The Classical Association, Cambridge University Press Greece & Rome

The Roman Surveyors
Author(s): O. A. W. Dilke
Source: Greece & Rome, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Oct., 1962), pp. 170-180
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
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THE ROMAN SURVEYORS
By o. A. W. DILKE
T is curious that so little has been written in English about the Roman
land surveyors and their work.' Most of the nineteenth-century
study of the subject was carried out by German scholars. In i812
Niebuhr stressed the importance of the extant writings of the agrimen-
sores and suggested that field-work in Italy would contribute to our
understanding of them. In 1833 a Dane, Captain Falbe, noticed that
the squares into which the land round Carthage was divided had sides
corresponding to 2,400 feet and thus equalled a normal centuria. The
standard edition of the agrimensores,2 edited by Blume, Lachmann, and
others, appeared in 1848 and 1852. Mommsen contributed to this work,
and he and other German scholars3 extended the study of Roman
surveying. Before the First World War it was a Swede, Thulin, who
furthered research on the ancient writings.* Apart from that in German
the bulk of the work on the subject is in Italian.s
The commonest Latin name for a surveyor is mensor (which can also
have other meanings), but there are many others. It is thought, since
some of the surveyors' technical terms are paralleled in augury, that in
early times augurs performed such surveying functions as were needed.
Plautus, in the prologue to the Poenulus, 1. 48, imagines the speaker as
a land surveyor setting bounds to the plot:
eius nunc regiones, limites, confinia
determinabo: ei rei ego sum factus finitor.
On the other hand, the 200 finitores6 ex equestri loco in Rullus' agrarian
law were assistant commissioners, not surveyors. The word metator in
' H. Stuart Jones, Companion to Roman History (Oxford, I912), I6 ff.; Oxf.
Class. Dict., s.v. 'Gromatici'; John Bradford, Ancient Landscapes (London, 1957),
145-216, on centuriation and air photography; and see below, pp. 172 n. 4,
176 nn. I, 3, 178 n. 2.
2 Die Schriften der rdmischen Feldmesser, 2 vols. (repr. Hildesheim, 1961).
3 Especially A. Schulten, in Die rdmische Flurteilung und ihre Reste (Berlin,
1898), and various articles.
4 Of his Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum in the Teubner series (1913) only
one volume appeared.
s Especially E. N. Legnazzi, Del catasto romano e di alcuni strumenti antichi
di geodesia (Verona-Padova, 1887); F. Castagnoli, Le ricerche sui resti della
centuriazione (Rome, 1958).
6 An accepted emendation for ianitores in Cic. Leg. Agr. ii. 32; cf. 34, 45, 53.
THE ROMAN SURVEYORS 171
its classical usage has been misunderstood: it is wrong to take out of
their context Cicero's words peritus metator et callidus' as if they implied
that surveying was already a skilled and respected profession. The man
Cicero is speaking of is L. Decidius Saxa, a Spaniard whom Caesar
made tribune of the people, and who had started life as a workman
measuring camp-sites under a centurion. Now, says Cicero,2 he has so
risen above his station that he hopes to measure out Rome itself as if it
were a colony. Indeed, it was not until the time of Frontinus that
surveying came to be fully recognized as a useful accomplishment. Of
the various other terms gromatici is found only in late Latin.
Sextus Iulius Frontinus is best known to us on the one hand as
governor of Britain from A.D. 74 to 78 and conqueror of the Silures in
SE. Wales, and on the other hand as a writer of works on strategy and
on the aqueducts of Rome. But there is also preserved in the Corpus
Agrimensorum a number of fragments3 by Frontinus on surveying and
on legal disputes with which the surveyor might be concerned. The
fragments preserved, like much of the remainder of the Corpus, present
a corrupt text. Moreover the Corpus contains material datable to almost
every period from the late Republic* to the fall of the Roman Empire:
even the earliest manuscript contains the Casae Litterarum (c. A.D. 500),
and some manuscripts have excerpts from Isidore (d. A.D. 636). In its
present form the Corpus has many historical inaccuracies: one letter, for
example, purports to be from the Emperor Tiberius to the triumvirs!
The De limitibus and other works are ascribed by a manuscript to Augu-
stus' freedman Hyginus-wrongly, for the De condicionibus agrorum
ascribed to this same writer mentions Trajan's campaigns. Another
work, Hyginigromatici constitutio, which gives some interesting practical
instructions, is probably by a different hand: and the work on military
camps,5 which perhaps dates to the third century, has been wrongly
fathered on Hyginus. A treatise by one Balbus reveals that he was in
charge of surveying on the Dacian campaigns either of Domitian or of
Trajan. The work of Siculus Flaccus, De condicionibus agrorum, was
Phil. xiv. Io.

2 In Phil. xi. 12 as well as in the above passage.
3 The Oxf. Class. Dict., s.v. 'Frontinus', says that these form part of a book
which was in two volumes; but this can only be inferred if, with Lachmann, we
argue that a certain section of Agennius Urbicus' commentary (p. 25 Thulin =
Feldm. i. 64) is partly extracted from Frontinus.
* Among the earliest is Vegoia's prophecy, which J. Heurgon, J.R.S. xlix
(1959), 41-45, dates to 91 B.C.
s Hygini Gromatici liber de munitionibus castrorum, ed. G. Gemoll (Leipzig,
1879).
172 THE ROMAN SURVEYORS
written after Domitian's reign; it gives information not only on types of
land but on boundaries and on the legal interpretation of wording used
by surveyors. Also among the collection are various libri coloniarum,'
which list towns in Italy (and some in Dalmatia) with brief details on
each. An extract from the Campanian section runs:
Liternum, muro ductum, colonia ab Augusto deducta. iter populo debetur

ped. CXX. ager eius in iugeribus ueteranis est adsignatus.2
A colony was founded at Liternum in 194 B.C., but it seems to have been
rather deserted in Augustus' time; and since there are many inaccuracies
in the libri coloniarum, it is naturally debated whether such statements
can be accepted. A curious work already mentioned is the Casae littera-
rum,3 which gives sketches of estates or country houses incorporated in
large letters of the alphabet and comments on each.
Some of the manuscripts in which the Corpus is preserved have illus-
trations (P1. I). The best of these are in the Arcerianus, a sixth- or
seventh-century manuscript at Wolfenbiittel, and in a ninth-century
Palatine manuscript in the Vatican. All except plain geometric drawings
are in more than one colour, and the colours are mostly very well
preserved. The miniatures are reproduced in black and white in Thulin's
edition and by line drawings in Blume-Lachmann, but a complete
colour reproduction would be desirable. Some of the drawings show
named towns: these vary in accuracy, errors being mostly due to repeated
copying. The present writer and others4 have tried to correlate them
with existing topography.
We can distinguish between three principal activities of the surveyors:
military, official, and private. On the military side we find, under the
Empire, mensores attached to each legion: one legion, according to an
inscription, had eleven. The column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome shows
Perhaps more accurately libri regionum; edited by E. Pais, Storia della

colonizzazione di Roma antica, i (Rome, 1923).
2 The phrases iter populo debetur and iter populo non debetur occur frequently.
In the affirmative sentences the iter varies from io to i2o feet. The meaning of
the phrases, which appear to denote the existence or non-existence of a legal
servitude to the State by owners of adjacent property, has been discussed by
C. Saumagne, Rev. Phil., 3rd Ser., ii (1928), 320-52, and others.
I Edited by A. Josephson (Upsala, 1951).
* A. Schulten, 'R6mische Flurkarten', in Hermes, xxxiii (I898), 534-65;
F. Castagnoli, 'Le formae delle colonie romane e le miniature dei codici dei
gromatici', Atti della Reale Accad. d'Ital. (Mem. Linc., 7th Ser.), iv (I943),
83-118; 0. A. W. Dilke and Margaret S. Dilke, 'Terracina and the Pomptine
Marshes', Greece & Rome, 2nd Series, viii (196I), 172-8; 0. A. W. Dilke, 'Maps
in the Treatises of Roman Land Surveyors', Geog. Journ. cxxvii (1961), 417-26.
surveyors fixing a camp site with measuring-rods. The treatise on mili-
tary camps has already been mentioned. It is unfortunate that we do
not possess a similar treatise on the making of military roads: our know-
ledge of the details of military and civilian road-making is gathered
almost entirely from archaeological observation.
On the official side there was a steady growth of bureaucracy. When-
ever a colony was founded, the land had to be surveyed, divided up,
and assigned to holders. The map which Agrippa ordered to be erected
in his colonnade was based largely on road surveys. From time to time
we hear of particular surveying incidents. Vespasian instructs a pro-
curator to settle a Corsican boundary dispute and sends a mensor to assist
him.' Pliny writes to Trajan suggesting that a good deal of money
could be saved if a mensor were sent out to Bithynia, but Trajan's reply
is:
mensores uix etiam iis operibus quae aut Romae aut in proximo fiunt
sufficientes habeo; sed in omni prouincia inueniuntur quibus credi possit, et
ideo non deerunt tibi, modo uelis diligenter excutere.2
The surveyors formed themselves into a collegium, and it became an

offence to practise without a qualification. Several monuments of men-
sores exist; the best known is that of L. Aebutius Faustus at Ivrea
(Eporedia), on which a groma is represented rather inadequately by its
cross-arms lying over the shaft of its pole (P1. II, a). Under Constantine
there is a staff of civil-servant surveyors under a primicerius mensorum.
Private practice must have accounted for a large volume of the
surveyors' business. Boundaries were often poorly defined; boundary
stones could be moved; in lands where there was little summer rain
disputes about the possession or use of water were frequent. Some
legal disputes the surveyor could settle, in others (including, no doubt,
that before the committee of nine shown in P1. II, b), he acted merely
as aduocatus. There are several passages of the Digest dealing with the
liability borne by a surveyor.3
As evidence of the activity of land surveyors in the reign of Theodoric
(A.D. 493-526) we may refer to a letter of Cassiodorus.4 A boundary
dispute leading to violence has arisen between two spectabiles. If, says
Cassiodorus, they lived in the regularly flooded Nile valley,s they would
SC.I.L. x. 8038. 2 Ep. x. I7b. 2, I8. 3.

3 For example, Dig. xi. 6, 'si mensor falsum modum dixerit'; x. I. 4. I, which
points to the type of contract known as locatio conductio; 1. 13. I, which suggests
a mandate to the surveyor.
4 Var. iii. 52.
s Much of the land near the Nile had to be re-surveyed every year. For an
3871.2 N
simply have recourse to a surveyor. Augustus' census of the whole
orbis Romanus, he continues, was intended to avoid such disputes; and
the theory of surveying was set out by Heron metricus,' i.e. Hero of
Alexandria. At this point Cassiodorus enters on what looks like an
academic sarcasm. Other sciences, he says, are so theoretical that their
lecturers address only a handful of students;
agrimensori uero finium lis orta committitur, ut contentionum proteruitas
abscidatur. iudex est utique artis suae, forum ipsius agri deserti sunt: fanati-
cum credis quem tortuosis semitis ambulare conspexeris. indicia siquidem
rerum inter siluas asperas et dumeta perquirit, non ambulat iure communi,
uia illi est lectio sua, ostendit quod dicit, probat quod didicit, gressibus suis
concertantium iura discernit, et more uastissimi fluminis aliis spatia tollit,
aliis rura concedit.
Modern surveyors work on a system of triangles; the ancients did not,

except that they used the theory of similar triangles to measure distances
which could not be covered on foot. Mommsen and other writers have
commented on the insistence of the Romans, wherever possible, on
working in squares. Greek town-planners had applied such a system to
towns; its extension to the country-side is a Roman development,
paralleled by a square irrigation system devised in Japan about the
seventh century A.D.2 Roman arable lands were bounded by limites
(balks, boundary paths, boundary roads), and the process of dividing up
such land was usually called limitatio. We call it 'centuriation' since
'limitation' means something else, and centuriatio is one of the synonyms
given by Siculus Flaccus, for the boundary paths normally enclose one
centuria. In this sense 'century' means in origin ioo heredia (heritable
plots), and in terms of measurement two iugera3 made one heredium
(about i1 acres). This 'century' of 200oo iugera was not only theoretical
but the usual size; each side contained 2o actus or 2,400 Roman feet.
According to the regular practice, at the centre of the centuriated
area the two main roads, decimanus (or decumanus) maximus and kardo
maximus (these terms seem to have been derived from augury), crossed
at right-angles. Any orientation was possible: Frontinus favours west,
account of Egyptian land-registers see A. D616age, 'Les Cadastres antiques jusqu'
aSurveying
Diocltien',
in ,tudes deTimes',
Ancient Papyrologie, ii (1934),
Conference 73-228;
of Empire Sir Henry
Survey Lyons,
Officers, 1931'Land
(London, 1932), 175-80.
' Most of the manuscripts have yron metricus; T. Hodgkin's translation (The
Letters of Cassiodorus [Oxford, I886], 232) wrongly gives 'the author Hyrum-
metricus'.
2 F. Castagnoli, Le ricerche sui resti della centuriazione, 30 and fig. 14.
3 The iugerum (about J acre) was originally a strip of land which could be
ploughed in a day by a yoke of oxen; it was equal to 2 X I actus.
but the two most commonly adopted were east and south. Every fifth
limes from the centre was designed wider than the rest. The enumera-
tion of 'centuries' was made by the abbreviations S.D., D.D., K.K. (or
C.K.), and V.K., standing for sinistra and dextra decimanum, kitra (or
citra) and ultra kardinem.' The following diagram shows how the
limites seem to have been reckoned:
J I
VKLIT
I VK
I II I L
VK I M" VK I
KARDO MAXIMVS
KK I KK
KK II KK I
1 I - I I I " F
FIG. I. Enumeration of limites. The

'century' shaded would be numbered
SD I-VK II
The 'centuries' themselves were then reckoned with the same numbering
as their corner farthest from the centre, e.g. S.D. I-V.K. II would
denote the 'century' between D.M.-V.K. I and S.D. I-V.K. II. As an,
example of this enumeration a Gracchan stone from the Capua areaz
carries in one direction the inscription SD I and at right-angles to it
KK XI. From the spot where this was found it has been possible to
work out where the decimanus maximus and kardo maximus of that
centuriation crossed; today it is still a crossroads.
The two areas where the remains of centuriation are best preserved3
are Italy and North Africa. Italy has the greatest number of sites,
about forty-eight known ones and many suspected. There too is en-
In early Latin C represented the sound of G. When later the letter G was
introduced, C came to represent the sound of K, and the latter thus gradually
became obsolete, being used chiefly for certain abbreviations. See Quint. i. 7.
10, 4. 9. The Orange inscriptions give C (citra), the Gracchan terminus and
the surveyors' writings K for both kitra and kardo.
2 C.I.L. I2. 640.
3 F. Castagnoli, op. cit. I2-20; J. Bradford, op. cit. 193-207; and biblio-
graphy in the footnotes of each.
countered the greatest diversity of type, as there are such differences of
terrain. The clearest traces in Italy are to be found in parts of the Po
valley and in the area round Capua. In Tunisia the striking feature is
the immense amount of land laid out. The mere existence of land divi-
ded into squares or rectangles is no proof of centuriation. To prove it
we need either ancient confirmation or boundary stones in situ or demon-
stration that the squares or rectangles correspond to likely ancient
measurements. As a result we may dismiss as improbable nearly all the
attempts to prove the existence of centuriation in Britain; only an area
north of Rochester can stand up to serious criticism, and even that is
very fragmentary.' In building up a more complete picture of centuri-
ation in the western half of the Roman Empire much invaluable work
has recently been done by aerial photography.2 Quite often details
which cannot otherwise be observed are clearly visible from the air.
Occasionally, it seems, land was divided up by parallel decimani only
and without kardines.?
Another method of division was by strdgae and scamna, i.e. strips
running north-south and east-west respectively. This method arose
from strip-farming. It is said to have been very ancient, but continued
to be used under the Empire, particularly for State-owned arable land
in the provinces. It was sometimes combined with centuriation.
The surveying instrument most commonly used by the Roman land
surveyors was the groma. The word groma is derived from yvcopia,
a by-form of yvcb'cov, probably by way of Etruscan, since there are known
examples of the Etruscan r being used to represent the Greek v. This
change and the change to first declension show that the word was in
popular use. All the metal parts of a groma were found at Pompeii in
1912, and the reconstruction of it made by M. Della Corte (P1. III) may
be seen in the Science Museum in London.3 Uppermost is a cross,
consisting of four wooden arms encased in iron sheeting; near the centre
they are reinforced by bronze angle-brackets. Near the end of each arm
is a hole, and through these holes hang four plumb-lines, suspending
I F. Haverfield, 'Centuriation in Roman Britain', Engl. Hist. Rev. xxxiii
(I918), 289-96; M. D. Nightingale and C. E. Stevens, 'A Roman Land Settle-
ment near Rochester', Archaeologia Cantiana, lxv (1952), 150-9.
2 J. Bradford, op. cit., passim.
3 M. Della Corte, 'Groma', Monumenti Antichi, xxviii (1922), 5-1oo; review
by F. W. Kelsey, Class. Philol. xxi (1926), 259-62 and fig. I. The groma in the
Science Museum was not, when the writer saw it, well situated or orientated in
its relation to the terminus encased with it, but the authorities promised to
rectify this. For surveying instruments see E. N. Shorey, 'Roman Surveying
Instruments', Univ. of Washington Publ. in Lang. and Lit. iv (1926-8), 215-42;
R. C. S. Walters, Trans. of the Newcomen Soc. ii (1921-2), 1-16.
bronze plummets; there are two shapes of plummet, placed at opposite
corners. The cross fits into a bronze pivot at one end of a curved
bracket. This bracket, which is thought to correspond to Nipsus'
umbilicus soli ('ground navel'), was made of wood, with iron supports at
top and bottom. It in turn fitted into the bronze collar of a wooden
staff, to the base of which was attached a fluted iron shoe. To operate
the groma the staff (ferramentum) was embedded in the ground about
one Roman foot' from the mark required or already existing, so that the
centre of the cross lay over the mark, yet so that the staff was not obstruc-
ting the sighting of the plumb-lines. Sights were then taken in all four
directions, and checks were made later from adjacent marks.
Given a still day, there is no reason why the groma should not accu-
rately survey right-angles, which more than anything else interested
practical Roman land surveyors. Hero of Alexandriaz points out that
a strong wind may upset readings taken with an &o-repiaoxoS. By this
term he may be referring to a proper groma, but he may be thinking of
the rudimentary type of surveyor's cross such as has been found in the
Fayy im.3 The instrument which Hero himself perfected was the dioptra
(P1. IV). This, like a theodolite, was adapted also to measure vertical
angles. The top section of the dioptra contained a water-level; the water
was in a glass(?) tube bent at each end. Although Vitruvius and the
elder Pliny mention this instrument, it was not in regular use by Roman
surveyors, probably because it weighed too much for field-work. The
same holds true of the chorobates, a levelling instrument about 20 feet
long which Vitruvius (viii. 5) advocates as the most efficient. This had
a long water-level and two plumb-lines; and it is this instrument, rather
than the groma, to which there is a parallel from ancient China. Hand-
levelling instruments such as the norma (carpenter's square) and the
libra or libella (a level with a plumb-line) seem to have been used in
combination with a levelling staff.4
In the same Pompeian workshop in which the groma was found quite
a collection of other objects was excavated. The most interesting (Fig. 2)
is an ivory box 41 in. long. On its lid are thirteen converging lines
intersected by two others; these, together with a detachable gnomon
According to Della Corte 232 cm., which is less than a Roman foot; but the
bracket may have been longer than he supposed.
2 Dioptra 33.
3 Sir Henry Lyons, 'Two Notes on Land-measurement in Egypt', Journ.
Egypt. Archaeol. xii (1926), 242-4; id., 'Ancient Surveying Instruments',
Geog. Journ. lxix (I927), 132-43.
4 J. Needham, Science and Civilization in Ancient China (Cambridge, 1954-9),
iii. 2x8.
which has not survived, constituted a portable sundial, the field equiva-
lent of a full-sized sundial such as was found at Aquileia in 1878. On the
two longer sides are various measures. Other objects found included
thirteen ferrules (which are all that remain of surveyors' poles), two
compasses, a foot-rule, a bone stilus, a bronze graphium, an iron scraper,
a pair of pincers, and the bronze parts of three boxes. The cords or ropes
used for long measurements and kept in these have perished. Items not
found there include the dioptra, the hodometer, the chorobates, the norma,
the libra or libella, and the lychnia, an instrument simpler than the
dioptra for measuring angles.
FIc. 2. Ivory box from Pompeii with portable sundial and

measures (adapted from M. Della Corte, Monumenti
Antichi, xxviii (1922), 87-88, fig. i9)
The activities of the surveyors included the making of maps or plans

and the compilation of land-registers. The usual word for their maps was
formae. No original surveyors' maps exist, and it is disputed to what
extent, if at all, the manuscript miniatures mentioned above, which
portray particular areas, are derived from these surveyors' maps. More
permanent maps or plans were often engraved on bronze. The famous
forma urbis Romae,' of about A.D. 200, the numerous fragments of which
are in the Capitoline Museum, differs from these not only in being
carved in marble but in showing in great detail a city, not a country,
area. The agrimensores, as their name implies, had little to do with town
surveying.
Our knowledge of ancient land-registers has been much increased in
recent years by the finding of many new fragments of the Orange
(Arausio) land-register.2 These too are on marble, and are being pieced
I Edited with reproductions by H. Jordan (Berlin, 1874), by R. Lanciani

(Milan, 1893), and by G. Carettoni and others (Rome, 196o).
2 I. A. Richmond and C. E. Stevens, 'The Land-register of Arausio',
J.R.S. xxxii (1942), 65-77; Canon J. Sautel and A. Piganiol, 'Les Inscriptions
together in the Orange museum; originally they were fastened to the
wall of a public building. An inscription found at Orange in 1951 tells
us that in A.D. 77 Vespasian wished to restore as public property lands
which had been granted by Augustus [a probable restoration] to veterans
of the legion II Gallica,' but which had been illegally appropriated for
some years; and that for this purpose he had ordered a tabula to be set
up with a record under each 'century' of the annual tax payable. The
surviving fragments belong to three different registers,2 of which the
first is the biggest and most complete. Which of the three refers to
Vespasian's survey is disputed. The registers are carved in squares or
rectangles. At the top of each square or rectangle is the enumeration of
the 'century'. Under this is the legal status of the land, e.g. ex tributario,
'lands withdrawn from tribute-paying territory [and assigned to
veterans]'; Tricastinis redditi (in)culti, 'lands restored (un)cultivated to
the Tricastini', the local Gallic tribe; reliqua coloniae, i.e. the difference
between the total area and that of lands so assigned or restored; subseciua,
i.e. small patches of land remaining over. Where applicable the amount
of tax is entered. Waterways going through the 'centuries' are depicted
by curved or wavy lines. The area covered must have measured about
28 miles by I5, and lay on the left bank of the Rhone north of Orange.
Although much of the writings of the agrimensores has a practical or
legal background, the mathematical theory underlying surveying is not
ignored. Hyginus Gromaticus, for example, has a section on physical
theory. Nipsus has a short account of the way to find the breadth of
a river. An exercise described by Hero shows how to tunnel a mountain
from both sides simultaneously. This particular example may have been
regarded as outside the scope of the land surveyor. But it is likely that
its method-roughly speaking, going round three sides of a square-was
adopted in cases where, for example, centuriation on the same alignment
was required in two areas between which lay water or mountains. This
applies at Salona (Dalmatia), where the cardines are continued from one
side of Kastelan bay to the other.3
The standard of accuracy in measurement varies. The forma urbis
Romae is based on a scale of 1:300, but has rather wide variations. The
cadastrales d'Orange', Gallia, xiii (1955), 5-39; Simone Ribaille-Rogier, 'The

Land-register of a Roman Town', Archaeology, xi (1958), 172-4; A. Piganiol,
forthcoming work on the Orange inscriptions.
' This legion is otherwise unknown. For the restoring of land cf. Hyginus
in Corp. Agrim. Rom. 85. 21 Thulin: 'lapides uero inscripti nomine diui Vespasiani
sub clausula tali, OCCVPATI A PRIVATIS FINES: P.R. RESTITVIT.'
2 There are also fragments relating to islands on the Rhone.
3 J. Bradford, op. cit. i88 and n. 2.
18o THE ROMAN SURVEYORS
most accurate 'centuries' measure either 705 or 71o metres, i.e. 2,400oo
Roman feet of 29'37 or 29'57 cm., with a variation of only I metre
either way. On the other hand, extremes measuring from 703 to 720
metres have been found. An extraordinarily straight line, a frontier
drawn in Domitian's principate, has been measured in Germany: for
a section 29 km. long, the mean error of any point on the boundary is
only about 2 metres.'
Despite the excellent work done on the agrimensores in the last 12o
years much obscurity remains. The text, as has been mentioned, is
frequently incomplete, poorly preserved, and full of interpolations. The
various writers give accounts which in some cases overlap, in others
cannot be reconciled. The meaning of many technical terms is disputed.
Some of the diagrams are most misleading, some convey little or no
information. Yet there is a certain fascination in dipping into the
Corpus and in finding sense in the text and diagrams by confronting
them with each other and with modern scholarship.
I Abstract of a German article in Nature, lxxxviii (1911-12), 158.
NOTES ON THE PLATES
Pl. I. Miniature in the Codex Arcerianus, Wolfenbiittel (sixth or seventh century),

showing common pastures between centuriated land. From Corpus Agrimensorum
Romanorum, ed. C. Thulin, Fig. 18, reproduced by kind permission of the Herzog
August Bibliothek, Wolfenbiittel.
Pl. II (a) Tombstone of L. Aebutius Faustus at Ivrea. From fahrbuch des k.d. archdo-
logischen Instituts, xvi (19go), P1. II. Some of the emblems are those of a seuir.
(b) One of four illustrations arbitrarily prefixed to Pal. Lat. 1564. The figures are in
Byzantine style, and have been compared with those in a sixth-century manuscript
of Dioscorides; the writing was added at the Renaissance. This illustration shows
a land commission of nine, wearing togas, seated in a circle, and either conversing
or reading rolls or codices.
P1. ITI. M. della Corte's reconstruction of the groma found at Pompeii. From Classical
Philology, xxi (1926), facing p. 261. The centre of the groma is placed over a
terminus. The broken shaft indicates that the height is uncertain.
PI. Iv. Hero's dioptra; miniature in Paris. Suppl. Gr. 607 (eleventh or twelfth century),
fol. 64r; reproduced by kind permission of the Bibliothbque Nationale. The text
will be found in Hero, vol. iii, ed. H. Sch6ne (Leipzig, 1903), 204; and Sch6ne's
reconstruction is shown on p. 193 of the same volume. Part of the sketch in the
MS. is cut off by the edge of the page. The dioptra was in fact symmetrical and
projected upwards at both ends.
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The Roman Surveyors

Phil. xiv. Io.

Liternum, muro ductum, colonia ab Augusto deducta. iter populo debetur

Perhaps more accurately libri regionum; edited by E. Pais, Storia della

The surveyors formed themselves into a collegium, and it became an

SC.I.L. x. 8038. 2 Ep. x. I7b. 2, I8. 3.

Modern surveyors work on a system of triangles; the ancients did not,

FIG. I. Enumeration of limites. The

FIc. 2. Ivory box from Pompeii with portable sundial and

The activities of the surveyors included the making of maps or plans

I Edited with reproductions by H. Jordan (Berlin, 1874), by R. Lanciani

cadastrales d'Orange', Gallia, xiii (1955), 5-39; Simone Ribaille-Rogier, 'The

NOTES ON THE PLATES

Pl. I. Miniature in the Codex Arcerianus, Wolfenbiittel (sixth or seventh century),

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