Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/378

 308 Jovrnal of Philology. German scholar has maintained the paradox, that the whole work is a production of the tenth century ; a bold undertaking, seeing we have manuscripts which belong to the eighth or ninth century: not to mention a host of other arguments. I shall not repeat the process by which the able author of the article " Vitruvius," in the Dictionary of Biogr., has set matters right on this head : shewing that he served as military engineer under Julius Caesar, and that Augustus is the emperor to whom his book the fruit of his old age is dedicated. In corroboration of those proofs, I would add that, when Vitruvius wrote, Mazaca was not yet called Caesarea, and Zama had not yet been rased to the ground (vm. 3. 4) : events, both of them, which preceded the reign of Tiberius. The question now forces itself upon us, what is the general value of his work, what the capacity of the author ? Had he the conscientiousness and the ability necessary for his under- taking ? To this question I shall endeavour to give an answer. I do not think Bernhardy is justified in speaking of Vitruvius as full of pretensions to omniscience, " voll der Eitelkeit durch Vielwisserei zu gliinzen." Not only does the whole character of his work impress one with a favourable opinion of the man, take for example, the pleasing tribute to his parents for having implanted in his mind a taste for letters rather than a thirst for wealth, but the particular care he shews in the seventh Book to acknowledge the sources to which he was indebted, indicates, in my apprehension at least, a desire the very opposite to that which Bernhardy attributes to him. Surely a man who wished to parade his knowledge would not have been at such pains to mention that it was all secondhand. As it is upon the value of these sources that the value of Vitruvius mainly depends, I shall select for our more special consideration passages of which the difficulties, I conceive, are aggravated by corruption of the text. They are both taken from the seventh book. "Postea *Silenus de symmetriis Doricorum edidit volumen: de cede Junonis, quae est Sami Dorica, Theodorus : de Ionica Ephesi, quae est Dianae, Chersiphron ct Metagenes; de fano Minervae, quod est Prienae Ionicum, Phileos: item de aede Mincrvae Dorica, quae est Athenis in arce, Tetinus et * Carpion : Theodorus Phocaeus de tholo qui est Delphis : Philo de aedium sacrarum symmetriis et de armamentario, quod fuerat Piraei in