλευθοι φέρον:
ἦν δὲ κλέος βαθύ.
There's a huge difference between a good sculpure vs a simple machine.