This author's first sentence is:
"There is an apocryphal tale I've heard many times about how, in Ancient Rome (or, in some tellings, Greece), the engineers responsible for the construction of an arch were required to stand underneath it as the final wooden supports were taken out."
This story is derived from Law #229 of the Code of Hammurabi (of Babylon). Babylon was not part of Greece, but it was very briefly part of the Roman empire.
" 229 If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. "