Aproper understanding of the origins of the Control discipline can be developed if we consider them in the wider context of Modelling and Systems concept's evolution. The origins of the different concepts may be traced in many alternative sources. In the first part of the series we examine the basic notions of Control and Automation as they appear in myths and early historical sources. Myths are significant as early sources since they indicate ideas, concepts generated by practices and past knowledge, for which there is no historical evidence, and thus link with the distant, non-documented past. Myths are significant since they contain conceptualisations of past experiences and practices, and thus link with the distant, non-documented past. In them we find evidence of early visions of concepts and technology, and for that historical period they have acted as sources of "grey knowledge" that was motivating developments. In this first article, we consider the notion of automation and related control ideas and mechanisms in Greek myths and early Greek historical periods. The word automaton (αυτοματο) is a Homeric word. that first appeared in the Homeric epic of Iliad. It constitutes simultaneously a poetical and a technological invention. It is poetical because in ancient Greek poetry the concept of 'anthropomorphism', i.e. of ascribing human attributes to nature, its phenomena, and even to the human technological achievements, was dominant. The construction of automotive machines that looked like live beings, that were equipped with 'soul - Ψυχη ', strength and human abilities, was at the beginning no more than a mythical poetical invention, which however expressed a technical vision and an aspiration.
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