Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/27

Rh says that the language uf the fourth book conclusively refutes Wachsmuth's view; he submits instead the theory that the author of this book was a contemporary of Frontinus, the officer to whom the Lingones submitted in 70, who drew his examples from Frontinus and other sources, and that a third person joined the two works, wrote a preface for the fourth book, and added to the preface of the first book. This hypothesis, he thinks, removes the troublesome problem of duplicates, which could easily creep in with a third reader somewhat superficially handling new material.

The points of dissimilarity between the first three books and the fourth are treated in detail by Wachsmuth, and even more exhaustively by Wölfflin. The two works differ first of all in the plan followed by their respective authors. Frontinus in his preface outlines the arrangement which he proposes to follow in presenting examples: in the first book he will give illustrations of stratagems employed before the battle begins; in the second, those that refer to the battle itself and that tend to effect the complete subjugation of the enemy; the third will contain stratagems connected with sieges and the raising of sieges. To this arrangement the titles of the chapters in the first three books conform, whereas the headings of the chapters in the fourth book give no suggestion of historical stratagems, but belong rather, as Wachsmuth says, to a militarisches Moralbüchlein. Stewechius, for this reason, conjectured that this fourth book might be Frontinus's theoretical work, but its preface controverts this idea. Rh