Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/196

Rh 182 FRONTINUS. 1.537; by Com. de Trino, 8vo. Venet. 1541 ; by Alov. de Tortis, 8vo. Venet. 1543; by Ant. Gan- dino, 4to. Venet. 1574: into Spanish by Didac. Guillen, de Avila, 4to. Salamanca, 1516; a list which forcibly indicates the interest excited by such topics in the sixteenth century. The Editio Princeps of the D& Aquaedudibm^ in folio, is without date, but is known to have been printed at Rome, by Herolt, about 1490. The best edition is that of Polenus, 4to. Patav. 1722, to which we may add the translation by Ron dele t, 4to. Paris, 1820. The collected works were edited with the notes of the earlier commentators, by Keuchen, 8vo. Amst. 1661. The Strategematica will be found in the various collections of the " Veteres de Re Militari Scripto- res," of which the most complete is that published by Scriverius, 4to. Lug. Bat. 1607. The De Aquaeductibus is included in the " The- saurus Antiquitatum Romanarum " of Graevius, where it is accompanied by the voluminous disser- tations of Fabretti. (Tac. Hist. iv. 38, Agric. 17 ; Plin. Epist iv. 8 ; X. 8 ; Mart, Epigr. x. 4, 8, but we cannot be cer- tain that he alludes to our Frontinus ; Aelian, Tact. ] ; Veget. ii. 3.) [W. R.] In the collection of the Afjrimensores or Rei Agra- riae Auciores are preserved some treatises usually ascribed to Sex. Julius Frontinus. The collection con- sists of fragments connected with the art of measur- ing land and ascertaining boundaries. It was put together without skill, pages of ditferent works being mixed up together, and the writings of one author being sometimes attributed to another. For an ac- count of the collection we must refer to Niebuhr(//2s^ of Rome, voLii. p. 634 — 644), and to Blume (Rhei- nischcs Museum fur JurisprudeMZ, vol, vii, p. 1 73 — 248). 1. In the edition of this collection by Goesius (Amst. 1674) there is a fragment (p. 28 — 37) attributed to Frontinus, which gives an account of measures of length and geometric forms. In Goesius it is erroneously headed, De Agro- rtim Quuiitate — a title which properly belongs to the following fragment. The writer states that, after having been diverted from his studies, by entering on a military life, his attention was again turned to the measurement of distances (as the height of mountains and the breadth of rivers), from the connection of the subject with his profession. Mention is made in this fragment of the Dacian victory, by Avhich is pro- bably meant the conquest of Dacia under Tnijan, in A. D, 1 04. This fragment is wrongly attributed to Frontinus. Although some of the circumstances of the author's history seem to fit H ginus (com- pare Hygin. De Limit. Consiit. p. 209, ed. Goes. ), it is more likely that the author was Balbus, who wrote a treatise, De Asse, which is inserted in the collections of Antejustinian Law. In the principal manuscript (codex Arcerianus) oi the Agiiincnsores, the fragment is entitled Bulbi Liher ad Cetsum. 2. In p. 38 — 39, Goes, is an interesting frag- ment of Frontinus De Agrorum Qualitate, in which are explained the distinctions between ager aasig- natus, ager meiisura comprehensus, and ager arcifinius. These are the three principal distinc- tions as to qmdity, but there is also an explanation of other terms, as ager suhaedvus, ager eatraclusus (Niebuhr, Hist, of Rovie, vol. ii, app. i.). Profes- Bor C. Giraud, in his Rei Agrariae Scriptorum no- FRONTINUS. hiUores Reliquiae., Paris, 1843, p. 7, n. 2, doubts whether the fragment De Agrorum Qualitate is properly attributed to Frontinus, and seems in- clined to refer it to Balbus. In support of this doubt he cites the jP/-o/^e^o7we«a of Polenus, p. 16, prefixed to the edition by Polenus of Frontinus, De Aquaedud. 4to. Patav. 1722. It should be ob- served that the fragment to which these doubts apply is not (as Giraud seems to suppose) the frag- ment De Agrorum Qualitate (p. 38, Goes,, p. 12, Giraud), but the fragment which we have already treated of in the preceding paragraph, addressed to Celsus, and wrongly headed in Goesius, p. 28. 3. Next follows (p. 39) the fragment headed De Cont rover siis, which consists of short and muti- lated extracts from the beginnings of chapters in the work of Frontinus on the same subject. The Controrersiae Agrorum., which were fifteen in num- ber, were disputes connected with land, most of which were decided not jure ordinario, but by agii- niensores, who gave judgment according to the rules of their art. In other cases, or, perhaps, in earlier times three arbitri, appointed under a law of the Twelve Tables, or a single arbiter, ap- pointed under the Lex Mamiha (Cic. deLeg. i. 21), pronounced a decision, after having received a re- port from agrimensores. Some account of these controversiae may be found in Walter, Geach. des RiJm. Rechts. p. 784 — 8, ed. 1 840. In natural ar- rangement, the treatise De Controversiis follows the treatise De Qualitate, because upon the quality of the land depend the rules for deciding disputes. The fragments De Controversiis are followed by commentaries (p. 44 — 89, Goes.) bearing the names of Aggenus Urbicus and Simplicius. The former seems to have been a Christian, who lived about the middle of the fifth century, and the so-called Liher Simplici owes its name to the absurd mistake of some hasty reader, who met with the following remark at the end of the first part of the comment- ary of Aggenus: — "Satis, ut puto, dilucide genera controversiarum exposui : nam et simplicius enar- rare conditiones earum existimavi, quo facilius ad intellectum pertinerent." — (p. 62, 63, Goes,) Tlie Liber Simplici, then, as some of the manuscripts import, is probably a work of Aggenus, and, from some expressions which it contains, seems to have been delivered orally as a lecture. A portion of it, never before published, was given to the world by Blume, in Rhein. Museum fur Jurisp. vol. v, p. 369 — 73. These commentaries upon Frontinus are exceedingly confused and ill- written, the author having been a mere compiler, without any practical knowledge of the subject he was writing upon. Their chief value consists in the original passages of Frontinus and Hyginus which they preserve, for Hyginus, like Frontinus, wrote a -treatise De Controversiis (which was first published by Blume, in Rhein. Museum, fur Jwisp. vol. vii. 138 — 172), and Aggenus, in making up his commentary on Frontinus, plagiarises the text of Hyginus. It is exceedingly difficult to determine precisely all the passages which belong textually to Frontinus in the commentary of Aggenus. The chief clue is the superiority of sense and diction in the original writer ; and there can be no doubt that the epithet praestantissimus applied to such a monster as Do- mitian (p. 68, Goes.), must have proceeded from a contemporary of the emperor. The Ijiher Simplici contains remarks on hQ status and transcendentiaol Controversiae^ which probably belong to Frontinua;