[modi15]

You are reading the article wrong - maybe because you are prejudiced to reading it wrong.

The article is part legend and part truth. The robots weren't anything like the robots of today. There were mostly likely simple machines shaped like a human and with some movements. The movements could be orchestrated, for example, by flowing water through a mill which moves a circular disk with knives attached to a human shaped platform.

A lot of the legends are exaggerations and narrative hyperbole which often results when information can also travel verbally. The bigger the exaggeration, the farther the information flows.