Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/26

Rh Wachsmuth and Wölfflin. From internal evidence Gunndermann places the composition of the first three books between 84 and 96, basing this inference upon references to Domitian, who is repeatedly called Germanicus, a title not given to him until after his expedition against the Germans in 83, and who is nowhere called divus, as is Vespasian in the Strategemata, and Nerva in the De Aquis, so that the composition of the work evidently fell within the lifetime of Domitian. The dating of the fourth book is a matter of conjecture. Wachsmuth assigned it to the fourth or fifth century, believing it the work of a ludi magister, who compiled it when seeking examples suitable for declamationes or controversiae. Wölfflin saw no reason to dissent from this conclusion. Gundermann, while admitting that there is no argument to prove that it was not written then,—except that if this view is correct, the pseudo-Frontinus must have imitated the purer speech of Frontinus summo studio,—thinks that its composition belongs rather to the beginning of the second century, and that its author was a student of rhetoric who lived not long after Frontinus, a dull man who did not weigh the value of his sources in his compilation. Gundermann cites iii. 14 to support his theory, but Wachsmuth would transpose this example to the second book as being applicable to Frontinus himself. Schanz enters into the controversy and xx