In books IX and X of "De Architectura", Vitruvius mentioned amusing gadgets, "genera deliciarum", among which were automatons reproducing the sounds and movements of living things to delight the senses. Passing over in silence the mechanical objects with no apparent function, he described the water clocks adorned with automatons described by Ctesibius two centuries before. At the beginning of the XIVth century, the mechanical clock, one of the most important inventions in the history of technology, was to become in turn the driving force and support of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic automatons. Is it possible to establish a historical and technical link between antique automatons and automatons from the medieval period apart from their timekeeper-function? Presenting the sources which have led to the charting of the link between Antiquity and the Middle Ages, this article shows that the reading of Vitruvius contributed to the development of watch-making in the West and may also have inspired the use of automatons.