A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

182 FRONTINUS. FRONTINUS.
1537; by Com. de Trino, 8vo. Venet. 1541; by biliores TReliquiae, Paris, 1843, p. 7, n. 2, doubts
Alov. de Tortis, 8vo. Venet. 1543; by Ant. Gan- whether the fragment De Agrorum Qualitate is
dino, 4to. Venet. 1574: into Spanish by Didac. properly attributed to Frontinus, and seems inGuillen. de Avila, 4to. Salamanca, 1516; a list clined to refer it to Balbus. In support of this
which forcibly indicates the interest excited by doubt he cites the PProlegomena of Polenus, p. 16,
such topics in the sixteenth century. prefixed to the edition by Polenus of Frontinus,
The Editio Princeps of the De Aquaeductibus, in De Aquaeduct. 4to. Patav. 1722. It should be obfolio, is without date, but is known to have been served that the fragment to which these doubts
printed at Rome, by Herolt, about 1490. The apply is not (as Giraud seems to suppose) the fragbest edition is that of Polenus, 4to. Patav. 1722, ment De Agrorum Qualitate (p. 38, Goes., p. 12,
to which we may add the translation by Rondelet, Giraud), but the fragment which we have already
4to. Paris, 1820. treated of in the preceding paragraph, addressed to
The collected works were edited with the notes Celsus, and wrongly headed in Goesius, p. 28.
of the earlier commentators, by Keuchen, 8vo. 3. Next follows (p. 39) the fragment headed
Amst. 1661. De Controversiis, which consists of short and mutiThe Strategematica will be found in the various lated extracts from the beginnings of chapters in:collections of the," Veteres de Re Militari Scripto- the work of Frontinus on the same subject. The
res," of which the most complete is that published Controversiae Agrorum, which were fifteen in numby Scriverius, 4to. Lug. Bat. 1607. ber, were disputes connected with land, most of
The De Aquaeductibus is included in the " The- which were decided not jure ordinario, but by agrisaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum" of Graevius, mensores, who gave judgment according to the rules
where it is accompanied by the voluminous disser- of their art. In other cases, or, perhaps, in
tations of Fabretti. earlier times three arbitri, appointed under a law
(Tac. Hist. iv. 38, Agric. 17; Plin. Eppist. iv. 8; of the Twelve Tables, or a single arbiter, apx. 8; Mart. Epigr. x. 4, 8, but we cannot be cer- pointed under the Lex Mamilia (Cic. de Leg. i. 21),
tain that he alludes to our Frontinus; Aelian, pronounced a decision, after having received a reTact. ]; Veget. ii. 3.) [W. R.] port from agrimensores. Some account of these
In the collection of the Agrimensores or Rei Agra- controversiae may be found in Walter, Gescit. des
riae A4uctores are preserved some treatises usually Ram. Rechts. p. 784-8, ed. 1840. In natural arascribed to Sex. Julius Frontinus. The collection con- rangement, the treatise De Controversiis follows the
sists of fragments connected with the art of measur- treatise De Qualitate, because upon the quality of
ing land and ascertaining boundaries. It was put the land depend the rules for deciding disputes.
together without skill, pages of different works being The fragments De Controversiis are followed bv
mixed up together, and the writings of one author commentaries (p. 44-89, Goes.) bearing the names
being sometimes attributed to another. For an ac- of Aggenus Urbicus and Simplicius. The former
count of the collectionwe mustrefer to Niebuhr(Hist. seems to -have been a Christian, who lived about
ofRome, vol.ii. p. 634-644), and to Blume (Rhei- the middle of the fifth century, and the so-called
niscies Museum fiir Jurisprudenz, vol. vii. p. 1.73 Liber Simplici owes its name to the absurd mistake
-248). 1. In the edition of this collection by of some hasty reader, who met with the following
Goesius (Amst. 1674) there is a fragment (p. 28 remark at the end of the first part of the comment-37) attributed to Frontinus, which gives an ary of Aggenus:- -" Satis, ut puto, dilucide genera
account of measures of length and geometric forms. controversiarum exposui: nam et simplicius enarIn Goesius it is erroneously headed, De Agro- rare conditiones earum existimavi, quo facilius ad
rum Qualitate-a title which properly belongs intellectum pertinerent." —(p. 62, 63, Goes.) The
to the following fragment. The writer states Liber Simplici, then, as some of the manuscripts
that, after having been diverted from his studies, import, is probably a work of Aggenus, and, from
by entering on a military life, his attention some expressions which it contains, seems to have
was again turned to the measurement of distances been delivered orally as a lecture. A portion of
(as the height of mountains and the breadth it, never before published, was given to the world
of rivers), from the connection of the subject by Blume, in Rhein. Museum fUr Jurisp. vol. v. p.
with his profession. Mention is made in this 369-73. These commentaries upon Frontinus
fragment of the Dacian victory, by which is pro- are exceedingly confused and ill-written, the authoi,bably meant the conquest of Dacia under Trajan, having been a mere compiler, without any practical
in A. D. 104. This fragment is wrongly attributed knowledge of the subject he was writing upon.
to Frontinus. Although some of the circumstances Their chief value consists in the original passages
of the author's history seem to fit Hyginus (con- of Frontinus and Hyginus which they preserve.
pare Hygin. De Limit. Constit. p. 209, ed. Goes.), for Hyginus, like Frontinus, wrote a treatise De
it is more likely that the author was Balbus, who Controversiis (which was first published by Blume:
wrote a treatise, De Asse, which is inserted in the in Rkein. Museum.fir Jurisp. vol. viL 138-172)
collections of Antejustinian Law. In the principal and Aggenus, in making up his commentary or
manuscript (codexArcerianus) of theAgrimensores, Frontinus, plagiarises the text of Hyginus. It i.
the fragment is entitled Balbi Liber ad Celszum. exceedingly difficult to determine precisely all the
2. In p. 38-39, Goes. is an interesting frag- passages which belong textually to Frontinus ii
ment of Frontinus De Agrorum Qualitate, in which the commentary of Aggenus. The chief clue i;
are explained the distinctions between ager assig- the superiority of sense and diction in the origina
natus, aager mensura comprehensus, and ager writer; and there can be no doubt that the epithe
ariJfinius. These are the three principal distinc- praestantissimus applied to such a monster as Do
tions as to quality, but there is also an explanation mitian (p. 68, Goes.), must have proceeded from;
of other terms, as ager subsecivus, ager extraclusus contemporary of the emperor. The Liber Simplis
(Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, vol. ii. app. i.). Profes- contains remarks on the status and transeendentia c
sor C. Giraud, in his Rei Ag2rariae Seriptorum no- Controversiae, which probably belong to Frontinue