pare with these mighty works the pyramids or the useless thorough famous works of the Greeks?" A thorough Roman of the old school, he has surelv by his life, as revealed in the De Aquis, abundantly merited the remembrance which posterity has accorded and will long continue to accord him.
The works of Frontinus are all of a technical nature, written, as he tells us,[1] partly for his own instruction, and partly for the advantage of others. The first of these was probably a treatise on the Art of Surveying, of which fragments are extant. It consisted originally of two books, and the excerpts, collected by Lachmann,[2] treat the following subjects: de agrorum qualitate, de controversiis, de limitibus, de controversiis agrorum. The work is known to us principally through the codex Arcerianus at Wolfenbüttel, dating probably from the sixth or not later than the seventh century, which appears to have been a book used by the Roman State employees and contains treatises on Roman law and land surveying, including some pages of Frontinus. Various citations in other authors from this work of Frontinus point to the latter as a pioneer in this practical work of the Roman surveyor, and to his writings as the standard authority for many years.
The composition by Frontinus of a military work of a theoretical nature is attested first by his own words in the preface to his Strategemata,[3] and also by
- ↑ De Aquis, Pref. 2, p. 333.
- ↑ Die Schriften der röm. Feldmesser, Berlin, 1848, 1852. Cf. also M. Cantor, Die röm. Agrimensoren und ihre Stellung in der Gesch. der Feldmesskunst, Leipzig, 1875.
- ↑ Cum ad instruendam rei militaris scientiam unus ex numero studiosorum eius accesserim eique destinato, quantum cura nostra valuit, satisfecisse visus sim, etc.
