The Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum (Corpus of Roman Land Surveyors) is a Roman book on

land surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the land, terrestrial Plane (mathematics), two-dimensional or Three-dimensional space#In Euclidean geometry, three-dimensional positions of Point (geom ...

which collects works by Siculus Flaccus, Frontinus, Agennius Urbicus, Hyginus Gromaticus and other writers, known as the ''

Gromatici ''Gromatici'' (from Latin '' groma'' or ''gruma'', a surveyor's pole) or ''agrimensores'' was the name for land surveyors amongst the ancient Romans. The "gromatic writers" were technical writers who codified their techniques of surveying, m ...

'' or ''Agrimensores'' ("land surveyors"). The work is preserved in various manuscripts, of which the oldest is the 6th or 7th-century Codex Arcerianus.

Contents and authors

The ''Corpus'' consists of a number of texts with different contents, composed at different dates. The Codex Arcerianus alone contains 33 separate works, most of which are the writings of the Agrimensores. These writings were clearly written as textbooks or manuals for working land surveyors. The most important authors in the collection are Frontinus (1st century AD), Agennius Urbicus (5th or 6th century), Hyginus Gromaticus, Siculus Flaccus (2nd century), and Marcus Junius Nipsus (2nd century). Another important component of the work are the ''Libri Coloniarum'' ("Books of

Colonies A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their '' metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often or ...

"), lists of surveyed areas of countryside and cities in Italy between

Etruria Etruria ( ) was a region of Central Italy delimited by the rivers Arno and Tiber, an area that covered what is now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and north-western Umbria. It was inhabited by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization that f ...

and

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

, mostly in southern Italy. Possibly, these were areas that were subject to land surveys, although they had already been occupied under the ''arcifinalis'' law (i.e. land survey and distribution at point of conquest). The process is much debated among historians. A third sub-set of works in the corpus are writings which deal with the mathematical and geometric aspects of land surveying. The most important of these are the ''Expositio et ratio omnium formarum'' (Explanation and Calculation of All Shapes) by Balbus and a mathematical work by Epaphrodites and Vitruvius Rufus Various other texts are also bundled into the ''Corpus'', including: *Extracts from Euclid's ''Elements'' *Extracts from

Columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (, Arabic: ) was a prominent Roman writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture and ancient Roman cuisin ...

's ''De re rustica'' *The ''Lex Mamila Roscia Peducaea Alliena Fabia'', part of a

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law also den ...

on setting and protecting land boundaries. In particular, the law imposes a fine of 5,000 sesterces for moving a boundary stone. The date of the law is debated, but it is likely that the law was proposed and passed by Gaius Mamilius Limetanus when he was tribune of the people in 109 BC.

Transmission and legacy

The ''Corpus'' is transmitted in several manuscripts. The oldest of these is the sixth- or seventh-century

uncial Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

known as the Codex Arcerianus or Codex Guelfferbytanus 36.23 Augusteus 2, now held in the Herzog August Bibliothek in

Wolfenbüttel Wolfenbüttel (; ) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District Wolfenbüttel (; ) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel (district), Wolfenbüttel Distri ...

. This is one of the few surviving non-literary and non-religious

illuminated manuscripts An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...

from

late antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

. Like all later manuscripts, this text contains gaps and corrupt sections; the beginning and ending of the manuscript are both missing. The various scripts and formats of the manuscript show that the work is a compilation. Different manuscripts have very different contents. For example, Siculus Flaccus' text is absent from the Codex Arcerianus and manuscripts derived from it, except for a short extract appearing within another text. The ''Corpus'', especially its mathematical portions, were also included in the encyclopaedic works of

Late Antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

. Its influence may extend to the . The collection was still widely read in the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...

Printing and translation

Individual texts from the ''Corpus'' began to appear in printed editions from 1491. In 1554, Adrianus Turnebus published a printed edition of the majority of the ''Corpus'', including the important Agrimensores, under the title ''De Agrorum Conditionibus et Constitutionibus Limitum'' (On the Creation of Fields and Delimitation of their Borders). Petrus Scriverius used the Codex Arcerianus as the basis of his edition in 1607. The German ancient historian, Karl Lachmann edited significant portions of the collection, especially the writings of the Agrimensores Frontinues, Agennius Urbicus, Hyginus Gromaticus and Siculus Flaccus, as well as the ''Libri Coloniarum'' in 1848. The 1913 edition of Carl Olof Thulin contains only a few works. The 2000 edition of Brian Campbell is much broader and also contains an English translation.

References

Editions

* * ''Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum'' (Cod. Guelf. 36.23 Aug. 2°, Codex Arcerianus): ein Agrimensorencodex, illustriertes Handbuch für den römischen Feldvermesser, 6. Jahrhundert, in der Herzog August Bibliothek. Fotomechnische Reproduktion mit einer Einleitung von Hans Butzmann, Leiden 1970, . * Carl Olof Thulin, ed., ''Corpus agrimensorum Romanorum'' (= ''Opuscula agrimensorum veterum.'' I). Leipzig 1913 (Nachdruck Stuttgart 1971), . *

Contents and authors

Transmission and legacy

Printing and translation

References

Editions

Further reading